DORAL, Fla. — House Republicans wrapped up a day filled with back-to-back meetings at their annual issues retreat on Tuesday as party leaders continue hammering out details for the Trump administration-backed massive spending package over the next few weeks.
House GOP leadership has hosted similar information sessions over the last two months to educate lawmakers on budget reconciliation, a rare procedural tool that Republicans will use to advance President Donald Trump’s agenda without needing Democratic support. Republican leaders have also met with individual members to assuage concerns and offer opportunities for lawmakers to pitch their own policy proposals to be included in the package.
“They’ve really been open about it,” Rep. Celeste Maloy, R-Utah, told the Deseret News on the sidelines of meetings at the Trump National Doral resort. “Leadership has provided a lot of opportunities to go talk to them about what we need to see in the bill (and) what things we would not like to see in the bill.”
Utah’s Rep. Blake Moore, who serves in leadership and sits on the House Ways and Means Committee, has been heavily involved with those conversations, telling the Deseret News his biggest concern is “to get this thing done” regardless of what it takes.
“My biggest concern is broad perspective, get our conference on board, to get a path forward,” Moore said. “I’ll sacrifice anything so we don’t raise taxes on virtually every single American. That’s what’s at stake here if we let this thing expire,” he said, referring to the tax cuts in Trump’s 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, portions of which are set to lapse at the end of 2025.
There are several ideas on the table being considered, but GOP leaders have not yet finalized budget reconciliation instructions, which set the top-line number for tax and spending levels that are used to craft the legislation. Once that is settled and passed by the House and Senate, individual committees will get to work to craft a massive package that will then be voted on by both chambers, which party leaders hope to complete by the beginning of April.
Utah lawmakers say they have been working closely with their committees to advance key policies that would directly benefit the Beehive State, ranging from tax reform to energy policy.
Here’s a breakdown of what Utah Republicans are pushing to include in the package:
Child tax credit increase
One of the top priorities being pushed by Moore is major tax reforms for parents and pregnant women.
Moore introduced the Family First Act earlier this month that would increase the child tax credit, provide tax relief for parents with young children, and create a new tax credit for pregnant mothers — a proposal that builds on current law passed in 2017.
“We want to make sure that we incorporate as much of our bill as we possibly can. We know we’re not going to get all of it, but we need to be thinking more … sort of pro-family,” said Moore, who serves in GOP leadership as the party conference’s vice chair. “Antiquated tax policy needs to be slashed and consolidated into a more open, structured Family-First-Act kind of thing.”
The bill would implement a number of changes such as increasing the child tax credit to $4,200 for families with a child 5 years old or younger and up to $3,000 for families with children between 6 and 17. It would also establish a $2,800 tax credit for pregnant mothers.
The legislation would include an income threshold to require families to earn at least $20,000 a year to receive the full tax credit amount or at least $10,000 for the full pregnancy credit. Those earning less would receive tax credits proportional to their incomes.
Cutting down on education costs and increasing school choice
Also top of mind for Utah’s members of Congress is education, particularly cutting down on costs and expanding school choice for parents and students.
Rep. Burgess Owens has been working with leadership and other lawmakers on the House Education and Workforce Committee to include two bills in the reconciliation package that would lower costs for college tuition and implement loan limits.
“I think many of the issues we have right now is because of lack of education,” Owens told the Deseret News in an interview. “When we have kids who do not have appreciation for our country and don’t know what Marxism is versus capitalism, we don’t understand how to run a budget, what inflation means — all of those things are due to a lack of education.”
“We get education right, we produce the smartest kids in the entire world and we’ll be able to push our innovation out to other countries,” he added. “That’s kind of (how) I look at it.”
As part of those efforts, Owens is pushing to include the College Cost Reduction Act, which he says would be a “very easy one to slip into reconciliation.” That bill would implement comprehensive changes to the college education system by requiring colleges to offer guaranteed prices for degrees and provide performance-based grants to lower costs, among other things.
Owens is also pushing to include the Educational Choice for Children Act, which would provide education tax incentives for contributions to organizations that provide scholarships to students in low-income families to ensure they can attend high-quality private schools. Owens acknowledged that proposal would likely have a harder time making it into the reconciliation package as it is more policy-based rather than directly related to spending.

Boosting Utah energy production
Meanwhile, Maloy said she has focused much of her attention on energy production and revenue, pushing for policies that would allow Utah and other states to prioritize oil and gas production as well as mining.
“When we produce energy, power, minerals in Utah, we’re not buying them from our enemies,” Maloy said. “So these are things that impact people day to day.”
Maloy said such policies would also create job opportunities in the Beehive State and such proposals would increase revenue across the country.
Housing costs
Maloy also said she would be looking at ways to gain control of public lands in Utah to help address housing costs in the state and, in turn, produce revenue for the federal government.
Utah has been engaged in a legal battle seeking to force the federal government to “dispose” of roughly 18.5 million acres of public lands, which the state could use as it sees fit. By doing so, Maloy said it “gives us a place to build houses, maybe even affordably, because of supply and demand.”
“We haven’t been able to dispose of land for a long time,” Maloy said. “We have a housing crisis. We need places to build houses. Most of our towns and cities are landlocked by federal land.”
Moore also suggested including provisions to address housing affordability for service members serving in high-cost areas, a proposal he has previously proposed in other legislation.
“The military housing piece is really niche and key, but a really good policy thing that doesn’t cost a ton of money,” Moore said. “And it could just be a nice little play for military bases to be able to produce better housing and make that opportunity there for our service members.”