With help from Daniel Lippman SCALISE, BRADY PREVIEW TAX PUSH FOR K STREET: House Majority Leader Steve Scalise worked to rally the business community today ahead of Republicans’ push to extend key provisions of the party’s 2017 tax overhaul before they expire at the end of next year. — In a panel discussion hosted by the Business Roundtable and the American Petroleum Institute, Scalise and former Rep. Kevin Brady (R-Texas) urged corporate America to be vocal about the “tangible benefits” that resulted from the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. Brady, who was one of the authors of the 2017 law (and Scalise’s former roommate), now works at Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld and serves as the face of the business tax coalition Alliance for Competitive Taxation. — “Let us and the country know what you did with the better tax code,” Scalise implored attendees, which included lobbyists from some of the country’s largest companies. “Share that with us, because those are the real stories that I can get all the members in all those congressional districts across the country to just go remind their voters.” — “It helps us to go renew this bill,” the majority leader added, in part giving the GOP ammo to push back on what he said were false narratives peddled by Democrats and the press about the tax law’s benefits for the wealthy. “Now we’re not just saying what it might do. I know what you did, because a lot of you told your story.” — Brady was the first to broach one major elephant in the room. “Clearly, tensions are higher between corporate America and Republicans these days,” he conceded. As a result, Brady said it will be “absolutely crucial” for businesses to lay out how “all those provisions that incentivized the business community ended up helping” workers and small businesses. — “We didn’t lower taxes for corporations. We lower taxes on corporations to drive that paycheck growth, the new jobs, the opportunities to lower poverty,” Brady argued, a message he said needs to be shared with the dozens of lawmakers who arrived in Congress after the tax code revamp, when “the problem was solved.” — Scalise offered scarce details on the logistics for a tax bill next year, pledging the conference will get it done regardless of whether the GOP decides to break their priorities into two reconciliation packages — one for items like border security and energy, and another for tax, as Senate leaders are pushing for — or lump it all into one vehicle, as top House tax writer Jason Smith (R-Mo.) has called for. — “Obviously, we’re still working through that,” Scalise said of the party’s reconciliation strategy. Still, he stressed that House Republicans have no margin for error due to their razor-thin majority and added that passing a budget resolution with his conference — a prerequisite for each reconciliation package — “is tough.” — But Scalise urged the business community to remain unified rather than get bogged down in the minutiae of an eventual bill at the expense of letting tax cuts lapse. “We cannot let it be taken away, which it will if we just sit around and do nothing,” he said. Happy Tuesday and welcome to PI. Send K Street tips, gossip, gripes and more: coprysko@politico.com. And be sure to follow me on X: @caitlinoprysko. KEEPING THEIR POWDER DRY: “The pharmaceutical industry is not lobbying senators to stop the confirmation of long-time critic Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to the top health care role in the Trump administration,” per Stat News’ Rachel Cohrs Zhang and John Wilkerson. — Trump’s pick for HHS secretary has “accused drugmakers of masterminding ‘mass poisoning’ of Americans to make them sicker for profit, of spending vast sums of money to control regulatory agencies and media organizations, and of conspiring with federal agencies to undermine alternative treatments for Covid-19.” — “He threatened to ‘prosecute and jail the perpetrators’ of ‘pharma corruption,’ specifically pointing to Pfizer. He claimed President Trump engaged in ‘legalized bribery’ tied to the pharma industry during his first presidency and appointed ‘pharma shills high in his administration.’” — “But his rhetoric has not yet compelled drugmakers to try to convince senators to oppose his confirmation. Twelve lobbyists, consultants, Senate aides, and a patient advocate described silence from industry about a month ahead of when confirmation hearings could begin. It’s a signal that after a bruising four years under the Biden administration … drugmakers are seeking to turn a new leaf in a new administration.” COMING ATTRACTIONS: “Companies across the country are continuing to reassess and scale back sustainability and diversity initiatives in moves that might have as much to do with bottom-line concerns as with the anticipation of increased hostility under a Republican trifecta in Washington,” per our Jordan Wolman. — “Goldman Sachs Group’s move last week to withdraw from the Net-Zero Banking Alliance was just the latest in a series of shifts highlighted by Walmart’s announcement last month that it would begin curbing its diversity policies in the face of pressure from a conservative activist.” — “These walkbacks from programs that major corporations embraced only a few years ago certainly have something to do with the attacks from the right that have thrust corporate policies into the political spotlight. But they also underscore the struggles that businesses have faced in trying to make the economic case for environmental, social and governance principles, and diversity, equity and inclusion programs.” — “Beneath the politicized surface lie legitimate questions about companies’ ability to articulate clear financial justification for such programs — and whether they might be better off without them.”
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