“Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told US lawmakers that his department’s ability to use special accounting maneuvers to stay within the federal debt limit could be exhausted in August,” Bloomberg reports.

“President Donald Trump’s last-minute push to raise taxes on the wealthiest Americans is running into a buzz saw of opposition in the Republican Party, where such proposals have long been anathema,” NBC News reports.

“At least 44 of the government contracts canceled on the orders of Elon Musk’s cost-cutting initiative have been resurrected by federal agencies, wiping out more than $220 million of his group’s purported savings,” according to a New York Times analysis of federal spending data.

“Republicans are split sharply over whether and how to repeal hundreds of billions of dollars in clean-energy tax breaks that Democrats created, marking one of the knottiest unresolved fights over what to put in President Trump’s tax and spending agenda,” the New York Times reports.

“Public and private estimates suggest the IRA’s tax breaks will far exceed the initial estimate of $271 billion over a decade. That indicates the credits’ popularity—and the opportunity to curtail them. The more IRA incentives that Republicans repeal, the more money they generate to pay for extending Trump’s expiring tax cuts and implementing his other priorities.”

“But pulling the plug is proving difficult. The breaks generate jobs and investment, particularly in rural Republican regions where it is easier to locate wind turbines, solar farms and factories. Republicans are sensitive to the argument that businesses shouldn’t be punished for making investments based on existing law.”

“Thirty-four House Republicans – including four committee chairs and a member of the GOP leadership – wrote a letter to House Ways and Means Committee Chair Jason Smith (R-MO), pleading with him not to close the so-called carried interest loophole,” Punchbowl News reports.