By Jacob Adams, The Daily Signal | January 06, 2025
The American people delivered President-elect Donald Trump’s sweeping agenda a mandate in November’s presidential election, and with Republicans in control of the House, Senate, and the White House, Trump is looking to deliver.
Over the weekend, Trump announced his support for passing large swaths of his agenda in a single budget reconciliation bill. Trump’s support for a single bill is set to energize the president-elect’s backers with his ambitious proposed measures to shut down the open southern border, lower energy prices, and tackle the downtrodden economy.
Trump’s post effectively endorses the no-holds-barred plan of House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith, R-Mo. Smith expressed concern this past week that Republicans would not have enough votes to pass two reconciliation bills, given their slim majority in the House.
“We have a smaller margin than what the United States Senate does. It is harder to pass bills in the House than in the Senate,” he told Fox News host Maria Bartiromo. A single bill would mitigate the risk of Republican waffling.
Rep. Barry Moore, R-Ala., told The Daily Signal that he supported Trump’s single budget proposal. “I trust the process that President Trump is spearheading. One of his top priorities is securing our southern border and protecting American families,” he said, adding:
“House Republicans are united in our commitment to delivering results for the American people. We are confident in navigating the reconciliation process to pass legislation that prioritizes our core objectives, including border security, energy independence, and economic growth.”
Some Republicans have expressed concern that a single reconciliation bill would take much longer to pass than two separate bills, putting the securing of the border in jeopardy. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., who now leads the Senate Budget Committee, told Bartiromo, “I’m very worried that if we don’t put [the] border first, and get it done, it’s going to be a nightmare for our national security. We’ve got millions of illegal immigrants that President Trump has promised to deport, and he should. Why are we doing mass deportation? Because we had mass illegal immigration.”
Graham noted some of Republicans’ plans for shoring up the border, including increasing the number of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and finishing the border wall, and that the collective border security measures would cost around $100 billion. “There’s no way in hell Democrats are going to give us $100 billion for mass deportation,” Graham told Bartiromo. “Every day we delay is a dangerous day for America.”
A second Trump administration would likely unshackle the American economy by emphasizing natural gas drilling and making it easier to approve permits for pipelines and liquefied natural gas terminals. Trump would also probably expand drilling on federal lands, which President Joe Biden restricted during his term.
As it stands now, the United States also needs to provide more natural gas to its allies in Europe, who have faced a shortage of the resource since the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. The United States also helps reduce carbon emissions in Asia by providing natural gas as an alternative to coal for countries as disparate as South Korea and India.
Moore, the Alabama Republican, told The Daily Signal that “Reestablishing American energy independence is critical. We need to immediately expand natural gas drilling, reopen the Keystone Pipeline, and cut unnecessary regulations on our energy sector. These steps are going to lower costs for American families and bring back our dominance in global energy markets.”
In a statement to The Daily Signal, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, also said he supports increasing drilling. “We will end the offshore drilling ban and renew key provisions from the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, making them bigger and bolder.”
In 2017, Congress passed the signature legislation of the pro-economic growth Trump agenda, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. The Trump tax cuts, as they came to be known, are set to expire in December, which would result in the single largest tax hike for Americans since World War II.
The tax cuts were a signature part of the Trump economy that delivered to Americans an unemployment rate at a 50-year low, significant growth in median real wages, and a decline in inflation. They also were a pro-family policy, a doubling the child tax credit. Because income gains were the largest among minorities, the tax cuts also triggered a decline in income inequality.
Additionally, the tax cuts likely enabled the amelioration of the current financial downturn through the repatriation of more than $1 trillion in foreign earnings. Moore expressed support for making the Trump tax cuts permanent to The Daily Signal.
Vital to Trump’s campaign promises of uplifting working-class Americans is putting more money in their pockets, and the president-elect reiterated in his X post to do just that by exempting tips from taxation. Cruz has already introduced legislation that would allow “a deduction from gross income (above-the-line tax deduction) for cash tips received by a taxpayer.” Cruz added, “I’ve been leading the fight to eliminate Biden’s natural gas tax and advance President Trump’s No Tax on Tips proposal, and I’m optimistic these priorities will be included.”
Such a change in the tax law would likely be well-received by Americans. According to an August poll by Ipsos, nearly 3 out of 4 Americans among both Republicans and Democrats support ending the federal income tax on tips. A variation on the proposal was also recently proposed by Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, a Republican, in his budget announcement.
“Hardworking Americans, especially in the service industry, deserve relief. Exempting tips from federal income tax is a commonsense measure that puts more money in the pockets of millions of workers who keep our economy running,” Moore said.
Trump also outlined that he would use tariffs to make up the revenue lost from the “no tax on tips.” In the past, he has threatened to use tariffs against Canada, Mexico, and China in order to foster more cooperation in dealing with the illegal immigration and drug-trafficking crises at the American border.
Jacob Adams is a journalism fellow at The Daily Signal.
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