Accounting
Bessent sets July 4 tax bill goal as economic worries mount
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent set a July 4 goal to pass President Donald Trump’s multitrillion-dollar tax cut package as polling shows that voters largely disapprove of the White House’s handling of the economy.
“We hope that we can have this tax portion done by the Fourth of July,” Bessent said Monday following a meeting with congressional leaders.
The Treasury secretary and National Economic Director Kevin Hassett met with Senate Majority Leader John Thune, House Speaker Mike Johnson and the two tax committee chairmen, Senator Mike Crapo and Representative Jason Smith. Congress returned to Washington on Monday following a two-week break, and the tax bill is the party’s top legislative priority.
Trump has put increasing pressure on Republicans to pass the measure, going so far as to tell Michigan’s Republican lawmakers to stay in Washington rather than join him for a speech Tuesday in the state marking his first 100 days in office. Trump and Johnson also met earlier Monday.
Thune on Monday evening called the Independence Day deadline “aspirational” and said he wasn’t making any commitments regarding timing. He added that he was more concerned about when the debt limit expires later this year. “That is a hard deadline for us,” Thune said.
Bessent’s July 4 timeline puts additional pressure on Republicans to approve a tax bill. Johnson has set an end-of-May goal for the House to pass legislation that includes a renewal of Trump’s first-term cuts and a fresh round of levy reductions, partly paid for by curbing federal spending.
“I believe we can pass it by Memorial Day,” Johnson said Monday evening. He said that Congress could “save Medicaid,” the health care program for the poor and disabled, but that “we have to find the requisite number of savings.”
The Senate isn’t likely to complete work on the measure for months, with party leaders in that chamber having set their sights on a vote by August. Trump’s first-term tax cuts don’t expire until the end of the year.
The push on taxes follows a series of polls that show Americans souring on the president’s handling of pocketbook issues. A CNN poll released Sunday showed that just 39% of Americans approve of how Trump has steered the economy, the lowest of his two terms in the White House. An NBC News poll showed tariffs Trump imposed are also deeply unpopular.
Hassett downplayed the notion that the measure could include a tax increase for millionaires, an idea that had been discussed in some Republican circles. Trump said
Hassett, in response to a question about whether a millionaire tax increase could be included in the bill, said “the president has said it is not.”
Earlier this month, Republicans passed a budget resolution that would allow them to fast-track the tax bill through Congress without needing to make any concessions to attract Democratic votes.
Republicans have already put forward some of the easier pieces of the eventual package, including a $150 billion boost to defense spending and new cuts to federal worker pensions. But GOP lawmakers have yet to make significant progress on the specifics of the legislation, including which tax priorities to include and which health care spending to cut.
Hassett told Fox Business last week that he and Bessent will present a “list of the president’s top priorities to make sure they make it into the bill” during Monday’s meeting.
Earlier Monday, Bessent touted some campaign proposals from Trump specifically calling out “no tax on tips, no tax on Social Security, no tax on overtime and making auto loans deductible.”
After the Treasury secretary met with GOP congressional leaders, he added that he expects the package will have a new tax benefit to write off the cost of building factories in the U.S.
Bessent said tax revenue is up compared to last year, a possible sign that the government won’t hit the legal debt limit until later than anticipated. He said an official estimate of the debt ceiling default date would come later in the week or next week.
The Congressional Budget Office last month had forecast the federal government would likely run out of enough money to pay all its bills by August or September if lawmakers fail to raise or suspend the debt limit. It has said the date could be as soon as May if revenues came up short.
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CrowdStrike Holdings Inc. said U.S. officials have asked for information related to the accounting of deals it’s made with some customers and said the cybersecurity firm is cooperating with the inquiry.
The Austin, Texas-based company said in a filing Wednesday that it has gotten “requests for information” from the U.S. Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission “relating to the company’s recognition of revenue and reporting of ARR for transactions with certain customers.” ARR refers to annual recurring revenue, a measure of earnings from subscriptions.
The company said the federal officials have also sought information related to a CrowdStrike update last year that crashed Windows operating systems around the world.
“The company is cooperating and providing information in response to these requests,” the filing states.
U.S. prosecutors and regulators have been investigating a $32 million deal between CrowdStrike and a technology distributor, Carahsoft Technology Corp., to provide cybersecurity tools to the Internal Revenue Service, Bloomberg News first reported in February. The IRS never purchased or received the products, Bloomberg News
The investigators are probing what senior CrowdStrike executives may have known about the $32 million deal and are examining other transactions made by the cybersecurity firm, Bloomberg News
Asked for comment about the filing, CrowdStrike spokesperson Brian Merrill said, “As we have told Bloomberg repeatedly, this is old news and we stand by the accounting of the transaction.”
A lawyer for Carahsoft previously declined to comment on the federal investigations, and representatives didn’t respond to subsequent requests for comment about them.
Tech titan Elon Musk ratcheted up his offensive against Donald Trump’s signature tax bill on Wednesday, urging that Americans contact their lawmakers to “KILL” the legislation.
“Call your Senator, Call your Congressman,” Musk wrote in a
The post came one day after Musk lashed out at the tax bill, describing it as a budget-busting “disgusting abomination” as Republican fiscal hawks stepped up criticism of the massive fiscal package.
Trump hasn’t publicly responded to Musk’s comments, but the White House put out a statement Wednesday saying the legislation “unleashes an era of unprecedented economic growth.”
And House Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters that Musk is “dead wrong” about the bill and that the tax cuts will pay for themselves through economic growth.
Musk’s public condemnation pits him against the president at a critical time as Trump is personally lobbying holdouts on the bill. His campaign against the legislation threatens to stiffen resistance and delay enactment of the tax cuts and debt ceiling increase.
Musk has attacked the legislation days after leaving a temporary assignment leading the administration’s Department of Government Efficiency initiative to cut federal spending. The Tesla Inc. chief executive officer’s high-profile role in the Trump administration eroded his business brand and sales of his company’s electric vehicles plunged.
The House-passed version of the tax and spending bill would add $2.4 trillion to U.S. budget deficits over the next decade, according to an
The CBO’s calculation reflects a $3.67 trillion decrease in expected revenues and a $1.25 trillion decline in spending over the decade through 2034, relative to baseline projections. The score doesn’t account for any potential boost to the economy from the bill, which Johnson and Trump argue would offset the revenue losses.
Musk, the world’s richest man with a net worth of about $377 billion according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, has become a crucial financial backer of the Republican party. After making modest donations most years, Musk became the biggest U.S. political donor in 2024, giving more than $290 million.
Johnson said Musk had promised to help reelect Republicans just a day before savaging Trump’s bill. Musk did not respond to a request for comment.
Most of Musk’s giving was aimed at electing Trump but he also supported congressional candidates. America PAC, the super political action committee that Musk largely funded, spent $18.5 million in 17 separate House races. Though that total pales in comparison to the roughly $255 million he spent backing Trump, the spending means a lot in a congressional election, where challengers on average raise less than $1 million.
Control of the House will likely be decided by the outcome of fewer than two dozen close races in the 2026 midterm elections. The GOP’s chances of holding their majority would suffer a major blow if Musk were to withdraw his financial support.
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