Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent promised Monday Republicans have “great unity” as Congress kicks off its quest to pass a “very pro-growth” bill with President Donald Trump’s tax and spending cuts, border security, and other legislative priorities.
Bessent met Monday afternoon at the Capitol with Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD), Senate Finance Chair Mike Crapo (R-ID), House Ways and Means Chair Jason Smith (R-MO), and National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett to discuss the “big, beautiful” budget reconciliation bill’s tax measures — perhaps the stickiest and most complicated component of the reconciliation bill.
“We have great unity. The President has made his priorities clear. The House is moving things along quickly, and the Senate is in lockstep,” Bessent told reporters after the meeting in the Capitol. “We think that they are in a substantial agreement and that this is going to be a win for the American people.”
Bessent explained, “We’ve got three legs to the President’s economic agenda — trade, tax, and deregulation,” and he predicted “we can have this tax portion done by Fourth of July.”
The Trump administration wants to make permanent the 2017 Trump tax cuts, set to expire at the end of this year. Those cuts were initially created through a reconciliation bill, call the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA).
But Trump wants to introduce new tax cuts as well.
Bessent explained that Trump’s priorities are “making TCJA permanent” as well as instituting “no tax on tips, no tax on Social Security [benefit payments], no tax on overtime, and deductibility for auto loans for American made cars, and immediate expensing, 100% expensing for equipment — and we are going to add factory structures for that also.”
House Republicans will also pursue an additional $150 billion in defense spending, an investment Bessent explained is consistent with Trump’s priorities to root out waste, fraud, and abuse and save taxpayer money in the long term.
“I believe that the President is intent on remaking the military, and he believes that over the long term, that as we upgrade the military, then the expenses will be lower,” he said. “It’s all part of his peace through strength.”
The massive reconciliation bill is also expected to include a provision raising the debt ceiling, among other Trump priorities.
In addition to nailing down tax provisions that will pass both chambers, Congress must determine where to cut spending to ensure the $36 trillion debt does not balloon. That work begins in earnest Tuesday as a handful of House committees begin meeting to find savings within their respective purviews.
The House passed a Senate-amended budget resolution April 10, the first of two steps in the reconciliation process. Through budget reconciliation, Congress can bypass the Senate’s 60-vote threshold for most legislation, passing a bill with a simple majority, although there are parliamentary and legal hurdles which limit the scope of such bills.
Bradley Jaye is Deputy Political Editor for Breitbart News. Follow him on X/Twitter and Instagram @BradleyAJaye.
