Republican sweep means popular tax policies for NAILBA 43 attendees

WASHINGTON, D.C.– The return of Donald Trump and an election not yet two weeks old served as talking points for future tax policy Monday as NAILBA gave members a happy political update.

Jen Fox, vice president, federal affairs for Finseca, declared the Democratic agenda "basically dead" and welcomed Josh Holmes, longtime lieutenant for Senate leader Mitch McConnell.

John Michael Gonzalez, partner with The Tiber Creek Group represented the Democratic Party on stage for the NAILBA 43 Washington Report. Gonzalez, former chief of staff for two moderate House Democrats and transition official for then President-elect Barack Obama, announced the acquisition of a "therapy puppy" since the Nov. 5 election results.

With Republicans taking back the Senate and probably the House of Representatives, the runway is clear for Trump to extend his signature Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. Signed into law in 2017, the TCJA was the most significant tax reform in a generation.

But most of the tax cuts came with deadlines.

Congress chose to make the individual provisions temporary to limit the 10-year revenue cost of the TCJA to the amount authorized in the Congressional Budget Resolution ($1.5 trillion), the Tax Policy Center explained, and to comply with Senate budget rules under the process used to pass the tax act and bypass the Senate filibuster, that required no increase in the federal budget deficit after the tenth year.

Holmes predicted "a much more cohesive Republican conference" but said the party cannot lose too many House members if it expects a tax bill to pass.

"It's going to be very slim," he said. "When you deal with something like taxes, there's a bunch of constituencies out there where somebody's going to have something that they're going to pursue. So, it makes every vote, every single member of Congress, extremely important."

Crazy over preachy

Reflecting on the stunning election results – Trump is the first Republican candidate for president to win the popular vote since George W. Bush in 2004 – a somber Gonzalez said Democrats leaned too far into arrogance.

Many voters were left feeling they must be a racist or a bigot if they supported Trump, he said. They didn't like it.

"I saw a CNN focus group, [and] a woman anguished that she was voting for Donald Trump," Gonzalez recounted. "She said for her, the choice was between crazy and preachy, and she's nervous about crazy, but crazy doesn't talk down to her, and preachy does."

For Trump opponents nervous about democracy and what Trump might do, Holmes said he isn't worried.

"What I urge people to do is listen a little bit less to the hyperbole," Homes said. "Like today it comes out that he's going to mobilize the military and do all these things [to deport immigrants]. What it actually probably looks like is a lot like [what] Barack Obama did for four years in the middle of his administration, when he deported more illegal immigrants than any president in American history."

During his long career in Congress, Gonzalez played a key role in major legislation such as the CHIPS and Science Act, the Inflation Reduction Act, Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform, and the Affordable Care Act.

The midterm elections are up next for downtrodden Democrats, but Gonzalez sounded a realist note on the future of his party.

"The Senate, I think, is gone for a while now," he said. "I mean, we're never going to get Montana back. We're never going to get West Virginia back. I'll be retired before Ohio is back in play. So, it's really the House and ... thanks to what Donald Trump is doing right now [nominating House members for cabinet positions] the margins are getting smaller and smaller, and I think there's a much better chance of picking up the House in two years than this last time."

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