View from the US: the Republican congressional agenda

Erin Caddell of GK Strategy’s American partner Anchor Advisors unpacks the Republican congressional agenda ahead of the midterm elections taking place in November

Over the decades, American conservative political thought has often manifested itself in treatises that have called for sweeping policy changes, often employed as rallying cries heading into elections. The Mandate for Leadership, published in 1979 by the right-wing think tank Heritage Foundation, laid the groundwork in part for Ronald Reagan’s presidency starting in 1981, detailing proposals for lowering regulations on industry, reining in the influence of the federal bureaucracy and cutting taxes to spur economic growth that continue in conservative orthodoxy to this day. The 1994 Contract with America served as the blueprint for then-U.S. Rep. Newt Gingrich and his GOP colleagues to seize control of the House of Representatives later that year for the first time in 40 years, proposing a series of reforms to social programs, tax and spending cuts and changes in the workings of government itself. And Project 2025, chaired by Heritage with support from numerous U.S. conservative groups, provided a detailed plan for a conservative presidency, from domestic to trade to foreign policy, many elements of which have been enacted or attempted in Trump’s second presidential term.

With the U.S. midterm elections now less than six months away, what is the conservative manifesto of 2026? It is notable that across a number of conservative groups aligned with the Trump Administration and current GOP leadership in Congress – Heritage, America First Policy Institute, Conservative Partnership Institute, American Compass – there exists no recent document summarizing an overarching conservative policy vision. Yet with all 435 members of the House of Representatives and one-third of the Senate up for election in November, it is valid to ask what more the GOP hopes to do should it defy history – as we have pointed out in prior editions of this column, the president’s party has lost House seats in 18 of 20 midterm elections held since 1946 – and maintain control of both houses of Congress for the final two years of Trump’s second term. Even if Republicans lose control of the House and/or the Senate, the policy proposals they put forth today will guide their actions as a minority party in Congress; the ways in which they support Trump’s executive actions in 2027 and 2028; and even, yes, how the party moves beyond the Trump presidential era with a new Republican candidate for president in November 2028.

To address this question, we focus on a January 2026 report, “Restoring America’s Golden Age”, released by the Republican Study Committee (RSC), a group of 188 conservative House members (87% of the total 217 current House Republicans). The RSC report is structured as a high-level annual federal budget proposal. Continuing the spirit of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) initiative early in Trump’s second term, the RSC identifies numerous federal programs for funding reduction or elimination it views as wasteful or unnecessarily driven by progressive ideology (see below).

Select programs targeted for reduced or zero funding by the Republican Study Committee

Source: Republican Study Committee, Restoring America’s Golden Age, 07.01.2026

We detail two of the policy themes outlined in the report we view as especially relevant for US-focused investor and corporate clients of Anchor and GK: tax and defense policy:

1. Tax – don’t get too comfortable. The RSC report makes clear that Republicans continue to view the tax system as an activist policy tool even following last year’s passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill (OBBB), which expanded and made permanent a number of the corporate and individual tax cuts enacted during Trump’s first year as president. The report speaks glowingly of Trump’s decision on his first day in office in his second term to withdraw from a deal negotiated by the international Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) during the Biden Administration to impose a global minimum tax rate and other restrictions on multi-national corporations. RSC members and other critics argued the OECD deal was unfair to U.S.-based international corporations. In response, RSC member Rep. Jason Smith (R-MO), chairman of the tax-writing House Ways & Means Committee, introduced a bill in 2025 to impose retaliatory taxes on U.S.-active companies and investors whose countries levy selective taxes on U.S. firms, targeting in particular the digital services taxes (DSTs) that have been imposed on multinational tech firms by the UK and some EU Member states. Nicknamed the “revenge tax” or the Section 899 tax for the new title of the U.S. code it would have created, global investors breathed a sigh of relief when the provision was removed from the OBBB following opposition from a number of foreign entities active in U.S. markets. However, the RSC whitepaper is one reminder that the protectionist Republican sentiment that led the Section 899 bill to be proposed is still very much alive within the conservative Republican caucus, and could return under a future GOP-controlled Congress or White House.  The RSC budget also supports other tax policies that reflect the populist, anti-corporate sentiment prevalent in today’s GOP, including ending the tax-exempt status of bonds sold to finance professional sports stadiums.

2. Defense – Hawks unbowed. Even before the start of the U.S. and Israeli military action against Iran in late February, a number of Republicans had joined Democrats in criticizing President Trump’s January 2026 proposal to increase U.S. defense spending in the coming fiscal year to US$1.5 trillion, some 44% higher than current levels. The RSC proposal is a good reminder that while some in the GOP argued Trump’s number was too high, support for the U.S. defense sector runs deep among conservative Republicans. The RSC whitepaper is supportive of numerous new defense spending initiatives, from expanded missile production to accelerated shipbuilding, enhanced cyber-security defenses to increased support for domestic rare-earths production to reduce dependence on China as a source of critical minerals needed for military equipment. Interestingly, the RSC report endorses “sustained American support for our NATO allies,” including funding for “frontline NATO states through defense cooperation and deterrent capabilities – one area of potential daylight between the House GOP conservatives and their president.  But “Restoring America’s Golden Age” highlights that support for the U.S. military – and higher defense spending – remains a core tenet of both the Trump Administration and congressional conservatives (the RSC has released several statements supporting Trump’s Iran strategy since the war’s start). Should Republicans maintain control of Congress into 2027, Trump and his allies would likely take another run at securing a big jump in defense spending during his last two years as president, regardless of the Iran conflict’s outcome.