WASHINGTON 鈥 A tax break for millionaires, and almost everyone else.
An end to the COVID-19-era government subsidies that some Americans have used to purchase health insurance.
Limits to food stamps, including for women and children, and other safety net programs. Rollbacks to Biden-era green energy programs. Mass deportations. Government job cuts to 鈥渄rain the swamp.鈥
President-elect Donald Trump addresses the House GOP conference Nov. 13 in Washington. From left are Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., Rep. Richard Hudson, R-N.C., Rep. Steve Scalise, R-La., and Rep. Tom Emmer, R-Minn.聽
Having won the election and sweeping to power, Republicans are planning an ambitious 100-day agenda with President-elect Donald Trump in the White House and GOP lawmakers in a congressional majority to accomplish their policy goals.
Atop the list is the plan to renew some $4 trillion in expiring GOP tax cuts, a signature domestic achievement of Trump鈥檚 first term and an issue that may define his return to the White House.
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鈥淲hat we鈥檙e focused on right now is being ready, Day 1,鈥 said House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., after meeting recently with GOP colleagues to map out the road ahead.
The policies emerging will revive long-running debates about America鈥檚 priorities, its gaping income inequities and the proper size and scope of its government, especially in the face of mounting federal deficits now approaching $2 trillion a year.
Rep. Steve Scalise, R-La., is seated before President-elect Donald Trump arrives at a meeting of the House GOP conference Nov. 13 in Washington.
The discussions will test whether Trump and his Republican allies can achieve the kinds of real-world outcomes wanted, needed or supported when voters gave the party control of Congress and the White House.
鈥淭he past is really prologue here,鈥 said Lindsay Owens, executive director of the Groundwork Collaborative, recalling the 2017 tax debate.
Trump鈥檚 first term became defined by those tax cuts, which were approved by Republicans in Congress and signed into law only after their initial campaign promise to 鈥渞epeal and replace鈥 Democratic President Barack Obama鈥檚 health care law sputtered, failing with the famous thumbs-down vote by then-Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.
The GOP majority in Congress quickly pivoted to tax cuts, assembling and approving the multitrillion-dollar package by year鈥檚 end.
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., center, speaks as House Majority Whip Tom Emmer, R-Minn., left, and Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., right, listen during a news conference on the steps of the U.S. Capitol on Nov. 12 in Washington.
In the time since Trump signed those cuts into law, the big benefits have accrued to higher-income households. The top 1 percent 鈥 those making nearly $1 million and above 鈥 received about a $60,000 income tax cut, while those with lower incomes got as little as a few hundred dollars, according to the Tax Policy Center and other groups. Some people ended up paying about the same.
鈥淭he big economic story in the U.S. is soaring income inequality,鈥 said Owens. 鈥淎nd that is actually, interestingly, a tax story.鈥
In preparation for Trump鈥檚 return, Republicans in Congress have been meeting privately for months and with the president-elect to go over proposals to extend and enhance those tax breaks, some of which would otherwise expire in 2025.
That means keeping in place various tax brackets and a standardized deduction for individual earners, along with the existing rates for so-called pass-through entities such as law firms, doctors鈥 offices or businesses that take their earnings as individual income.
Typically, the price tag for the tax cuts would be prohibitive. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that keeping the expiring provisions in place would add some $4 trillion to deficits over a decade.
Adding to that, Trump wants to include his own priorities in the tax package, including lowering the corporate rate, now at 21% from the 2017 law, to 15%, and doing away with individual taxes on tips and overtime pay.
But Avik Roy, president of the Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity, said blaming the tax cuts for the nation鈥檚 income inequality is 鈥渏ust nonsense鈥 because tax filers up and down the income ladder benefited. He instead points to other factors, including the Federal Reserve鈥檚 historically low interest rates that enable borrowing, including for the wealthy, on the cheap.
鈥淎mericans don鈥檛 care if Elon Musk is rich,鈥 Roy said. 鈥淲hat they care about is, what are you doing to make their lives better?鈥
Typically, lawmakers want the cost of a policy change to be offset by budget revenue or reductions elsewhere. But in this case, there鈥檚 almost no agreed-upon revenue raisers or spending cuts in the annual $6 trillion budget that could cover such a whopping price tag.
Instead, some Republicans have argued that the tax breaks will pay for themselves, with the trickle-down revenue from potential economic growth. Trump鈥檚 tariffs floated this past week could provide another source of offsetting revenue.
Some Republicans argue there鈥檚 precedent for simply extending the tax cuts without offsetting the costs because they are not new changes but existing federal policy.
鈥淚f you鈥檙e just extending current law, we鈥檙e not raising taxes or lowering taxes,鈥 said Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, the incoming chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, on Fox News.
