Key House Republican takes swipe at GOP budget chair as disloyal to Trump

Matthew Chapman

Feb. 11, 2025, 9:33 p.m.

House Ways and Means Chair Jason Smith (R-MO) lashed out at House Budget Chair Jodey Arrington (R-TX) as the negotiations for President Donald Trump's agenda continue, accusing Arrington and other deficit hawks of being disloyal to the president.

The two lawmakers are in charge of committees that are key to financial issues in Congress.

According to Politico, House Republicans "had tentatively settled on a plan last week to instruct the Ways and Means Committee to not increase deficits by more than $4.7 trillion to accommodate the cuts" — but a newly revised plan circulated at the start of this week "was expected to contain an even lower number to appease deficit hawks, including Arrington. That would leave barely any wiggle room for Smith to extend the 2017 tax cuts that are set to expire at the end of the year — much less Trump's plan to end taxes on tips, overtime pay and other things."

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Smith is losing his patience over the matter, lashing out at Arrington on record with Politico.

“Let me just say that a 10-year extension of President Trump’s expiring provisions is over $4.7 trillion, according to [the Congressional Budget Office]. Anything less would be saying that President Trump is wrong on tax policy.”

This flap is far from the only roadblock to getting Trump's tax, border, and energy policies passed. A fundamental disagreement remains between the House and the Senate, where House lawmakers, along with Trump, want to pass everything together in a single reconciliation package to craft a grand bargain with the deficit hawks, and Senate lawmakers prefer splitting off the tax legislation into a second bill to increase the likelihood of its passage.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) has for weeks been in talks with members of the House Freedom Caucus to try to sell them on the two-bill strategy. But this week, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) put his foot down and insisted on moving forward with one bill.