House Republicans Slug It Out Over Tax Cuts, Price Tag in Trump’s ‘One Big Beautiful Bill’

House Republicans are preparing to unveil the initial text of their tax bill ahead of the committee debate and amendment process, which will begin on Tuesday. There are several issues left unresolved as the Ways and Means Committee begins its markup, with deficit hawks raising alarms about a lack of meaningful spending cuts and blue state legislators complaining that their constituents aren’t getting a good enough deal. The tax portion of President Trump’s “one big beautiful bill” that his allies in Congress want to shepherd through is by far the most complex. With only a three-seat majority in the House, Speaker Johnson has no room for error. For months, conservatives in the House have been threatening to kill the bill if federal spending is not reduced by a significant amount. In April, dozens of lawmakers forced Mr. Johnson to delay a vote on the Republican budget framework because they felt they did not have the necessary assurances from Senator Thune that the upper chamber would honor the agreement to cut at least $2 trillion from the budget. Last week, more than 30 House Republicans signed on to a letter to Mr. Johnson, saying that they would not vote for any legislation that adds even one penny to the deficit. It isn’t just the deficit and debt hawks that Mr. Johnson has to worry about. Moderate lawmakers from blue states say that they can’t vote for any tax bill unless they get increased tax breaks for their constituents.The State and Local Tax deduction has become a major point of contention for the GOP as the tax negotiations have progressed. In 2017, as part of the first Trump tax cuts, the SALT deduction was capped at $10,000 for both individuals and couples, which overwhelmingly affected families in high-tax states like New York, New Jersey, Illinois, and California. The Republican lawmakers in those states have been twisting the speaker’s arm at this point of maximum leverage, given that the GOP has such a narrow majority in the House. On Friday, Ways and Means Committee leadership floated raising the SALT deduction cap to $30,000 from the current $10,000 limit. The New York lawmakers who have been leading the charge for a hike in the cap — Congresswoman Elise Stefanik, Congressman Mike Lawler, Congressman Nick LaLota, and Congressman Andrew Garbarino — called the $30,000 offer “insulting.”“With no notice or agreement, the Speaker and the House Ways and Means Committee unilaterally proposed a flat $30,000 SALT cap — an amount they already knew would fall short of earning our support,” the Empire State lawmakers said. “It’s not just insulting — it risks derailing President Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill.”Another unresolved issue is how to include Mr. Trump’s campaign promises to eliminate taxes on tips, Social Security, and overtime pay. While estimates vary and Mr. Trump has yet to detail if there will be any income limits on such tax eliminations, many studies have found the proposal could cost as much as $2 trillion. Mr. Trump had looked at ways to increase revenues — like creating a new tax bracket for those making more than $2.5 million annually — though he has reportedly changed his mind about such a tax hike. The price tag for the tax reform bill could be one of the largest in recent memory. According to the Joint Committee on Taxation — a panel of six Republican and four Democratic lawmakers — the tax bill now being considered by House Republicans would reduce federal revenues by just less than $5 trillion over the course of the next 10 years. The non-partisan Tax Foundation estimated in 2024 that Mr. Trump’s tax cut proposals, coupled with his promise for increased tariffs, would drive down real revenue by closer to $4.2 trillion. Those estimates, however, don’t even account for the SALT cap increase, which could result in about $100 billion more in revenue losses, depending on how high the New York Republicans can get the tax authors to expand the deduction. The Tax Policy Center calculates that an increase in the SALT cap to $20,000 only for married couples — a proposal that blue state Republicans have already rejected out of hand — would add as much as $225 billion to the debt between now and 2035, if the other provisions of Mr. Trump’s 2017 tax cuts are made permanent. The vast majority of that SALT cap increase would go to the wealthiest Americans, most of whom live in states that Vice President Harris won last year. The Tax Policy Center says that the bottom 95 percent of households would see no tax cut at all, while the top 5 percent of earners — those who make more than $430,000 annually — would see a tax break of anywhere from $1,400 to $2,300 annually.

House Republicans Slug It Out Over Tax Cuts, Price Tag in Trump’s ‘One Big Beautiful Bill’

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