House Republicans are plowing ahead with a budget resolution markup on Thursday before the chamber’s scheduled one-week recess begins the following day.
The blueprint wasn’t finalized yet and leadership also has some work to do in preparation for the floor, with key holdouts looking for assurances on things like spending cuts and raising the statutory debt ceiling.
But Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said after the GOP conference’s weekly meeting Tuesday that the “intention” was to mark up the blueprint in committee on Thursday after hammering out the details Tuesday. “We’ll be rolling out the details of that probably by tonight,” Johnson said. “We are right on the schedule that we need to be on.”
The Budget panel has a 24-hour notice rule for posting text before bringing the resolution up for a committee vote.
“By the end of the day, we’ll be able to have the final pieces to put the budget resolution along with the reconciliation instructions in play, because we have to communicate that in some detail when we mark it up,” House Budget Chairman Jodey C. Arrington, R-Texas, said Tuesday after the conference meeting.
The current framework Arrington is working on would require at least $1.5 trillion in 10-year spending cuts — with a goal of $2 trillion if authorizing committees can get the votes to find that level of savings — to partially offset a $4.5 trillion tax-cut package, according to sources familiar with the talks.
Different committees would receive instructions to fill in those numbers, with Ways and Means solely responsible for the tax piece, although they could trim some spending within their jurisdiction to help meet the $4.5 trillion ceiling in that panel’s reconciliation instruction.
That arrangement was subject to change as Arrington can only afford to lose two Republican votes in committee, assuming no Democrats are on board with the resolution, which will be used to unlock the partisan reconciliation package that could skirt the Senate’s 60-vote threshold to overcome a filibuster.
House Republicans are giving themselves a deadline to try to get some momentum going this week before leaving town.
A meeting of committee Republicans scheduled for later Tuesday morning was postponed, but much of the focus has been on Reps. Chip Roy of Texas and Ralph Norman of South Carolina. If just one of those two members of the arch-conservative Freedom Caucus is on board, Arrington’s vote count in committee would appear solid.
Norman seemed upbeat about the measure’s prospects Tuesday while acknowledging more work needs to be done. “If we don’t come out of here Thursday with numbers, with a firm resolution, we ought to work through the weekend and cancel [recess],” he said. “But I think we will. That’s the good news.”
Still, the broader Freedom Caucus made clear in a statement later that $2 trillion is the “bare minimum” level of cuts the resolution should require. “We should not be negotiating with ourselves on how little to cut from Joe Biden’s insane spending levels,” the statement said.
Tougher task
The House GOP’s task is harder than their Senate counterparts’ in many ways due to their slimmer margin on party-line votes, which extends to floor action later this month or next. That’s why for weeks Johnson has been working on one comprehensive package that would combine all of Republicans’ major fiscal priorities, from extending the expiring 2017 tax cuts to securing the border.
Including so many pieces also means it’s easier for the whole thing to fall apart, and the traditional divide between party centrists and conservatives on spending cut levels has been a major sticking point.
Freedom Caucus members have been pushing for 10-year spending cuts totaling as much as $2.5 trillion, which would likely require digging more deeply into Medicaid than some centrists are comfortable with, or even President Donald Trump himself, some members say.
There’s some wiggle room to negotiate that cuts figure down, but that could require scaling back the size of the tax package, or possibly shortening the duration of the extension to something less than 10 years.
And that’s not sitting well with Ways and Means Chairman Jason Smith, R-Mo., or Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who’ve been firm in arguing on the president’s behalf for not only making the 2017 tax cuts permanent but also adding some new breaks the president promised during the campaign.
A $4.5 trillion ceiling could impose some limits on what they’d like to do, which independent estimates have said would cost at least $1 trillion extra and probably more.
“The [Congressional Budget Office] says to extend the current tax cuts 10 years is over $4.7 trillion,” Smith said. “That’s not counting no tax on tips, no tax on seniors, whatever, but just a 10-year blanket extension … is over $4.7 trillion.”
“Anything less would be saying that President Trump is wrong on tax policy,” Smith added.
GOP leaders have been arguing that the positive economic growth effects from their policies would produce more revenue than the CBO is likely to give them credit for, which could fill in some of the deficit hole. But conservatives are wary of that approach even as they agree on the need for tax-cut extensions and expansions.
“What holds everyone back is, what’s the level of deficit reduction we’re going to agree to, and is it real deficit reduction?” House Freedom Caucus Chairman Andy Harris, R-Md., said after the conference meeting. “Because if you project unrealistic growth projections and assume that’s going to bring in revenue, to us that’s not true deficit reduction. Deficit reduction is when the CBO is going to score a reasonable GDP growth rate.”
‘Severe cuts’
Meanwhile, the $36.1 trillion statutory debt limit is hanging out there, with Treasury able to draw down excess cash and use special accounting maneuvers called “extraordinary measures” for several more months before borrowing authority would be exhausted.
Trump and Freedom Caucus members want to raise the debt limit in reconciliation so Democrats can’t use it as leverage on a regular-order bill that would need minority votes to pass.
But Johnson also can’t afford to lose more than one vote on the floor at the moment, while there are two very conservative Republicans who have never voted for a debt limit increase: Tim Burchett of Tennessee and Andy Biggs of Arizona.
Burchett said Tuesday that leadership can’t take his vote for granted on the floor, and that the whip operation should also be concerned about Biggs, Indiana Republican Victoria Spartz and Kentucky Republican Thomas Massie — the only conference member who ultimately voted against Johnson for speaker.
“Nobody from leadership’s talked to us yet but I expect they will in about the 11th hour,” Burchett said. “I think it would be good to talk to us … I’d like to hear about what they are doing before they say this is the plan, everybody’s on board when everybody obviously is not.”
Burchett added that he wants “severe cuts” and that $2.5 trillion is just a “start.”
And then there’s the Senate, which is dead set at this point on moving ahead with its own fiscal 2025 budget resolution, one that is more narrowly focused on border security, defense and energy with just enough offsetting spending cuts. Senate Budget Chairman Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., is marking up his version this week in preparation for a Senate floor “vote-a-rama” as soon as next week.
The Senate plan is to take up a separate fiscal 2026 budget resolution after the initial reconciliation package is signed into law that would lay the groundwork for the more complex tax bill. But House leadership is continuing to reject that approach, saying Tuesday they won’t even consider it in their chamber if the Senate resolution is successful.
“The House’s bill addresses all of President Trump’s priorities and it’s the only legislation that does that,” House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., said Tuesday.
Still, House GOP leaders are giving themselves a chance to take up a second filibuster-proof fiscal package later this year if needed. Arrington’s budget blueprint will start with fiscal 2025, so later this year they could still take up a fiscal 2026 budget, which would produce a fresh round of reconciliation instructions for authorizing committees.
Paul M. Krawzak contributed to this report.
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