It’s shaping up to be an enormously consequential week for President Donald Trump’s legislative agenda, and there’s one lawmaker at the center of it all: Senate Finance Chair Mike Crapo.
The Idaho Republican has a mammoth to-do list this week, which includes resolving make-or-break fights over tax policy, Medicaid cuts and clean energy credits. (POLITICO Pro readers got our deeper dive first Sunday.)
The soft-spoken Crapo has been stealthily working to coordinate changes to the “big, beautiful” bill. It’s looking like he won’t release his committee’s piece of the package until next week, with several outstanding policy issues unresolved. Senate Finance is expected to begin going through bill text with members and staff beginning Monday, and Crapo is expected to brief the broader Senate Republican conference mid-week.
“We’re working as aggressively as we can to move as fast as we can,” Crapo says.
Crapo’s leaning on a cadre of trusted advisers. Finance staff director Gregg Richard, chief tax counsel Courtney Connell and deputy chief tax counsel Randy Herndon are among his critical staff on the bill.
Crapo is known for his spare words but also for his history of landing deals. One of his biggest wins was the 2018 law that eased the Dodd-Frank banking law — an effort that required bringing along Democrats to help serve up a Trump administration victory.
He also flexed as a deal killer last year, blocking a tax revamp negotiated by House Ways and Means Chair Jason Smith (R-Mo.) and then-Senate Finance Chair Ron Wyden (D-Ore.).
Last year’s clash soured the relationship between Crapo and Smith, yet the two have found a way to work together to deliver Trump’s latest round of tax cuts.
“We’ve been communicating very closely so we each know what the other is thinking,” Crapo says.
Now Crapo faces his biggest test yet as he tries to resolve Senate clashes over razor’s-edge deals that Smith and other top House Republicans struck to pass their version of the bill. Some of those conflicts are within Senate Finance itself, with Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) pushing for changes to “no tax on tips” and Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) wanting to scale back planned endowment taxes on private universities.
Crapo’s personal priority? He is the leading advocate for using a legislative accounting method known as current policy baseline that would treat the extension of Trump’s 2017 tax cuts as costing nothing. This is a big flash point between him and fiscal hard-liners.
If he succeeds in the Senate, Crapo’s compromise will have to survive the House. Some top House Republicans are urging him to go easy on them.
“Mike Crapo is a brilliant senator and he’s instrumental on the tax stuff and everything else. You got to respect his opinion,” Majority Whip Tom Emmer told POLITICO. “But at the end of the day, I hope they leave it right where it’s at.”
What else we’re watching:
— More megabill text this week: The Senate HELP and Energy committees are expected to release their text on Tuesday; Agriculture on Wednesday; and Homeland Security and Judiciary on Thursday, according to our latest intel. Agriculture text though may slide to later this week or possibly into next week as several governors are now raising concerns about plans for federal food aid.
— How lawmakers respond to immigration clashes: Congressional Hispanic Caucus members held an emergency meeting late Sunday after Trump mobilized the National Guard to respond to confrontations between law enforcement and protesters in Southern California over federal immigration policy. Sen. Lindsey Graham is among the GOP lawmakers using the clashes to call for passing the megabill. Look for the issue to come up at Monday’s House Appropriations subcommittee on DHS funding, which includes immigration enforcement.
— Rescissions vote: House GOP leaders are planning to vote Thursday on a rescissions bill that would claw back $9.4 billion in funds Congress has approved for foreign aid and public broadcasting. But there’s a new problem for Speaker Mike Johnson – at least 10 moderate Republicans have privately said they currently oppose the legislation, according to four people with direct knowledge. The bill is scheduled to go to Rules on Tuesday.
Meredith Lee Hill, Katherine Tully-McManus and Nicholas Wu contributed to this report.
