WASHINGTON — The Trump administration prodded Republicans in Congress to “get to work” Monday on the president’s marquee tax and border security legislation — with House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) visiting the executive mansion to get his marching orders for the critical next few weeks.
“We want Congress to get to work,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told pro-Trump “new media” members as Johnson huddled with Trump to hash out the legislative package.
“I just had a great meeting with the president at the White House,” the speaker announced after returning to Capitol Hill in the afternoon, “and he’s in good spirits and we are as well.”
House and Senate Republicans crafted the budgetary framework earlier this month, including an increase to the nation’s debt limit of up to $5 trillion, an extension of Trump’s 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act costing at least $4.5 trillion and as much as $350 billion in new border funding.
Defense spending will also be boosted by between $100 billion and $150 billion, while House Republican fiscal hawks have demanded that the bill include at least $1.5 trillion in federal spending cuts.
The companion Senate version initially called for only a few billion dollars in mandated spending cuts, but GOP aides have claimed other proposed reductions — including the elimination of billions of dollars’ worth of energy provisions in the Biden-era Inflation Reduction Act — are expected to be worth a much greater amount.
It’s also unclear how much of Trump’s campaign pledge to place no taxes on tips, Social Security, or overtime pay will be crammed in.
Meanwhile, Republicans from blue states are still discussing how high the state and local tax deduction (SALT) cap will be set, with Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-NJ) previously telling The Post he’s seeking a $30,000 deduction limit as a starting point.
Johnson has previously said he hopes to get the legislation passed by Memorial Day.
The 2022 Inflation Reduction Act was the last reconciliation bill to move through Congress and was projected to hike the deficit by $1 trillion over the next 10 years.
GOP committees have since put out their own spending levels for the bill, which will be able to pass both chambers of Congress by a simple majority via a process known as budget reconciliation.
That allows the Senate to break the traditional 60-vote filibuster so long as there are no policy changes — only shifts in revenue, spending and the debt ceiling.
On Sunday, the House Homeland Security Committee touted $46.5 billion for border wall construction, $4.1 billion to hire 3,000 Border Patrol agents and other enforcement employees as well as billions more in tech and special operations funding to crack down on illegal migrant entries and fentanyl flowing into the US from Mexico.