He said the criticism that tax cuts would add to the deficit is 鈥渞idiculous.鈥 There is a difference between taxes and spending, he said, 鈥渁nd we just have to get that message out to America.鈥
The four federal gun violence prevention efforts Trump could dismantle
The four federal gun violence prevention efforts Trump could dismantle
The 2024 presidential candidates couldn't have been further apart on gun policy. Vice President Kamala Harris universal background checks and an assault weapons ban, while former President Donald Trump favors loosening concealed carry laws nationwide.
Though neither platform is likely to clear Congress, Trump's victory could give him the power to dismantle three years of gun violence prevention measures enacted under President Joe Biden, who has arguably done more to try to stem gun violence than any president in decades.
"In my second term, we will roll back every Biden attack on the Second Amendment鈥攖he attacks are fast and furious鈥攕tarting the minute that Crooked Joe shuffles his way out of the White House," Trump told National Rifle Association members gathered for a convention in Dallas in May.聽
shares a look at the Biden-era policies most likely to be on the chopping block. Trump's campaign did not respond to requests for comment.
Sacking ATF Director Steve Dettelbach
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, or ATF鈥攖he lead law enforcement agency charged with regulating the gun industry鈥攏ever had a permanent director under Trump when he was president. In July 2022, former federal prosecutor Steven Dettelbach became the first Senate-confirmed director of the agency in more than seven years. Trump has vowed to remove him.
"At noon on Inauguration Day, we will sack the anti-gun fanatic Steve Dettelbach," Trump told the NRA in May. "Have you ever heard of him? He's a disaster."
Since taking office, Dettelbach has increased oversight of the firearms industry, much of it at Biden's direction. In 2021, Biden ordered the agency to implement a zero tolerance policy toward gun dealers who willfully sell to prohibited purchasers or fail to conduct background checks. The policy resulted in the ATF in 2024 than in any year over at least the past two decades.
Biden also ordered the ATF to issue annual reports on gun trafficking, something it hadn't done in two decades. The agency has since released three, with a fourth volume expected by the end of Biden's term.
"I don't think we will see that under a Trump administration, and that will make it really hard for researchers and law enforcement to understand how guns are moving and trafficking and which policies are best," said Nick Wilson, the senior director of gun violence prevention at the Center for American Progress Action Fund, a progressive think tank.
The White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention
Biden the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention last year to coordinate federal efforts for a more approach to the issue. While the office doesn't make gun laws, or even enforce them, it serves as a clearinghouse for the administration's messaging and policymaking on gun violence.聽
The office a resource center to help states implement red flag laws, which temporarily disarm people deemed to be a danger to themselves or others. It has also regularly met with survivors, supported communities affected by mass shootings, and helped carry out Biden's executive orders (more on those below).
Before Biden even took office, gun reform advocates the office's creation as a visible symbol of the federal government's commitment to addressing the crisis. Now, they fully expect the office鈥攃urrently overseen by Harris鈥攖o be shuttered as soon as Trump takes office.聽
With Trump reelected, "There's no more White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention," said Adzi Vokhiwa, vice president of policy at the Community Justice Action Fund, a gun violence prevention group. "I think all of that goes away."
Democrats on Capitol Hill, including Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut and Rep. Maxwell Frost of Florida, introduced bills to make the office permanent, but the legislation stalled in a narrowly divided Senate and Republican-controlled House.聽
That likely means the office will be gone "on Day One" of the second Trump presidency, Murphy told The Trace. "The progress we've made has saved lives, but it has also given a lot of victims' families the sense that their advocacy means something," he said. "They're going to be talking to a brick wall if Trump is in the White House, and to the extent anybody in the White House talks to them, it'll just be for show."
Should Trump decide to keep the office, it would be at his whim鈥攑ossibly refashioned as a repository for pro-gun policies or, as some gun rights advocates , an outfit to push Second Amendment expansion.
"The obvious choice is for the Trump administration to completely dismantle it," said Devin Hughes, founder of the gun violence research outfit GVPedia.
"More likely, however, they will use the office as a platform to spread disinformation on gun violence that is favorable to the gun lobby, with someone like John Lott at its head," Hughes said, referencing the and Trump administration alum whose skewed crime statistics are touted by Republican lawmakers and the gun lobby.
The Bipartisan Safer Communities Act
Passed in 2022 in the wake of mass shootings in Uvalde, Texas, and Buffalo, New York, the BSCA was the first significant gun reform law in nearly three decades, receiving bipartisan support in the Senate. It has since become a target.
Fully repealing the law would require an unlikely 60 votes in the Senate and a Republican majority in the House, but Trump plans to unwind as much of it as he can via executive action, a gun-friendly attorney general, and a revamped ATF that favors gun rights over gun regulation.
"President Trump will appoint an ATF director who will review these extremely burdensome regulations that make Americans less safe," an unnamed representative of the Trump campaign the NRA's America's First Freedom magazine in October, calling it "unfortunate" that Biden signed the law.
