Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) and other top Republican senators vowed to only vote for a permanent, rather than temporary, extension of the 2017 Trump tax cuts, throwing a wrench into House Republicans’ efforts to advance their version of a bill containing Trump’s legislative agenda.
Nine Republican senators, including Senate Finance Committee Chair Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), signed the letter to President Trump, which was copied to Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and Ways and Means Committee Chair Jason Smith (R-Mo.).
“We will not support a tax package that only provides temporary relief from tax hikes,” the Senators wrote, adding that “a temporary extension of these pro-growth and pro-family policies is a missed opportunity.”
The House and Senate, which both have Republican majorities, are at odds over how to pass Trump’s legislative priorities, including an extension of the 2017 tax cuts, deregulation of fossil fuel production, and a program of enhanced border security. The House is trying to get it all done in a single bill, while Republicans in the Senate prefer to split it into two bills, with the first focused on energy and border policy and the second on taxes.
Both are aiming to pass the bills through a process known as reconciliation, which bypasses the Senate filibuster, and passing a budget resolution unlocks the process.
The Senate Budget Committee advanced its budget resolution on Wednesday, which did not contain the tax cuts piece. The House Budget Committee aimed to advance its own version on Thursday.
“The House is rushing because the Senate moved before they did. There is a real, growing concern over here that the House is going to end up with a flawed product that won’t fully deliver on the president’s tax agenda,” a Senate GOP aide told The Hill.
Extending the Trump tax cuts, which is just one part of the current Republican agenda on taxes, would cost $4.7 trillion over the next ten years, more than the $4.5 trillion cap on the deficit impact outlined in House Republicans’ budget resolution.
Ways and Means chair Jason Smith (R-Mo.) stressed the point to reporters on Tuesday.
“Let me just say that a 10-year extension of President Trump’s expiring provisions is over $4.7 trillion according to CBO,” Smith told reporters, referring to the Congressional Budget Office, the official legislative scoring body. “Anything less would be saying that President Trump is wrong on tax policy.”
Before budget cuts, which the House resolution puts at a goal of $2 trillion, the total cost of the Republican agenda could reach as high as $7 trillion, according to an estimate by Andrew Lautz of the Bipartisan Policy Center.
Among other measures to reduce the effects on the deficit, Republicans had been considering shortening the window for extending the Trump tax cuts from ten years to five years.
