Hill Republicans have ambitious legislative plans for the first months of total GOP control of government under President-elect Trump, with a sweeping tax package at the top of the to-do list.
While Republicans are not yet officially projected to win enough seats to secure the House, it looks likely that they will keep a slim majority.
Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has been working with Senate Republican leaders and Trump for months on items they can quickly push through Congress in the first 100 days under Trump. Both Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) and Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), two of the contenders to replace Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.), have been involved in the discussions.
The goal is to avoid the disorganization and clashes that emerged despite a GOP trifecta when Trump took office in 2017 and thwarted his legislative agenda. Hard-line conservatives in the House Freedom Caucus, for instance, helped derail Trump’s early attempt to repeal the Affordable Care Act.
This time, Republicans believe they are more prepared to execute. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) said in a recent letter to colleagues that while Trump can make many changes through executive action, Republicans hope to “lock in” the policies.
The GOP leaders will aim to pass much of their agenda through the Senate’s budget reconciliation process, a special budgetary rule that can fast-track legislation and bypass the threat of a Democratic filibuster.
Johnson and other GOP leaders have talked in speeches and on the campaign trail about what they hope to tackle in the first-100-days agenda. Some of the plans are sure to prompt intraparty policy clashes.
Here are some of Republicans’ top legislative priorities under a new Trump administration.
Extend Trump tax cuts
Key parts of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA), Trump’s signature legislative achievement from his first term, are set to expire at the end of 2025. Republicans hope to not only make the cuts permanent, but use the legislation to make other changes.
In a speech to the America First Policy Institute on September, Johnson said Republicans planned to restore immediate expensing for research and development costs; ensure a strong Foreign Derived Intangible Income incentive to “encourage U.S. ownership of intellectual property”; and restore the 100 percent expensing provision that began to phase out after 2022.
Johnson also voiced support for a “strong Child Tax Credit,” saying that “unlike the Democrats’ proposal, we will ensure that our tax policy respects the dignity of work, and it doesn’t pay people for staying out of the workforce” — a reference to having work requirements for recipients.
Some of the tax policy details, however, will be divisive in the House GOP.
Republicans from high-tax states have long wanted to repeal the $10,000 state and local tax (SALT) deduction cap that Trump signed into law with the TCJA, and that other Republicans have championed.
And Trump in September signaled openness to a reversal on the SALT deduction cap, saying he would “get SALT back, lower your taxes, and so much more.”
Fund border security measures and wall
Scalise previewed Republicans’ plans for addressing the border in a letter to House GOP colleagues seeking support to remain House majority leader.
“There is much President Trump can do through executive action to provide immediate relief. He can secure the border by ending catch and release, reinstating Remain in Mexico and stopping the current flagrant abuses of the asylum and parole programs,” Scalise said.
But congressional Republicans will have a major role in funding Trump’s programs.
“We will surge resources to the southern border to build the Trump Border Wall, acquire new detection technologies, bolster our Border Patrol, and stop the flow of illegal immigration,” Scalise said.
Johnson also touched on addressing immigration through the tax code in his speech to the America First Policy Institute, but did not get into details.
“In addition to securing the border, we can use the tax code to deter illegal immigration and eliminate existing loopholes that reward illegal immigration,” Johnson said.
Repeal parts of Inflation Reduction Act
GOP leaders have forecast their plans to repeal parts of President Biden’s signature Inflation Reduction Act, particularly funds for climate programs.
In the letter to colleagues, Scalise said that Republicans plan to repeal “harmful slush funds and policies Democrats jammed through in their so-called ‘Inflation Reduction Act.’”
And Johnson said in his America First Policy Institute speech that Republicans would “roll back the Green New Deal regulations and put America back in a place of American energy dominance.”
But Republicans are not aiming to completely repeal the law. Johnson told CNBC in September that he would take a “scalpel and not a sledgehammer” to Biden’s clean energy and economic package, saying there are “a few provisions in there that have helped overall.”
Some Republicans represent districts that directly benefit from the green energy tax credits in the Inflation Reduction Act. And in August, a group of 18 House Republicans sent a letter to Johnson asking him to keep those tax credits if Republicans won control of government.
One $27 billion program eyed by Republicans has already distributed some funds to localities and nonprofits.
Expand school choice and take on universities
House Republicans are signaling that they will pass measures supportive of school choice measures — the practice of allowing students and families to use public funds for private or alternative school programs.
“We can reform our education system by maximizing school choice for parents and holding woke university administrators accountable,” Johnson said in his America First Policy Institute speech.
One bill that aimed to expand school choice, the Educational Choice for Children Act, advanced out of the House Ways and Means Committee earlier this year. That legislation, according to the office of bill sponsor Rep. Adrian Smith (R-Neb.), would “provide a charitable donation incentive for individuals and businesses to fund scholarship awards for students which would cover expenses related to K-12 public and private education.”
Scalise also referenced school choice in his letter, saying that Republicans will pass measures “prioritizing parents and choice, not Union Bosses, in their children’s education.”
Republicans are also not done with their crusade against university administrators, and are aiming to build on the momentum of House GOP conference Chair Elise Stefanik’s (N.Y.) fierce questioning of the presidents of Harvard, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Pennsylvania about their policies on antisemitism last year.
House Republicans in September passed the End Woke Higher Education Act, which included a requirement that colleges adopt free speech policies as a condition of receiving Title IV funds, among other measures.
Johnson’s office said House Republicans plan to “hold woke and elite universities accountable for out-of-control costs,” and Scalise said Republicans will “[hold] colleges and universities accountable for the wave of virulent antisemitism some have tolerated.”
