Posted on 05/24/2025 8:22:12 AM PDT by RandFan
House Republicans are sending a clear and early warning to their Senate allies as the bill encompassing President Trump’s domestic priorities heads to the upper chamber: Don’t water it down.
House GOP leaders spent weeks in delicate talks with Republican holdouts before cobbling together a fragile agreement that could thread the needle between conservatives’ demands for more spending cuts and moderates’ insistence on a controversial tax break.
As the massive package heads to the Senate, the critical voices of the House debate — blue-state Republicans, hardliners and party leaders — are cautioning their upper-chamber counterparts not to alter their design too severely, or it will never get through the House on its return.
The warnings forecast a coming clash between Republicans in the two chambers, since many senators are already saying they can’t support the package without substantial changes.
House conservatives would be fine with some changes — if they shift the bill to the right with more spending cuts and deficit reduction. At the bare minimum, they’re demanding that the Senate keep in place hard-fought provisions to limit Medicaid eligibility and roll back green-energy subsidies adopted by the Biden administration.
“They’ve got a lot they still need to do to make it better, and they can’t unwind what we achieved. And those are going to be red lines,” said Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas). “If the SALT guys think they’ve got red lines, just wait until you see what’s coming out of us.”
Blue-state Republicans have their own concerns. They went to the mats to lift the $10,000 cap on the state and local tax (SALT) deduction, and they don’t want Senate Republicans to nibble away at their hard-earned victory.
Their agreement included not only an increase in the cap — to $40,000 for those making up to $500,000..........
(Excerpt) Read more at thehill.com ...
“Blue-state Republicans have their own concerns. They went to the mats to lift the $10,000 cap on the state and local tax (SALT) deduction, and they don’t want Senate Republicans to nibble away at their hard-earned victory.”
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The $40,000 number that emerged from the House is surprisingly (at least to This Guy) high.
Have been thinking this number may end up having been reduced, once the final bill reaches Trump’s desk.
There is another factor in play, and likely leaned on by the Speaker and Thune.
The debt ceiling.
This has been packaged. The House version mandates an increase of $4T. At the current deficit expectations, that would be 2.5 yrs.
But regardless, the date when it is exceeded is only weeks away. This is another pressure direction.
Thune and Johnson ABSOLUTELY want it included in the package(s). To remove it and have a separate vote would rob them of that pressure. It is so extreme it could compel some Dem votes, but only a few. They would much prefer to point at the relentless increase in the debt and how only GOP votes raised the ceiling, but if default looms, you could pick up some Red state Dems, like the two in Georgia.
And another item . . . about spending.
I presume we all do realize that gov’t spending is nearly all for salaries somewhere in the flow. Govt employee salaries, contractor personnel with a govt contract salaries, or even if you open a new govt office with increased spending, then the lunchcart outside the office, that guy’s salary.
On all of which taxes are paid.
Point being, spending does not all leave the govt.
So don’t water down the watered-down bill? Got it.
This do nothing Congress just screwed America...yet again.
The only changes the Senate republicans should be making is more spending cuts. Perhaps they could make the debt ceiling rise a moot point. How about a automatic across the board spending cut of 10 percent if the previous year the government ran a deficit?
States without income tax get to subsidize high tax states. Everyone in a no tax state should get a refundable rebate equal to the amount the leftist states get to write off.
They flipped the finger to Trump’s “no taxes on Social Security” promise.
Good job A-holes. this is how we get a Democrat speaker elected in 18 months.
Yeah.
I think state and local taxes should be 100% deductible for taxpayers … mainly because they ARE fully deductible for businesses.
Exactly. They can welcome Speaker Jeffries after the midterms.
It’s the upper chamber-more cosmopolitan. They gotta show why they’re elites and the house members are beneath them.
Not one democrat in support of it. They will not pay a price for wanting to raise taxes only because it won’t happen as people forget.
SALT deductions should be zero. So tired of politicians in another state using my money to buy votes . Sick of it!!!
No reason at all.
Governors of blue states, Pritzker, Hochul, Newsome and other blue state governors agree with you 100%, though!
Agreed. The standard deduction takes care of about 90% of all taxpayers (probable even more in this tax bill). Only the high income/mosly blue staters benefit benefit from SALT.
At some point they must have been zero, right.
Then SALT became fully deductible.
Then that deduction was cut down to $10,000 per year.
Now they’re obviously considering increasing that number, to as high as $40,000.
So there has been a push, pull, push. And now you’re saying, no: Pull the rug out from under this deduction and restore what we had at the beginning. No subsidies for local and state spending.
Hey, it’s understandable why you’d think that’s the way we should go. This Guy is kind of leaning in that direction too. But, local and state politicians can’t seem to break their addiction to overspending.
WHEN WILL THE WASTE DOGE IS DISCOVERING BE REFLECTED IN THE DEBT NUMBERS??
With few exceptions, red states are far more heavily subsidized by blue states than vice versa — mainly because the “high income” side of your statement pushes middle-class people in blue states into higher federal tax brackets.
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