I spoke to Sahil Kapur, Scott Wong and Kyle Stewart for NBC News on SALT tax deduction.

Democrats are guaranteed to attack SALT limits imposed by Republicans as an attempt to raise taxes on residents of blue states, which hold enough swing districts to decide control of the House.
“I don’t think there’s any magic number where it’s not a fertile attack line for Democrats, so at a certain point SALT members just have to take yes for an answer,” said Liam Donovan, a lobbyist and former GOP aide, who said the cap is likely to end up above $10,000 but well short of the $100,000 pro-SALT members appear to want.
“To me, the best way to indemnify yourself politically is to make the number as big as possible but with an income phase-out,” he said. “Hard to attack Republicans if you can’t claim it hurts middle class families. The poster child is ostensibly the cop or firefighter who has a big property tax bill, which is a relatively cheap and easy problem to fix.”

Read the full piece here.

Erin Schilling and Chris Cioffi quoted me in Bloomberg Tax on how defenders of the Inflation Reduction Act’s energy credits are making a jobs argument while avoiding the word “solar.”

Lobbyists are doing a full-court press to save those investments and jobs. If industries and companies don’t have a champion willing to speak up for their preferred tax credit as the Republican’s forthcoming tax and spending bill gets drafted, they risk being at the mercy of the process, Bracewell’s Liam Donovan told Bloomberg Law.
“With these slim margins [in Congress], one determined member makes all the difference, and leadership will be trying to navigate the path of least resistance,” said Donovan.

Read the full piece here.

I spoke to Grace Segers for The New Republic on McConnell’s legacy and Trump.

“This is not the conference that he took over, but it’s the one he built,” said Republican strategist Liam Donovan.
There was a brief period of time in which McConnell’s methodical, ruthless political style imbued him with a sort of “folk heroism” among Republicans, said Donovan. McConnell’s willingness to block Obama’s agenda—as well as his Supreme Court nominee—and his efforts in pushing through Trump’s judicial nominees cemented his reputation as a political fighter. McConnell also helped push through the massive tax cuts that became one of Trump’s major legislative achievements in 2017.
“I think [Trump’s] greatest successes ironically occurred when he and McConnell were working together in a sort of transactional way, both on the political side and on the legislative side,” said Donovan.

Read the full piece here.

I spoke to NPR’s Barbara Sprunt for an explainer on how reconciliation works and why it is the key to Trump’s agenda.

“It’s nice to have the Senate majority, and you get pretty titles and gavels, and you can nominally control the floor, but as Schoolhouse Rock! would tell us, unless you have 60 votes for most things, you can’t move forward,” said Liam Donovan, a political strategist.
“It’s become the preferred tool over the past 25 years in this modern, partisan political era,” said Donovan.
“The amendments that happen in the final legislative package are really important — you’re playing with live ammunition when you’re on that final stage of reconciliation,” said Donovan.

Listen to the full interview here.

Sean Craig picked up my comments in The Daily Beast on the behind-the-scenes House GOP fight over the Trump tax cuts.

However, that would leave Republicans without the necessary wiggle room to implement any of Trump’s tax policies apart from the extension of the tax cuts from his first administration.
“There will absolutely have to be trade-offs,” Republican strategist Liam Donovan told Politico. “You simply can’t fit it all into that.”

Read the full piece here.