If the Republicans take over the House of Representatives in 2018, Speaker Mike Johnson warned Senate Republicans on Wednesday that he plans to make a big splash. His number one priority right now is a new wave of tax cuts.
After meeting with Senate Republicans, Johnson stated that reducing government regulations and implementing tax cuts would be his top goals if his party were to gain unified control of the House and Senate in the next election.
For its part, the Republican Party is reevaluating its goals “creatively, and I think deliberatively,” as Johnson informed reporters. Even though the speaker provided little details about his objectives thus far, GOP senators inside the meeting claimed as much.
“The message read: ‘We are working on this.'” Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) described his meeting with Johnson as a “very broad” discussion, adding, “I don’t know who the ‘we’ is, I have no idea.” He claimed the speaker barely spent 30 minutes in the chamber and addressed a sparse gathering of senators.
Republican leaders are ready to lay out a platform for the upcoming campaign season as they pursue their goal of regaining control of the House of Representatives and the White House after six long years. With the unusual trifecta in the bag for Republicans in November, Johnson and the incoming Senate GOP leader will be quick to utilize budget reconciliation as a weapon to sidestep the filibuster.
Republicans, like Democrats in Biden’s first administration, would probably face a major fight over which policies to include and which to leave out.
On Wednesday, Sen. Thom Tillis’s (R-N.C.) description of the meeting was that of “expectations” being adjusted in order to avoid the filibuster through budget reconciliation, a process that limits members’ ability to address certain issues.
Tillis stated, “We want to overcome frustrations,” alluding to the Democrats’ two-year-old failed efforts to include immigration policy in their party-line legislation. In their hypothetical future reconciliation legislation, some Republicans are already planning to add border measures, which would surely spark another major procedural dispute.
Johnson has a “real optimism” for November, according to Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), who was asked about the GOP’s political forecast. “He just feels like the atmosphere is very positive.”
Republican leaders in the House have started making their own wish list across the hall. Last month, GOP committee chairs were urged by Majority Leader Steve Scalise to gather their top policy priorities in the event of a Republican gain in the Senate.
With the expiration of many individual tax cuts in the tax code enacted during Trump’s administration in 2017 in the near future, it’s clear that taxes will be a primary emphasis for Republicans.
We need to prolong the tax cuts. Johnson warned that the United States might experience its largest tax increases ever if current trends continue.