Gun Dealers and Background Checks
A prime target appears to be a provision of the law that clarifies when a gun seller must obtain a federal license. The change aimed to reduce the number of gun dealers avoiding licensure so they would not have to keep records or conduct background checks on their customers. The seemingly small shift had a notable effect: Within a year, prosecutions for unlicensed dealing by 52%.聽
"The reason that the Biden administration is pushing these rules is to make sure that their national gun registry, which President Trump will also undo, will be able to track more people who own guns," the Trump campaign told the NRA's magazine. (Neither the BSCA nor any of Biden's executive actions create a national gun registry, which is by a 1986 federal law, but the NRA and gun rights advocates liken expanded background checks to a backdoor gun registry.)
Some Republicans may support such a move by Trump. That includes Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, who was the lead GOP negotiator on the BSCA. Cornyn has faced criticism from gun rights proponents for supporting the bill and was at the 2022 Texas Republican Party's state convention after Biden signed it.
A spokesperson for Cornyn pointed to a letter to the editor the senator criticizing the ATF's interpretation of the law: "I stand by the reforms in the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, but I reject the Biden administration's unconstitutional attempt to exploit this law in order to implement its radical gun control agenda counter to the will of Congress and the people who elected us."
Vokhiwa, who oversees federal and state policy efforts at Community Justice, said the ATF's regulatory change was legally justifiable. Still, at least three lawsuits are challenging it.
"They're defensible," she said. "But I think that a Trump administration would just choose to not defend them, and not defend the actions of anything that was done under the Biden-Harris administration. That would really be dangerous for public safety. It would undermine ATF efforts to slow down trafficking of firearms."
Trump or a Republican-controlled House could also hamper enforcement by cutting ATF staffing or reducing funding, which has long been sought by Republicans in Congress. "If they fire all the licensing inspectors, then it's going to be very hard to enforce the rule," Wilson said.
Funding for Gun Violence Prevention
The BSCA also set aside more than in funding to support state crisis interventions like red flag , community-based violence intervention programs, school safety, and mental health services.
Congress funded the BSCA through 2026, but a Trump administration could alter grant programs to favor other crisis interventions over red flag laws or try to shift money from community-based programs to law enforcement initiatives.
"It matters who is in these positions within the different parts of the executive branch who're actually responsible for reviewing applications and directing funding," Vokhiwa said.
Trump's campaign told the NRA's magazine that he plans to appoint a pro-gun attorney general鈥攔esponsible for overseeing much of the funding鈥"who will stop the weaponization of government against lawful gun ownership and who will prioritize traditional law enforcement by catching and punishing criminals."
Murphy, who was the lead Democratic negotiator of the BSCA and helped shepherd it through the Senate, said he believes Trump would try to roll back as much of the law as he can.
"You have to open up your imagination about what a second Trump presidency is going to look like," Murphy said. "This isn't going to be normal. You may see him outright refuse to implement laws he doesn't like, like the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, and potentially short-circuit Congress and try to impose certain gun industry priorities on the country without going through the legislative process."
Federal law prevents funding from being shifted to other purposes, but Trump could simply refuse to distribute the funds. Trump repeatedly he would violate the federal Impoundment Control Act, which limits the president's ability to unilaterally refuse or redirect congressional spending.聽
There is also a mechanism for Congress to cancel spending at the president's request, said Wilson, of the Center for American Progress Action Fund. "Trump could send a message to Congress saying, 'The NRA told me that they don't want this money going to the community.' That triggers a bill that could be voted on. And it's filibuster-proof, so Congress would only need a simple majority to rescind the money."
Biden's Executive Orders
Biden has announced more than 50 executive actions on gun violence since he took office in January 2021, most of which could be easily rescinded or ignored under a Trump administration.
"I take Trump at his word: He said he's going to roll back all the progress we made on guns under President Biden," Murphy said. "And I believe him. I think he'll do whatever the gun lobby tells him to do."
In one of his first executive orders, Biden the ATF to issue regulations on ghost guns and other unserialized firearms, requiring buyers to undergo background checks. The new rules are currently before the Supreme Court, which likely to uphold them.聽
Biden also directed the agency to propose a rule for regulating so-called stabilizing braces, which effectively convert AR-15-style pistols into more accurate short-barreled rifles while being more concealable and maneuverable than their full-length counterparts. The devices were in mass shootings at a supermarket in ; outside a bar in ; and at a private school in . The regulation鈥攚hich owners to register brace-equipped guns as short-barrelled rifles under the National Firearms Act鈥攖ook effect in 2023, but has faced court challenges.
The Biden administration's other actions have included encouraging safer gun storage, declaring gun violence a , restricting exports of firearms abroad, and to target and 3D-printed firearms.聽
Gun violence prevention advocates believe most of that work will be rescinded or halted.
"The bottom line is a Trump administration would be devastating for public safety," Vokhiwa said. "It would walk back the progress that we've seen over the last several years, and frankly, it will cost us lives. It would be really devastating, particularly for Black and brown communities that are most impacted by this issue."
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