EXCLUSIVE: The top tax-writer in the House of Representatives is arguing that President Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” will be “big” for American taxpayers as well – including seniors.

House Ways & Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith, R-Mo., and other Republicans on the panel spent months negotiating behind closed doors on how to enact Trump’s tax policies.

Among those is an added $4,000 deduction for Americans aged 65 or older. Seniors with income of less than $75,000 as single filers, and less than $150,000 as joint filers, would be eligible for the full deduction, which then would begin to phase out.

“So, that’s on top of their guaranteed deduction, and that’s per person . . . anyone who has total earnings of $75,000 a year or less is going to be made completely whole, so all the low-income and middle-income seniors on Social Security will be paying zero on Social Security in the long run,” Smith told Fox News Digital, while adding of others, “most of them will be paying much less.”

ANTI-ABORTION PROVIDER MEASURE IN TRUMP’S ‘BIG, BEAUTIFUL BILL’ COULD SPARK HOUSE GOP REBELLION

Republicans are using the budget reconciliation process, which lowers the Senate’s threshold for passage from 60 votes to 51 for certain pieces of fiscal legislation, to advance a vast bill full of Trump’s priorities on taxes, immigration, energy, defense and the national debt.

Because the House already operates under a simple majority, reconciliation allows the party in power to pass sweeping legislation while sidelining the other side, in this case, Democrats.

Trump has directed congressional Republicans to permanently extend his 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA), as well as implement new policies eliminating taxes on tips, overtime pay and retirees’ Social Security.

But the law that established the reconciliation process, the Congressional Budget Act of 1974, also specifically forbade direct changes to Social Security via the process.

Smith said Republicans’ had added $4,000 tax deduction as a way to make them “completely whole.”

BROWN UNIVERSITY IN GOP CROSSHAIRS AFTER STUDENT’S DOGE-LIKE EMAIL KICKS OFF FRENZY

House Ways & Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith, R-Mo., is helping craft the tax portion of the bill. (Tom Williams)

Rather than seeing that tax relief month-to-month, however, Smith said it would come in people’s yearly tax returns.

He argued that it was more beneficial for lower-income seniors as well, giving added relief to those whose incomes were too low to pay Social Security taxes in the first place.

“Under the rules of reconciliation, you cannot touch Social Security directly. What we did is to make sure that they get . . . tax relief for any senior who makes less than $75,000 per year,” Smith said. “It’s not that we didn’t want to do it, it’s that it cannot be done under the rules of reconciliation, or you wouldn’t qualify for the 51-vote threshold over in the United States Senate.”

“But the tax relief they will receive is an added tax cut, and that will make up for what they have paid in Social Security tax.”

The White House also endorsed Smith’s plan despite its departure from Trump’s initial campaign pitch.

“The one, big, beautiful bill not only delivers permanent tax cuts and bigger paychecks, but it secures a historic tax break for seniors on Social Security,” White House spokesperson Anna Kelly said. “This is another promise made, promise kept to our seniors who deserve much-needed tax relief after four years of suffering under Bidenflation.”

The $4,000 tax deduction, which would be in effect from the 2025 through 2028 tax years, would be on top of the higher standard deduction that people above age 65 already receive. 

It would not be a tax credit, reducing tax liability directly regardless of tax brackets. A deduction reduces taxable income and is dependent on the taxpayer’s rate.

But for single seniors making up to $75,000, and married seniors making less than $150,000, qualifying for the $4,000 deduction, it would likely provide some relief for millions of taxpayers across the country.

“It’ll be a wash of what their Social Security tax would’ve been,” Smith said, adding later in the interview: “Failure’s not an option. We’re going to get this done.”

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Friday told conservative judges in Texas they must offer a hearing to detained Venezuelans whom the Trump administration wants to send to a prison in El Salvador.

The justices, over two dissents, rebuked Texas judges and Trump administration lawyers for moving quickly on a weekend in mid-April to put these men on planes.

That led to a post-midnight order from the high court that told the administration it may “not remove any member of the putative class of detainees.” The administration had argued it had the authority to deport the men as “alien enemies” under a wartime law adopted in 1798.

On Friday, the court issued an unusual eight-page order to explain their earlier decision. In doing so, the justices faulted a federal judge in Lubbock, Texas, and the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for taking no action to protect the due process rights of the detained men.

The ruling noted that the government “may remove the named plaintiffs or putative class members under other lawful authorities.”

The order carries a clear message that the justices are troubled by the Trump administration’s pressure to fast-track deportations and by the unwillingness of some judges to protect the rights to due process of law.

After the ruling was issued, President Trump wrote on Truth Social on Friday: “THE SUPREME COURT WON’T ALLOW US TO GET CRIMINALS OUT OF OUR COUNTRY.” He added in a second post: “This decision will let more CRIMINALS pour into our Country, doing great harm to our cherished American public.”

Lee Gelernt, deputy director of the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project and lead counsel, said in a statement: “The court’s decision to stay removals is a powerful rebuke to the government’s attempt to hurry people away to a Gulag-type prison in El Salvador. The use of a wartime authority during peacetime, without even affording due process, raises issues of profound importance.”

On a Saturday in mid-March, Trump’s immigration officials sent three planeloads of detainees from Texas to the maximum-security prison in El Salvador before a federal judge in Washington could intervene. The prisoners included Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland man who had an immigration order that was supposed to protect him from being sent back to his native El Salvador.

Afterward, Trump officials said the detained men, including Abrego Garcia, could not be returned to this country. They did so even though the Supreme Court had said they had a duty to “facilitate” Abrego Garcia’s return.

The same scenario was nearly repeated in mid-April, but from a different prison in Texas.

ACLU lawyers rushed to file an emergency appeal with U.S. District Judge James Hendrix. They said some of the detained men were on buses headed for the airport. They argued they deserved a hearing because many of them said they were not members of a crime gang.

The judge denied the appeals for all but two of the detained men.

The 5th Circuit upheld the judge’s lack of action and blamed the detainees, saying they gave the judge “only 42 minutes to act.”

The Supreme Court disagreed with both on Friday and overturned a decision of the 5th Circuit.

“A district court’s inaction in the face of extreme urgency and a high risk of ‘serious, perhaps irreparable’ consequences” left the detained men with no options, the court said. “Here, the district court’s inaction — not for 42 minutes but for 14 hours and 28 minutes — had the practical effect of refusing an injunction to detainees facing an imminent threat of severe, irreparable harm,” the justices wrote.

“The 5th Amendment entitles aliens to due process of law in the context of removal proceedings. Procedural due process rules are meant to protect” against “the mistaken or unjustified deprivation of life, liberty, or property,” the majority said. “We have long held that no person shall be removed from the United States without opportunity, at some time, to be heard.”

Justices Samuel A. Alito Jr. and Clarence Thomas dissented last month, and they did the same on Friday.

Friday’s ruling doesn’t affect the status of the men who were already sent to El Salvador.

Former FBI Director James Comey is expected to meet face to face with U.S. Secret Service officials in Washington, D.C. for an interview about his “86 47” post, two sources briefed on the meeting told Fox News.

Comey is under investigation for an Instagram post showing seashells arranged on a beach to read “86 47.”

“Cool shell formation on my beach walk,” he wrote in the since-deleted post. Some have interpreted the post to mean “86” – get rid of –  “47” – Donald Trump, the 47th president.  

The U.S. Secret Service is leading the investigation at this point, but the FBI and Department of Justice could take a larger role if necessary, Fox News is told.