Republicans have a small House majority at 220-215 so it will be tough to get a consensus on everything and that majority will shrink further with some set to join Trump’s White House. In the Senate, they can only afford to lose 3 votes as well and there are some tensions around deficit spending and other priorities.
Yesterday, NBC’s Sahil Kapur highlighted seven priorities that they aim to pass via 1 or 2 reconciliation bills:
- Extend the Trump tax cuts
- Border/deportation funds
- Slash clean energy incentives
- Undo Biden’s IRAct/ARP
- Child tax credit
- Credible work requirement for benefits
- Medicaid changes
The “top objective” is to extend the corporate tax cut due to expire at the end of 2025 but the reporting uses the words ‘extend’ rather than ‘make permanent’ so the question will be: for how long?
Among the clean energy and IRA incentives, the EV tax credit appears to be gone, along with home energy efficiency grants. The problem is that the programs slated to be cut aren’t nearly enough to pay for the other programs.
“Tillis said he worries that a small group of House Republicans may torpedo the package by demanding that it not add to the deficit,” the report says.