Trump needs to start fighting hard for his tax cuts, or that Golden Age is a goner
By Post Editorial Board
Published March 29, 2025, 3:23 p.m. ET
House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune are pushing hard to get that “big, beautiful bill” onto President Donald Trump’s desk by the end of April — but they’re going to need him to start leading big-time to get it done.
Elements of the bill include 1) renewing and extending the 2017 tax cuts, 2) raising the federal debt limit, 3) boosting spending on Trump priorities like border security and 4) cutting billions in spending over the next decade.
Any one of those is a heavy lift when Republicans have a beyond-narrow majority in the House, and limited ways of end-running the Senate filibuster at a time when Democrats’ base is pushing to immolate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer for “helping Trump” by preventing a government shutdown the other week.
Plus, various rules — for “scoring” tax cuts and spending hikes; for what’s allowed in “reconciliation” measures that can end-run the filibuster, and so on — turning the already-complex process of passing any major bill into something like an Escher blueprint of a Rube Goldberg machine for the legislative sausage factory.
And Thune and Johnson must each herd their own very different packs of cats through the maze.
Just one example: To keep the House Freedom Caucus on board, Johnson’s looking at a plan that cuts far more future federal spending that what Thune’s senators prefer.
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https://nypost.com/2025/03/29/opinion/trump-needs-to-start-fighting-hard-for-his-tax-cuts-or-that-golden-age-is-a-goner/
