Congressional Republican leaders are in the midst of a Trump-imposed three-week stretch during which they think they can come up with a compromise budget resolution that Republicans in both chambers will get behind by Easter recess. That would unlock the reconciliation process so Republicans can eventually push through elements of President Trump’s fiscal agenda, including border security, energy and tax reform.
Democrats are, of course, locked out of power and not highly involved in what would be, in normal times, a standard budget-negotiation process — if it weren’t for the fact that the Trump administration is lawlessly taking a sledgehammer to Congress’ authority to allocate federal budgetary spending.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) and Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD), as well as key committee chairs and the White House, have been meeting this week to come up with a plan. Thune reportedly told Senate Republicans Wednesday to expect to vote on a joint resolution next week.
“In the end, we have to come together,” Thune said this week. “We obviously have to be able to pass the same budget resolution in order to unlock reconciliation. And so we will at some point [reach an] agreement on what that looks like.”
Senate Republicans are reportedly not happy with the House’s budget blueprint. And House GOP leadership is worried about the Senate messing too much with the budget resolution they narrowly passed after a whole lot of arm twisting from Trump. A flip from even one House Republican could tank the whole process.
Though the reconciliation process is not subject to filibuster — unlike the continuing resolution both chambers just passed — there are still quite a few senators that would need to get on board on a variety of different issues.
“That’s just not gonna pass here in its current form,” Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) told TPM on Tuesday when asked about Johnson’s Trump-backed blueprint.
Thune and Johnson are now signaling they will move forward with a fiscal blueprint without resolving the disputes between the two chambers, unlock the reconciliation process and then hash out the details in the reconciliation bill later.
Here are some of the main contention points:
The proposed cuts to Medicaid are a problem
Several Senate Republicans indicated this week they won’t get behind a budget resolution that would require deep cuts to Medicaid.
“I am not going to vote for Medicaid benefit cuts,” Hawley told reporters in the Senate basement earlier this week. “Work requirements, I’m totally fine with. But 21% of Missourians either get Medicaid or CHIP so I am not going to vote for benefit cuts for people who I think are qualified.”
Hawley added he won’t support the House budget resolution that directs the House Energy & Commerce Committee to find $880 billion in cuts “unless there’s some guarantee that we’re not going to cut anything.”
The Congressional Budget Office put out a report earlier this month, saying it won’t be possible to reach the goal in the House’s budget resolution without cuts to Medicare, Medicaid or the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP).
Sen. Jim Justice (R-WV) has also said he has “concerns” about the proposed cuts.
When asked about it on Tuesday, he told TPM: “There’s going to have to be a bunch of give and take here. I mean, that’s always to it … At the end of the day, I do not think that President Trump … will absolutely do anything that really hurts our seniors or hurts our kids.”
Even Trump loyalist Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) is not on board with the Medicaid cuts that would come with the Trump-backed budget resolution.
“Well, I’m not for cutting any of it to be honest with you,” Tuberville told reporters on his way to a floor vote.
He also detailed the ways in which Medicaid cuts in the House bill could “decimate” his state during a Fox Business interview on Monday, adding that they need to “find a way around it.”
To deal or not to deal with the debt ceiling through the reconciliation process
Trump wants a debt ceiling increase to be included in the “one, big, beautiful” reconciliation bill he has been pushing, Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso (R-WY) told reporters on Tuesday.
But not everyone is on board with that plan.
There are Senate Republicans who would like to cut out the debt limit increase from the resolution.
Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) has said he would not support reconciliation if it includes a hike to the debt limit.
“They’ve lost me,” Paul told Punchbowl on Tuesday. “There will be other conservatives who they will lose… and the whole thing goes down. So they’ll have to decide.”
And some deficit hawks like Sens. Ron Johnson (R-WI) and Mike Lee (R-UT) want deeper spending cuts.
“Until we seriously address out-of-control spending and create an effective process to return to a reasonable pre-pandemic level, I will not support another budget resolution,” Lee said on X this week. “Unfortunately, the House Budget Resolution does not do that.”
Despite the pushback from some of the senators, Johnson and Thune began suggesting after a Tuesday White House meeting that a debt ceiling hike should be added to the bill.
The Senate wants to make the 2017 Trump tax cuts permanent
Senate Republicans would like to permanently extend the 2017 Trump tax cuts — which primarily benefited wealthy Americans and are set to expire at the end of the year.
Making the tax cuts permanent is “a hill that I’m willing to die on,” Sen. Steve Daines (R-MT) recently said.
The House’s blueprint does address extending the tax cuts but it does not go as far as what the Senate would like to accomplish.
Senate Republican leadership wants to essentially use the “current policy baseline” to project the tax cuts as not adding to the deficit beyond the 10-year budget window, instead considering them merely an extension of the status quo. This is a budget gimmick that the Senate parliamentarian will have to rule on to allow them to use.
Conservatives in the House and a handful of senators are worried about this approach, arguing that scoring more than $4 trillion in tax cuts for current policy would not erase the impact and burden it will have on future revenues and deficits.
“Making the tax cuts permanent is “a hill that I’m willing to die on,” Sen. Steve Daines (R-MO) recently said.”
I hope you do.
When Cletus in East Shithole, Arkansas, realizes that his government has immiserated him and his community, then maybe we can begin to effectively fight back against this fascist regime. Will the destruction be so apparent by 2026 that voters will take action?
Far from being a compassionate Christian as he proudly proclaims, Mike Johnson is a cruel and misguided zealot.
I hate to break it to you, Einstein, but he already is.
Getting lost on all these ‘make the 2017 tax cuts permanent is that the package was too expensive so they had to make either the corporate or personal tax cuts expire at 7 years to bring the law in at their price point.
They decided to make the corporate tax cuts permanent but have the personal tax cuts expire at 7 years.
This is all BS and hot air. The math is what it is, and every Senator or Empty Gee clone will gladly take part in the Eugenics Wars American Style in the end. Their unstated goal is immiseration and death to the poor and disabled. Anyone who tells you differently is lying. And I hate to suffer along with the MAGAts who signed their own death warrants last November 5.