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Republican lawmakers are discussing a new possible sequence of major bills next year — a tax plan first, then a second bill that tackles other policies, Texas Rep. Beth Van Duyne told Semafor’s Elana Schor in an interview Wednesday.
Van Duyne spoke as her party remains in high-stakes talks over how to best enact President-elect Donald Trump’s agenda next year given its small majorities in Congress. Senate Republicans have urged the quick passage of a border bill, followed by a tax bill later in the year, while some House Republicans have called for one bill encompassing all of their priorities.
Van Duyne alluded to discussions on Tuesday night that touched on the possibility of “two bills, but their preference is to have the tax bill first and then followed by getting whatever we can.”
“The concern is that you’re going to run out of time, political capital, and actually willpower to get things done if they’re not done soon enough,” Van Duyne said, pointing to March as a reasonable timetable to finish work on a tax bill.
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Van Duyne pointed to tax cuts as a way to drive economic growth, including reauthorizing President-elect Donald Trump’s 2017 tax bill.
“When businesses are given the ability to be able to take those and then be able to get the tax cuts on them, they’re going to invest more, and that will equal higher economic growth, which equals actually the government collecting more in taxes,” Van Duyne said.
She said Republicans are also mulling whether to eliminate taxes on tips — as Trump had proposed on the campaign trail.
Speaking about Trump’s tariff proposals, Van Duyne described them as a “great negotiating tool” to strike better trade deals with countries like China and Mexico, dismissing concerns that costs could be passed on to consumers.
“These are the same critics who have applauded this previous administration for seeing 20% increase in inflation, where everybody’s gotten nailed in their pocketbooks,” she said.
On Trump’s proposed mass deportations, the Texas congresswoman talked about the upside of partnering federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement authorities with local police — a method she implemented while mayor of Irving, Texas.
“Local law enforcement knows where the crime is,” Van Duyne said, adding that it had proved more cost-effective than having ICE target migrants for deportation alone.