WASHINGTON — Days before Republicans unveiled their sweeping tax cut plan, the chairman of the powerful Ways and Means Committee had one last person to consult. He went to the White House, where he and President Donald Trump went over the legislation “line by line.”
“He was very happy with what we’re delivering,” said Rep. Jason Smith, a Republican from Missouri.
Trump had every reason to be pleased. His imprint is all over on the bill making its way through the House, starting with its title — the “ One Big Beautiful Bill Act.”
The legislation realizes many of Trump’s campaign promises, temporarily ending taxes on overtime and tips for many workers, creating a new $10,000 tax break on auto loan interest for American-made cars, and even creating a new tax-free “MAGA account” — a nod to his ”Make America Great Again” movement, but in this case, it means “Money Accounts for Growth and Advancement.” This would contribute $1,000 to children born in his second term.
The Trump-inspired contours of the legislative package, months if not years in the making, reflect not only the president’s considerable influence over the Republican Party, but also the hard political realities in the House, where Republicans have only the barest of majorities and often find it difficult to find consensus without Trump’s involvement.
Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., effectively owes his job to Trump and has kept in constant contact with him during the negotiations, including during his overseas trip this week.
“He’s excited about our forward progress,” Johnson said. “You know, I keep him apprised of the developments, and he’s had a busy time over there in the Middle East, and it’s been good — he’s in good spirits and we’re in good spirits.”
The Republican bill runs a whopping 1,116 pages and includes more than $5 trillion in tax cuts, costs that are partially offset by spending cuts elsewhere and other changes in the tax code. The legislation would make permanent the tax cuts from Trump’s first term while reducing funding for programs involving food assistance, college financing and environmental protection.
As talks over the bill have progressed, divisions have emerged among Republicans, particularly between fiscal hawks most concerned about federal deficits and others more focused on the impact of cuts back home.
That’s where Trump usually comes in, playing the “closer” who turns no votes to yes.
“President Trump has gone out of his way to ask us: ‘Are there any members you want me to call? Anybody that you want me to talk to?’ And he calls them right then,” said House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La. “He’s been incredibly hands-on and incredibly helpful at getting the bill to where it is.”
Trump’s involvement seems certain to grow as Johnson labors to get the tax package through the House by a self-imposed Memorial Day deadline.
Conservatives slowed the process Friday, refusing to advance the tax package out of the House Budget Committee until it includes faster implementation of Medicaid changes and a more wholesale repeal of Biden-era green energy credits. They vowed to hold firm until their demands are met.
Trump took notice, applying pressure even before the gavel went down on the failed committee vote.
“We don’t need ‘GRANDSTANDERS’ in the Republican Party,” Trump wrote on social media. “STOP TALKING, AND GET IT DONE!”
Negotiations were expected to stretch through the weekend, with the Budget Committee reconvening late Sunday night in hopes of a breakthrough.
Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Ala., chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, predicted the tax package will ultimately get over the finish line once Trump — just returning from a tour of the Middle East — starts making calls to skeptical lawmakers.
“You may have noticed he likes talking on the telephone,” Rogers said.
Added Rep. Tim Burchett of Tennessee, “I think the only way we’re going to get on track with it is with Trump.”
The close coordination with Republican leaders stands in stark contrast to Trump’s first term, when the party first enacted a slew of personal and corporate tax breaks. Republicans quickly cobbled that tax package together in late 2017 after a disastrous attempt at fulfilling their central campaign promise — repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act, often referred to as Obamacare.
This time, White House aides have been in regular contact with GOP lawmakers as the tax bill progresses through drafts and markups, highlighting programs they aim to overhaul and provisions they’d like to add or cut.
The president “is much more engaged in directing what happens than the first time because he and the leadership of Congress in 2017 were not seeing eye-to-eye,” Scalise said. “He didn’t necessarily want health care to be the first thing that was done, and yet it was. This time around we talked a lot before he was sworn in to make sure we were all on the same page.”
Trump first began to set the course of the GOP’s current legislative strategy back in January, when he posted to social media that Republicans should pass “one powerful bill” that would tackle all of the party’s priorities instead of splitting the agenda into two packages.
Senate Republicans argued for a different approach. They urged quick passage of a bill to provide billions for the Pentagon and Trump’s immigration clampdown, saying a second tax package could wait until later.
Trump wavered for a time, giving Republicans on Capitol Hill mixed signals over the best approach. But his original preference for one bill won out in the end, in part because House Republicans insisted their chamber could not do it any other way.
Democrats uniformly oppose the package but have little power to stop it from becoming law if Republicans remain unified. As they continue to grapple with the party’s losses in last year’s election, Democrats have worked to mobilize public opposition to the bill, decrying it as a giveaway to the rich paid for with cuts to healthcare and other social services.
Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., called it “one big, beautiful betrayal.”
Republicans, meanwhile, are eager to press ahead and get the tax package to the Senate, with hopes of getting it on Trump’s desk by the Fourth of July.
Burchett said that while “everybody rises up in righteous indignation” over the details, Republicans will start “coming to the table” once Trump is fully engaged.
“It’s like an NBA basketball game right now,” Burchett said. “Don’t watch the game. Just wait till the last two minutes and then turn on the TV.”
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Associated Press writer Kevin Freking contributed.
