The eagerly anticipated budget for the current government could possibly undermine fundamental elements of the executive’s platform. As the increasingly unpopular chief executive goes through various new strategies, the legislative body starts to engage in concrete lawmaking activities. For some time now, leaders of the GOP in Congress have been trying to forward the new Trump administration’s hallmark budget bill for final voting on the floor, though success has not been straightforward. The expected final revision of the bill is set for Memorial Day.
The ‘big, grand bill’ that President Trump has been praising is stuck in a legislative deadlock for an apparent reason: It carries aggressive financial cutbacks and controversial budget shortcuts that might not favor an overall Trump plan already witnessing obstacles. Congressional policymakers have filled the bill with as many conservative preferences as possible, with a strategy to push it through a reconciliation vote — a simplified route particularly for bills driven by budget, bypassing any Senate filibuster. However, rallying simple majorities has proved difficult, considering the segmented House GOP conference operating on a slim superiority of seven votes.
The bill is pulling House Republicans into multiple conflicting directions. Beginning with the call from House leaders for $1.5 billion in reductions in spending, the bulk of these expected to be sourced from the Energy and Commerce Committee of the House. As expected, the Congressional Budget Office has discovered that this would lead to extensive cuts to Medicaid, a program granting aid to low-income families for basic healthcare needs.
Drastic Medicaid reductions could significantly hurt Trump’s base of white working class — a vital part of the MAGA movement. Key GOP legislators have already earmarked such projected cuts to Medicaid as a deadlock in the budget talks. Trump, along with key GOP senators, has also signaled that he wouldn’t endorse cuts to Medicaid or Medicare in the budget bill.
However, maintaining the essential expenditures could unsettle a formidable group staunchly against previous GOP budget plans — the hard-liners for expenditure gathered in the small-government House Freedom Caucus. This influential group showed unprecedented restraint during the last continuing resolution to finance the government, but they’ve already indicated opposition against anything that could inflate the deficit or boost federal expenditure.
For House Speaker Mike Johnson, it’s critical to keep Freedom Caucus rebels and their associates disengaged, since they were the ones who effectively derailed his predecessor’s reign. Further, another group of potential opponents within the House are legislators eager to bolster IRS SALT deductions, which allows their constituents to deduct tax payments made to local and state governments.
Some GOP representatives also surprisingly find themselves defending essential expenses from President Joe Biden’s primary budget bill, the Inflation Reduction Act. The IRA, typical of Biden’s legislation, entailed numerous earmarks steering major spending to Republican territories, and the beneficiaries from both Senate and House are not ready to discard them especially given the current economic uncertainty.
Close to two dozen GOP House members have advocated maintaining the green-energy tax credits under the IRA, and a small group of three GOP senators succeeded in preserving the energy subsidies from the Act. These internal spending conflicts are already challenging, but the bill also tackles longstanding GOP favorites, which consistently fell victim to the Senate filibuster in the past.
Looking to exploit the reconciliation measure, leadership in the party aims to leverage lobbying power to favor the upper classes in key sectors including financial regulation and environmental policy. Hence, they could reverse essential consumer safety, public health, and policies in education, housing, and transport — this process being blatantly influenced by monetary clout.
Right-wing legislators are elated by this prospect and are assured that Trump, always ready to curry favor in return for financial support, will eagerly sanction the bill into law. Furthermore, the bill also incorporates various favorite GOP themes, including stricter border control, plans to starve higher-education funding, and a trillion-dollar surge in defense budget spending.
These drastic efforts to reframe the budget ultimately serve to extend the expiring 2017 Trump tax cuts, costing about $4 trillion. The GOP is banking on the extended tax cuts to at least temper some of the chaos and uncertainty induced – despite the individual benefits from the 2017 cuts no longer in tune with today’s economy.
To sweeten the tax package for his MAGA base, Trump has introduced several tricks, including eliminating taxes on gratuities and Social Security benefits, along with instituting deductions for auto loans. However, these actions will likely not stimulate much economic growth in an already shrinking economy.
Should other lobbyist-induced benefits and harsh benefit cuts be enacted, voters will confront the genuine motive behind every legislative action – a plan to shift hard-earned social spending to wealthy donors who will tolerate Trump’s unpredictable theatrics and culture-war stances for their own financial gains. Therefore, Trump’s ‘big, grand bill’ might be presenting some very unsightly political repercussions for the GOP.
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