McALLEN, TX — House Republicans are already thinking about what the government would look like if the GOP controls all of Washington next year. And House Majority Leader Steve Scalise told NOTUS on Monday that, in the first 100 days, Republicans are looking to pass a package through budget reconciliation that would cut taxes and provide new funding for a border wall.
“I’ve already talked to President Trump about the top priorities he would want,” Scalise said during an interview at the border.
“Clearly, there’s some things he can do through executive action, like end catch and release,” Scalise continued, referring to the practice of releasing migrants detained at the border while they await an immigration hearing. “On day one, he would start negotiating ‘Remain in Mexico,’ but he would need additional funding to get back to constructing the wall, and we could put that in something like budget reconciliation.”
Gone are the days when Donald Trump and Republicans insisted that Mexico would pay for a border wall — at least directly. Despite Trump’s repeated assurances that Mexico would actually be writing a check to the United States for a border wall, he and Republicans now argue things like tariffs could technically pay for it.
But for now, Scalise seems intent on fronting the money for a border wall through budget reconciliation, which would circumvent the Senate’s 60-vote threshold.
Asked about including reforms to Obamacare in budget reconciliation — Sen. Tom Cotton has suggested passing tax cuts and a health care overhaul in one package, raising the prospect that cutting Obamacare subsidies could be used to offset tax cuts — Scalise was less resolute on health care reforms than other items.
“The main things we’ve been talking about is getting the economy back on track and securing the border,” he said. “Of course, those are the top issues right now. I’m sure we’ll get into, you know, helping lower the cost of health care, addressing transparency in health care, which doesn’t exist right now.”
“There’s a lot of other big problems we want to face,” he added, “but I think it’s really important that we start with the economy and the border.”
When Trump first came into office in 2017, the GOP’s agenda started with Obamacare. For months, Republicans tortured themselves over passing a replacement to the 2010 health care law — only to discover that they didn’t have the votes and that there were real political ramifications for trying to take away insurance from millions of people while also raising costs on older Americans.
(The Congressional Budget Office said at the time that the Republican health care bill would have resulted in 23 million people losing insurance, and the legislation would have allowed insurers to charge older people five times as much as younger people.)
Republicans eventually found their footing with the 2017 tax cuts, which slightly lowered individual rates and slashed the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21%. Trump is now arguing that Republicans should cut the corporate tax rate more — to 15% — while also floating a number of other tax policies, like “no tax on tips,” eliminating the state and local tax deduction cap and extending current individual rates.
The conservative Tax Foundation estimates that Trump’s new proposals would cost $3 trillion while only adding 0.8% to the GDP. And the Congressional Research Service estimates that Trump’s 2017 tax cuts only generated 0.3% GDP growth, with the corporate tax cut costing $1.3 trillion in its first decade.
But don’t tell that to Scalise.
“Scorekeepers have always been wrong, and usually way far to the left wrong,” he claimed.
He credited the 2017 tax cuts with “tremendous economic growth,” and said, “most importantly, of all the wage groups that benefited, it was lower- and middle-income groups that benefited the most.”
That’s markedly different from what most researchers say. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities says the top 1% of income earners overwhelmingly benefited from the 2017 tax cuts compared to other earners. In fact, the lowest quintile of earners saw, on average, only $70 more per year in after-tax earnings. The top 1% saw their after-tax incomes go up by 2.9% — on average, $61,090 — while the bottom 60% of income earners saw their incomes go up by 0.9% (less than $1,000).
Either way, Scalise seems intent on passing more tax cuts and disregarding the effect of those tax cuts on the deficit, reasoning that because the government took in more tax revenue the year after the 2017 tax cuts, the policy changes must have paid for themselves.
“When they said it was going to increase the deficit the year after we cut taxes, the federal Treasury took in more money than it’s ever taken in before because the economy grew,” Scalise said.
For now, Scalise is focused on making sure Trump and other Republicans win. When asked about a potential leadership challenge from another Republican — like Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan — Scalise dismissed the threats.
“I’m focused on helping elect more Republicans, making sure that our incumbents can all come back,” he said.
“That’s been my focus, and frankly, I think it’s the focus of most of our members, not what title they want and who they’re going to run against,” Scalise told NOTUS.
Asked about concerns about his health — Scalise was diagnosed with a form of blood cancer last year — he said he has “never been healthier.”
“Anybody who has a concern, come and spend a couple days on the road with me. I don’t think they’d last two days at my pace,” he said.
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Reese Gorman is a reporter at NOTUS.