Posted on 06/10/2025 8:08:22 AM PDT by Red Badger
Republican senators are considering watering down “no taxes on tips,” “no taxes on overtime” and more.
Senate Finance Republicans are increasingly looking to dial back key items on President Donald Trump’s tax policy wish list. And it’s pitting them against the architect of the House-passed tax legislation, Ways and Means Chair Jason Smith — and potentially even the White House.
The rub is this: The House version of the megabill would restore tax incentives for research and development, business equipment and debt interest through 2029, which Trump has indicated he supports. But Senate Republicans are dead-set on making them permanent, a proposition that would likely add hundreds of billions in more red ink to the legislation.
To offset that cost, GOP senators are looking to water down other tax provisions they believe aren’t as “pro-growth.” Those policies include “no taxes on tips,” “no taxes on overtime” and tax relief for seniors — all proposals Trump touted on the campaign trail and collectively boast a price tag of roughly $230 billion, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation.
Smith is warning senators to tread carefully in challenging Trump’s desires.
“I think that the United States Senate will not want to scale down the president’s priorities. No tax on tips, no tax on overtime are two of his top priorities,” the Missouri Republican told reporters Monday. “Are there some tweaks that they can do to it that I would recommend? Yes, and I have recommended.”
But some Senate Republicans who sit on the Finance panel have made clear they have their own ideas. When POLITICO asked Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) whether he believes “no tax on tips” or “no tax on overtime” are pro-growth, he gave a terse “nope.”
“They’re making a case to increase the labor supply,” the Wisconsin Republican told POLITICO. “I would just extend the current tax law.”
Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) has likewise been pushing to make changes to both policies, telling POLITICO on Monday that “no tax on overtime” should be rewritten to ensure it applies only to people working over 40 hours a week.
White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said “No Tax on Overtime and No Tax on Tips are presidential priorities that 80 million Americans voted for in November.”
“They will remain in this historic piece of legislation in order to deliver the largest tax cut in history,” she added.
Meanwhile, House Republicans are hoping to tweak some language in their bill they believe the Senate parliamentarian will identify as non-compliant with the budget reconciliation process. They’ll do so by using a procedural maneuver within the Rules Committee that won’t require the chamber to take a standalone vote on a revised measure, five people told POLITICO.
House Republican leaders expect a report on the potential Senate problems Tuesday morning, though Majority Leader Steve Scalise (La.) acknowledged they may not have the full list before the Rules hearing scheduled for later Tuesday.
“I don’t think there will be any big surprises,” Speaker Mike Johnson added Monday, “but that’s part of the process.”
What else we’re watching:
— Rescissions heads to Rules: The House Rules Committee is scheduled to vote on the White House’s rescissions package at 2 p.m. Tuesday, paving the way for a floor vote by Thursday. Johnson and Scalise are confident they can appease members’ concerns about clawing back money Congress has already green-lighted and slashing funding for the PEPFAR program and public media.
— Crypto vote imminent: Senate Majority Leader John Thune wants to pass landmark cryptocurrency legislation this week that would create new rules for dollar-pegged digital tokens. He teed up the stablecoin bill for another procedural vote as soon as Wednesday.
— Trump admins on the Hill: A slew of Trump administration officials will testify before various House and Senate committees Tuesday on the president’s fiscal 2026 budget requests for their agencies. That includes Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chair Gen. Dan Caine, NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya, CIA Director John Ratcliffe and Energy Secretary Chris Wright.
Jordain Carney, Jasper Goodman, Meredith Lee Hill and Jennifer Scholtes contributed to this report.
THESE RINO MORONS ARE STUPID! ...............................
Snatching defeat out of the jaws of victory. Again.
Modern day stupidity of the GOP.
Anything they can do to undercut Trump’s promises to the little guys.
I imagine they are going to try and force Trump to have to fund Ukraine in exchange for the above.
You can’t despise RINOs and grandstanders enough.
Looks like some senators had a ‘meeting’ with the treasury
In all fairness, I found the overtime category of wages being untaxed to be problematic in many ways. It sounds great, but not workable in our tax code or industrial economy. And I typically made 50% of my income from overtime.
Tillis has been a terrible disappointment. NC must primary and remove him so he can begin his post political career of touring the liberal “talk” shows with no viewers.
It’s most disappointing to see Ron Johnson having anything to do with him.
Trump will get credit for the ‘moral’ victory and it will help in the mid-terms. Democrats do it all the time.
So pretty much the same outcome as voting for Democrats.
Cutting the deficits is more important then new tax favors.
Tillis barely won his seat. N. Carolina is not a solid red state. He cannot safely be a staunch right wing Senator. No one from N. Carolina can and he’s up for re-election next year. Any replacement of him, in a year Trump is not running, will lose.
As for the numbers . . . and it is ONLY about the numbers . . . you cannot let the deficit expand in early years (of the 10) and have the debt grow. That accelerates compounding on that debt. You are literally gambling with people’s lives if there should be an interest rate spike — and no one knows the future of interest rates. No one. If we are forced to roll over composite debt in that $37T at a time the rates are 8%, the system will fall in a year, instead of 5.
Tax incentives for R&D, business equipment, business interest, but no tax relief for tips and overtime and seniors. Now just imagine what the demagogues like Bernie and AOC will make out of that. Oligarchs, anyone?
The can just make it deductible like they did the fake SS $4000.00 deduction, then try and convince that a deduction Is equal to a tax free raise.
Typical for fake Republican Senators.
It’s easy to program payroll processing.
“…But Senate Republicans are dead-set on making them permanent, a proposition that would likely add hundreds of billions in more red ink to the legislation.
To offset that cost, GOP senators are looking to water down other tax provisions they believe aren’t as “pro-growth.” Those policies include “no taxes on tips,” “no taxes on overtime” and tax relief for seniors…”
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The Uniparty and RINO’s have already been to this “well” for a source of budgetary funds. For example, in the BIG BEAUTIFUL BILL the SALT cap raise to $40,000 is PERMANENT (as well as inflation adjusted). On the other hand the Tip and Overtime tax deductions are LIMITED TO FOUR YEARS and then end. This limitation to only four years for the tips, overtime and senior tax provisions was done to “fund” this DESPICABLE increase of blue state SALT deductions to $40,000 AND MAKE THE INCREASE PERMANENT AND WITH INFLATION INCREASES.
Subsidizing Blue State idiocy.................
Eternally trying to stick it to the middle class hard workers. 🙄
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