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Two top Republicans working together isn’t usually a compelling story. Mike Crapo and Jason Smith, two powerful stylistic opposites on either side of the Capitol, are an exception.
The reserved Idahoan senator and fiery Missourian congressman, chairmen of their respective tax-writing committees, share a challenging goal this year: bridging the sometimes-huge divides between the House and Senate to shape a tax deal that President Donald Trump can sign.
But as recently as 2024, the duo were at odds over substance. Crapo, who wasn’t yet Senate Finance chair, did not support Smith’s bipartisan tax deal with Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore. The resulting Republican filibuster of Smith’s work led to some bad blood with the House.
Now, though, that’s all in the past.
Smith, the Ways and Means Chair, said on Wednesday that Crapo “was the last person I spoke to before I went to bed last night. … We’re working hand-in-glove.”
If there’s a secret to their success so far, it’s this: Rather than battling over particular policy provisions, they’ve focused their energies on process. Crapo convinced most Republicans that they don’t need to pay for making Trump’s 2017 tax cuts permanent, while Smith got Republicans to roll the president’s entire legislative agenda into one big bill.
Bigger, unanswered questions await both of them, particularly around how to accommodate Trump’s requested tax breaks on tips and overtime, as well as his recent desire for beefier corporate tax cuts. But the evident repair of Crapo and Smith’s 2024 schism could help avoid a nightmare scenario for Republicans — a House vote for a tax plan that can’t pass the Senate.
“Obviously, Crapo wasn’t on the same page” last year, Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, told Semafor. “But I sense that things are completely different now, and I think it’s driven by the realization that it’s an absolute necessity that we be successful here.”
Smith and Crapo now talk almost daily, while meeting regularly with GOP leaders and top Trump administration officials and juggling bicameral coordination with their own members. Smith holds lunches for Ways and Means members most weeks while Crapo huddles with his Finance Republicans every Monday.
In Crapo’s best-case scenario, the Senate makes only minor changes to the House’s tax bill.
“It’s very possible that we could have some big differences,” Crapo told Semafor. “Our hope is to minimize the differences.”
Just one year ago, Smith and Wyden linked an expanded child tax credit with benefits for small businesses. But Crapo and Senate GOP leaders blocked it on the floor last August.
With Republicans now in full control of Washington this year, failure isn’t really an option: The tax bill is tied to the debt ceiling deadline, meaning avoiding default could require a tax deal.
“As of today — I don’t want to talk about anything in the past, or what happened last year with the tax bill and all that, but — I think there’s real cohesion between the two of them,” said Rep. Darin LaHood, R-Ill.
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Crapo, 73, has served in Congress since 1993; Smith, 44, arrived in 2013. Crapo operates largely behind the scenes, while even senators who don’t know Smith personally see him on cable news.
The contrasts don’t end there; Smith is preparing to hold a public committee vote soon on his tax legislation, but Crapo said he wasn’t sure whether his committee would do the same.
“They are very different personalities,” said Sen. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., who served with both. “Mike has the full trust of every Republican senator. Jason, I don’t know how you can do better than he’s doing with his colleagues, but he’s got a bigger challenge.”
Smith is pushing through it with a deliberate show of stamina, convening days-long meetings in the Library of Congress where committee Republicans weigh various tax provisions and emerge tight-lipped. He peppers the airwaves with staccato and blunt warnings that the Senate’s original two-bill plan for Trump’s agenda (border first, then tax) was “foolish.”
Members and aides say that Smith has some flair, too. The House chair has posted photos with “friend” Paris Hilton and provides witnesses who testify before his committee with custom water bottles emblazoned with his seal. When it comes to Ways and Means members themselves, “he’s been very generous with swag,” LaHood said.
“He’s a great gift-giver — maybe the best in Congress, actually,” said House Budget Chair Jodey Arrington, R-Texas, who serves on Smith’s committee.
Smith beat Rep. Vern Buchanan, R-Fla., out for the gavel in a relative upset, but he’s set to be the special guest at a fundraiser dinner for Buchanan in late June, a person familiar with the plans said.
One former senior leadership aide observed that Smith’s ability to keep his members — and K Street — happy shields him from criticism: “You’re not hearing from people because they’re being listened to.”
“The fact that he’s not playing whack-a-mole a week out [from a possible markup] is shocking,” the aide added.
Crapo is comparatively sphinx-like, often declining to publicly weigh in on strategic disagreements (he was agnostic on the agenda strategy that Smith felt so strongly about). Several senators told Semafor that Crapo rarely speaks up in party meetings — but when he does, people listen.
The Finance chief does his fair share of listening, too. Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., buttonholed Crapo about a particular tax provision this week in the GOP cloakroom and described his receptivity as a refreshing change from chairmen “who act like they discovered gravity. Mike’s not like that.”
“He’s a guy that can sit and tolerate beratement against him and not retaliate … there’s a lot of thin-skinned people around here,” said Sen. Jim Risch, R-Idaho, who often votes in lockstep with Crapo. “He is not one of them.”
The View From Burgess and Eleanor
There’s no daylight between Smith and Crapo now — but this is the beginning of the road for them. It’s easy to stay in lockstep before any details of the tax bill are locked in.
And Trump remains a wild card. Smith and Crapo are putting as much effort — if not more — into coordinating with the administration as they are with each other.
As remarkable as their strong working relationship looks now, it won’t matter much if they can’t produce something the president likes.
Room for Disagreement
Democrats — even those like Wyden, who’ve worked closely with the two tax chairmen before — see little to celebrate.
“My job … is to work with everybody that wants to do the right thing and oppose everybody that’s not doing the right thing. Jason Smith in the last congress was there for the right thing,” Wyden said.
“And now, Sen. Crapo looks like he’s going to be the lead of an approach that would supercharge” the 2017 tax cuts, Wyden added.