Trump and Republicans in Congress are eyeing an ambitious 100-day plan, beginning with tax cuts

A tax break for almost everyone, even millionaires.

Stop the government payments for health insurance that some Americans received during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Limits, including those for women and children, apply to food stamps and other safety net programs. The Biden administration’s green energy initiatives are being discontinued. large-scale deportations. Reductions in government employment will drain the swamp.

With President-elect Donald Trump in the White House and Republican lawmakers in a congressional majority, Republicans are preparing an ambitious 100-day program to accomplish their policy goals after winning the election and sweeping to power.

First on the agenda is the proposal to extend around $4 trillion in expiring GOP tax cuts, a hallmark domestic accomplishment of Trump’s first term and a topic that might characterize his comeback to the White House.

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., stated during a recent meeting with GOP colleagues to outline the path forward, “What we’re focused on right now is being ready, Day 1.”

Long-running discussions concerning America’s goals, growing wealth inequality, and the appropriate size and reach of its government will be rekindled by the new policies, especially in view of the country’s growing federal deficits, which are currently close to $2 trillion annually.

The talks will test Trump and his Republican supporters’ ability to produce the kinds of tangible results that Americans needed, wanted, or approved of when they elected the party to control the White House and Congress.

In reference to the 2017 tax controversy, Lindsay Owens, executive director of the Groundwork Collaborative, stated, “The past is really prologue here.”

Trump’s first term was characterized by those tax cuts, which were approved by Republicans in Congress and only signed into law after their famous thumbs-down vote by then-Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz, failed to fulfill their campaign pledge to repeal and replace Democratic President Barack Obama’s health-care law.

By the end of the year, the multitrillion-dollar package had been assembled and passed by the Republican-controlled Congress, which had swiftly turned its focus to tax cuts.

Households with higher incomes have benefited the most since Trump signed the cuts into law. The top 1% of earners, those making close to $1 million or more, received an income tax savings of over $60,000, while people with lower incomes benefited as little as a few hundred dollars, according to the Tax Policy Center and other organizations. In the end, some paid about the same.

Owens told reporters that rising income disparity is the main economic narrative in the United States. Interestingly enough, that is a tax story.

For months, Republicans in Congress and the president-elect have been having private meetings to explore plans to expand and prolong tax breaks, some of which would otherwise expire in 2025.

This entails keeping the current rates for so-called pass-through enterprises, such as legal firms, doctor’s offices, and companies that report their revenues as individual income, as well as a variety of tax brackets and a standardized deduction for individual earners.

Tax reductions would normally be unaffordable. According to the Congressional Budget Office, maintaining the expiring provisions would result in debt increases of $4 trillion over a ten-year period.

Trump also wants the tax deal to contain his own goals, like removing the individual tip and overtime tax and reducing the corporate rate from 21% in 2017 to 15%.

However, since tax payers of all income levels profited, Avik Roy, head of the Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity, said it is absurd to attribute the country’s income inequality to tax cuts. He instead points to other elements, including the historically low interest rates set by the Federal Reserve, which make it possible for everyone, even the wealthy, to borrow money at low costs.

According to Roy, Americans don’t give a damn about Elon Musk’s wealth. What you are doing to improve their lives is what matters to them.

Legislators usually aim to use budget revenue or cuts elsewhere to cover the expense of a policy change. However, the yearly budget of $6 trillion does not include nearly any agreed-upon spending cutbacks or income increases to meet such a huge expense.

Instead, some Republicans contend that the projected economic development will trickle down the tax cuts, making them self-sufficient. Another potential source of offset revenue could come from Trump’s tariffs, which were proposed last week.

Some Republicans contend that since tax cuts are not novel reforms but rather continuations of federal policy, there is precedent for merely continuing them without compensating for the expenses.

“We’re not raising or lowering taxes if you’re just extending current law,” stated Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, the Senate Finance Committee’s new chairman, on Fox News.

He referred to the argument that tax cuts would result in a larger debt as absurd. He asserted that we simply need to educate Americans about the distinction between taxes and expenditures.

Meanwhile, as part of the annual appropriations process, conservatives have long called for spending cuts, especially in health-care and food stamp programs, which the next Congress will be contemplating.

The COVID-19-era subsidy that helps consumers pay for their own health insurance through the Affordable Care Act exchange is very going to be cut.

Democratic President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, which also includes several green energy tax credits that Republicans seek to eliminate, extended the increased health-care subsidies through 2025.

Even though the House Democrats and Republicans fought to a stalemate in the November election, with the GOP eking out a small majority, the Republican assertion that they had earned some enormous, massive mandate was mocked by Rep. Hakeem Jeffries of New York, the House Democratic leader.

Jeffries told CNN that the idea that there is a mandate to implement drastic, far-right policy changes is untrue.

In order to avoid the possibility of a filibuster in the Senate, which may halt the progress of a bill unless 60 of the 100 senators support it, Republicans want to employ reconciliation, a budgetary procedure that permits majority passage in Congress, effectively along party lines.

This is the same procedure Democrats employed when they controlled Washington and overcame Republican resistance to approve Obama’s health care law and the Inflation Reduction Act.

Trump and congressional power have brought Republicans this far, but it doesn’t mean they’ll be able to accomplish their objectives, particularly in light of Democratic resistance.

However, since we have a lot to fix, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., who has been working closely with Trump on the agenda, has pledged a rapid pace in the first 100 days.

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