Tax, spending divisions rankle Republicans despite momentum on reconciliation
Republican leaders in the House and Senate emerged from a meeting at the Treasury Department Tuesday afternoon sounding upbeat about their “big, beautiful bill” that has an extension of the 2017 tax cuts as its centerpiece.
But lawmakers on key committees are sounding nervous about divisions they have over the bill, issues that range from spending cuts and accounting assumptions to the far-reaching scope of the legislation itself.
“I think it’s good that the House and Senate leadership and the leads on the bills are meeting, but make no mistake: We’ve got a lot of internal — within our own conference — issues to resolve before we moved forward,” Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), a member of the Finance Committee, the Senate’s top tax-writing body, told The Hill Tuesday.
Major sticking points in the House-passed budget resolution include nearly $1 trillion dollars of budget cuts required from the Energy and Commerce Committee, which will mean reductions to federal healthcare that some Republicans are loath to support. Republicans are also divided over how many additional tax cuts should be included beyond those that are expiring.
There’s also the issue of raising the debt ceiling. Republicans are increasingly in agreement that they want to raise it in their tax cut and spending package, but such a move could alienate the budget hawks within their conference, such as Sens. Rick Scott (Fla.) and Rand Paul (Ky.) who could demand additional budget cuts beyond the $2 trillion sought by the House to get their support.
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated Wednesday that the government’s ability to borrow money will........
© The Hill
