House GOP leaders eye Democrats for help on $80 billion tax bill as Republicans defect

EXCLUSIVE: Lawmakers’ frustrations over Congress’ new tax bill are forcing House GOP leaders to rely on Democrat votes to get it over the road subsequent week, sources mentioned.

House management launched particulars for the bipartisan settlement from House and Senate negotiators earlier this week, which incorporates tax deductions to bolster American companies as properly as a brief extension of the Child Tax Credit (CTC). 

Three sources informed Fox News Digital that they perceive the bill will get a vote on the House ground subsequent week. Normally, laws will advance via the Rules Committee first after which get a procedural “rule” vote on the House ground, virtually at all times alongside celebration traces, earlier than needing a easy majority to move.

But the sources informed Fox News Digital that Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and Ways & Means Chairman Jason Smith, R-Mo., purpose to push it straight to the House ground underneath “suspension of the rules,” bypassing procedural steps in change for elevating the brink for passage to two-thirds. 

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House Speaker Mike Johnson currently intends to hold a tax bill vote next week, sources told Fox News Digital. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

Republican hardliners weaponized the rule vote several times this session to bring down legislation by their own party in protest of House GOP leaders’ decisions. Johnson holds just a thin majority of 219 Republicans to 213 Democrats, so raising the threshold for passage of the bill, which is expected to be bipartisan anyway, means he’ll need at least 75 Democrats on board if the House is in full attendance.

“From everything I can understand, the issue is that Freedom Caucus folks are going to essentially bring down any of the rules that we have in the near future, as long as the immigration situation is hanging out there, and the budget situation is hanging out there,” a senior GOP aide said. 

The Freedom Caucus has previously held up the House floor over disagreements on government funding and border policy, issues that are still very much under discussion.

It’s not simply them, nevertheless – Republicans who symbolize the politically fickle suburbs exterior main cities in New York, California and elsewhere are annoyed that the tax bill doesn’t contact state and native tax (SALT) deductions. 

Rep. Mike Garcia, R-Calif., who was a part of a Thursday evening assembly with Johnson and different Republicans involved concerning the subject, mentioned that lifting the $10,000 SALT deduction cap was crucial to middle-class households. He additionally argued that it might be crucial to deciding who holds the House subsequent yr.

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“The bill is not necessarily a bad bill. . . . I just think it’s asinine to not take advantage of this opportunity to address an issue that matters in districts that will determine who has the majority in the next Congress,” Garcia mentioned earlier than the assembly.

Meanwhile, high members of the ultra-conservative Freedom Caucus informed Fox News Digital that hardliners have their separate points with the bill, particularly arguing that the CTC will be claimed by unlawful immigrants who’ve kids within the United States.

Rep. Mike Garcia, R-Calif., is among the many swing seat Republicans annoyed on the bill. (Getty Images)

“The overall brand that the GOP right now is funding wars and tax cuts for corporations. I’m sorry. I was sent here to cut spending and to secure the border,” Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, mentioned.

“Some of the tax policies I firmly support, but we should be making tax policy permanent, not these, like, temporary little additions. I think that’s a problem. And importantly, the child tax credits . . . going to children of people here illegally, and there not being real brakes on that possibility.”

Former Freedom Caucus Chairman Scott Perry, R-Pa., was blunter in his evaluation: “I can’t imagine why we’re doing it, or why we’re attempting to do it. And it’s not improving a lot of the lives of the people that I represent, and so I’m very discouraged by it.”

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He mentioned that permitting the CTC to go to unlawful immigrants “is absolutely something that should be a red line for every single Republican,” and bypassing the principles to place the bill on the ground subsequent week “should be a signal to everybody that you’re heading in the wrong direction.”

Chairman Smith pushed again towards these accusations in a press release to Fox News Digital: “The Child Tax Credit reforms in this bill are pro-family policies that maintain the child tax credit structure of the Trump-era GOP tax reform. It halts any push for monthly checks and provides no special loopholes for illegal immigrants. In fact, the plan still requires a Social Security number for children, which was added in the 2017 GOP tax reform.”

“The Child Tax Credit provisions in this bill help families crushed by inflation, removes the penalty for families with multiple children, and maintains work requirements,” he mentioned.

Rep. Scott Perry and Rep. Chip Roy are main the Freedom Caucus rise up towards the bill. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

Garcia, who admitted he was nonetheless hopeful that one thing might be performed on SALT deductions, confirmed that he had pressed Smith concerning the subject at one other GOP lawmaker assembly final week. He identified the deduction caps have been nonetheless expiring both means in 2025.

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“We can address this right now, on our terms, get a win out of it politically,” Garcia mentioned. “Or we can do nothing, lose potentially a lot of races because we passed this opportunity to address SALT, which is very important to New York and California, and then try to have a conversation about the new policies when . . . we’ve lost the majority because we passed this opportunity to help the swing district members get a win on the SALT cap.” 

The bill was at all times prone to move with bipartisan help, crusing out of committee on a 40-3 vote. But placing it up underneath suspension emphasizes the politically precarious place Johnson finds himself in whereas presiding over a razor-thin majority in one of the vital divided GOP conferences in fashionable historical past.

Fox News Digital reached out to Johnson’s workplace for remark, as properly as the workplaces of Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., and Majority Whip Tom Emmer, R-Minn., however didn’t instantly hear again.