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Shop NowThe House is racing to get a budget bill through and the Senate is currently edging them out by a nose. Odds are favoring the lower chamber despite the Senate’s speedy progress. They’re expected to be tripped up by Democrats intent on shutting down government, so they can blame it on President Trump. Speaker Johnson has a plan to bypass Democrats completely.
House budget deal close
House Budget Committee Chair Jodey Arrington came out with an update Tuesday morning, February 11. The Texas Republican “floated a framework for advancing President Trump’s legislative agenda during a private meeting of panel members.”
The press got bits and pieces of the plan from Democrats in the room.
The committee “will take up a budget resolution on Thursday.” Arrington “explained the latest blueprint to committee members shortly before he told lawmakers during a closed-door meeting.”
That means behind the scenes House negotiations are making progress. The media notes it’s “an ambitious timeline for the group that has thus far struggled to coalesce around a plan.”
Fine tuning the deal has been revolving around how drastic to make the spending cuts. At the same time, they need to be careful to balance the cuts with the deficit cap. Currently, they’re considering “a $1.5 trillion floor for spending cuts.”
They have wriggle room for up to $2 trillion. For now, the House plans to pair the cuts up with a “$4.5 trillion cap on the deficit impact of the Republicans’ plan to extend Trump’s 2017 tax cuts.”
A few holdouts
While most House members can live with those numbers, there are a few holdouts who think the bean counters can trim more fat.
“It remains unclear if the framework discussed in the meeting Tuesday morning will be the product that the conference forges ahead with.”
Several conservatives are pushing for $2.5 trillion in spending cuts. The numbers Arrington revealed “were discussed this morning,” Republican lawmaker Ralph Norman confirmed. He also mentioned that “the committee floated alternative ideas, including the House Freedom Caucus budget resolution.”
That one “is looking at a two-track reconciliation strategy, with the first bill providing $200 billion in border and military funding and $486 billion in cuts.”
The biggest hurdle now is to come up with a set of figures that everyone on the Republican side can agree with. House Republicans “are looking to use the budget reconciliation process to pass items on his wish list.”
If successful, that “would allow the party to circumvent Democratic opposition in the Senate. But it requires near-unanimity in the conferences, which is difficult to achieve in the slim House GOP majority.“
