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To advance President<\/span> Donald Trump\u2019s sweeping tax cuts, House Republicans on Monday unveiled a proposal that could hand him a powerful new tool to go after his political enemies<\/a>.<\/p>\n The House Ways and Means Committee will meet Tuesday for a mark-up session of the 389-page draft plan, a massive bundle of draft amendments central to the Trump administration\u2019s \u201cBig Beautiful Bill\u201d that aims to cut trillions of dollars in government spending.\u00a0<\/p>\n Among those amendments, buried on page 380 of the draft, is a section that would enable Trump\u2019s secretary of the Treasury to denounce any nonprofit as a \u201cterrorist-supporting organization\u201d and strip it of its tax-exempt status.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThis seems to just give the president a tool to go after his political enemies and fulfill some of the darker elements of the Project 2025 agenda,\u201d said Ryan Costello, policy director at the National Iranian American Council.<\/p>\n A previous version of the clause \u2014 dubbed the \u201cnonprofit killer bill\u201d<\/a> \u2014 was introduced in 2023. Critics viewed that legislation as a bipartisan expression of pro-Israel policy and opposition to pro-Palestinian speech.<\/p>\n The first version of the bill passed the House easily, before languishing in the Senate. But when it reappeared in November \u2014 following Trump\u2019s reelection \u2014 many Democrats who had backed the bill dropped their support in the face of reporting from The Intercept and a flurry of anger from the party\u2019s base.\u00a0<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n At the time, the ACLU and other civil liberties groups warned that the bill would be used by Trump to make good on his campaign promise to crush his political enemies.\u00a0<\/p>\n Among House Democrats, opposition was marshaled by Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Texas.<\/p>\n \u201cAuthoritarianism is not born overnight \u2014 it creeps in,\u201d Doggett said during a discussion on the House floor on November 21. \u201cA tyrant tightens his grip not just by seizing power, but when he demands new powers and when those who can stop him willingly cede and bend to his will.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAuthoritarianism is not born overnight \u2014 it creeps in.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n That bill, known as H.R. 9495, or the Stop Terror-Financing and Tax Penalties on American Hostages Act, ultimately passed the House 219 to 184, with just 15 Democrats voting in favor. The bill moved on to the Senate, then under Democratic control, where it sat until the end of the lame-duck term.<\/p>\n The language included in the House Republicans\u2019 tax package closely mirrors H.R. 9495.<\/p>\n In the months since inauguration, Trump and his Cabinet have found other means of cracking down on political speech<\/a> \u2014 particularly speech in favor of Palestinians<\/a> \u2014 by deporting<\/a> student activists and revoking <\/a>hundreds of student visas<\/a>. He has already threatened to attempt to revoke the tax-exempt status of Harvard University<\/a>, part of his larger quest to discipline and punish colleges.<\/p>\n But the nonprofit clause of the tax\u00a0bill would give the president wider power to go after organizations that stand in his way.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n\n