GOP plots big push to extend tax cuts if Republicans sweep in November

Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Republicans are looking for ways to advance their agenda next year if Trump were to win the Presidency. Top of the list: a tax overhaul.

House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Republicans are looking for ways to advance their agenda next year if former President Donald Trump were to win back the presidency. Top of the list: a tax overhaul. In a meeting with Senate Republicans on Wednesday, Johnson highlighted using a procedural tool known as reconciliation to move ahead with the GOP agenda. Reconciliation allows the Senate to pass legislation with just a simple majority vote and has been used by both parties in the past to advance changes to health care and tax policy among other issues. The GOP used the process under Trump to re-write the country’s tax laws, many of which will expire at the end of next year. Republican Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina said that the roughly 30-minute discussion “largely” focused on potential changes to tax policy. “We were really talking more about future transactions, you know, the way that we’ll go about tax reform, those sorts of things, if we get a good outcome in November, that was really the extent of it,” Tillis told CNN, adding later that “what we’re talking about now is just getting everybody’s expectations right on what you can do with reconciliation, what you can’t do.” But other senators argued that reconciliation could be used far beyond just tax changes. Sen. Kevin Cramer of North Dakota told CNN that Republicans also brainstormed how they could address the border as well as other mandatory spending besides Medicare and Social Security. “The main idea is let’s think big. Let’s think bigger than just taxes,” Cramer said.