House Ways and Means Chair Jason Smith says he won’t get behind the GOP’s next budget reconciliation bill if tax provisions aren’t included.
“I won’t support it unless tax is in it,” the Missouri Republican said in an interview Tuesday morning — a potential warning to GOP leaders who can’t afford defections given their razor-thin majority.
After House Republicans followed up last summer’s tax and spending megabill with passage of a party-line immigration enforcement package Tuesday night, conversations have turned to what the GOP would put in a third filibuster-skirting reconciliation measure.
House leaders have been meeting with different factions of their conference in recent days and weeks — from moderates to hard-line conservatives — on what they might support. There are talks about cracking down on fraud in health care and other social programs and adding some energy permitting and drilling provisions.
