Republicans on Capitol Hill rolled the dice earlier this month when they pushed off decisions on a host of details for their package full of President Trump’s legislative priorities.
Now, lawmakers must face the music.
With the House aiming to pass the “one big, beautiful bill” by the end of May, and the Senate looking to follow suit quickly after, Republicans are staring down a key four-week stretch as the party works through a series of hot-button issues, headlined by spending cuts.
“It’s going be busy,” said Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.), a top ally of Trump and Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.). But he added that the intensity can be kept in check “as long as we’re communicating with both sides and there’s an open line of communication and we don’t start isolating ourselves.”
Mullin predicted there would be a few items that are “going to make the tension,” including the debate over how to score the cost of extending Trump’s tax cuts. But he said both chambers would work with the White House “and it’s just going to be a busy time trying to deliver some of the president’s priorities to the American people.”
After a last-minute scramble, both chambers last month adopted a blueprint laying out the parameters for the final bill. But the blueprint contained differing instructions for House and Senate committees on a host of issues, and it left debates between conservatives and moderates over spending cuts and taxes unresolved.
Republicans must now reconcile those differences into a single bill that, in a narrow majority, passes muster with almost every single member of the conference.
House Republicans are hitting the ground running, with committees scheduled to mark up their parts of the package in the coming weeks. The House Armed Services, Financial Services, Oversight, and Transportation and Infrastructure committees are expected to kick off the process this week.
“What you will see over the next four weeks is the pieces, the various components of that big bill, rolling out of these committees,” Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said on Fox News Wednesday. “You will have committee markups scheduled in all those 11 committees successively over the next four weeks. And you’re going to see this thing come together.”
On the Senate side, committees were trading language with the White House and the House throughout the recess in order to try to meet the ambitious timeline, according to a Senate GOP aide.
What is widely thought to be the most challenging aspect of crafting the bill will get underway next week, when the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which has jurisdiction over Medicaid, meets to decide how to find at least $800 billion in cuts — a figure that is prompting concerns among Republicans in both chambers.
The panel is eyeing a meeting the week of May 7, according to a committee aide.
In March, the Congressional Budget Office reported that Republicans will need to cut Medicaid to reach that goal, which is a non-starter among lawmakers in both chambers.
“We cannot and will not support a final reconciliation bill that includes any reduction in Medicaid coverage for vulnerable populations,” a group of 12 vulnerable and moderate Republicans wrote in a letter earlier this month.
The $880 billion floor is the largest part of the $1.5 trillion minimum in cuts that House committees are mandated to find for the reconciliation package. By comparison, Senate panels are only ordered to find at least $4 billion in cuts.
Top Republicans will have to work through the different numbers as they write the package, with the House Energy and Commerce floor being one of the most — if not the most — contentious details, as hardline conservatives demand that the bill be deficit neutral, and moderates raise concerns about the steep slashes.
One area that appears to be adjudicated, meanwhile, is the prospect of increasing taxes on the rich. Republicans had been discussing potentially raising the tax bracket on income above $1 million from 37 percent to 39.6 percent, an idea that runs counter to traditional conservative orthodoxy but would help in the party’s quest to make the package deficit neutral.
Johnson, however, threw cold water on that idea, saying in an interview on Fox News “I would not expect that.”
“We have been working against that idea. I’m not in favor of raising the tax rates, because that’s — our party is the group that stands against that traditionally,” he added. “There were lots of ideas thrown out on the table along this process over the last year, but I would just say for everybody, just wait and see. There’s more details coming. And I think you’re going to be very pleased by what you see. I don’t think we’re raising taxes on anybody.”
A major question, however, remains about the timeline for getting the entire reconciliation process wrapped up. Memorial Day is the goal for lawmakers on both sides, but that could easily be bumped back if the committee process gets derailed in any way.
Some lawmakers believe the Memorial Day deadline might be a bit ambitious.
“[I]t’s getting a bit more cumbersome,” Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.) said. “It’s a lot of moving parts that we have to navigate here.”
Mullin seemed to agree, describing the Memorial Day date as a “lofty goal.”
“We want to have it done. We’d like to have it done,” Mullin told The Hill. “That’s a goal. That’s not a timeline. … Two totally different things.”
For now, Republicans only have one true deadline staring them down the road: The debt limit “X date,” when the government is expected to exhaust its ability to borrow money.
That date has largely been expected to fall later this summer, but bumping it up by a matter of weeks or months could heighten the urgency for members — so long as they keep a debt hike as part of the final reconciliation package.
The Treasury is set to unveil a new X date this week.
Due to Byrd Rule parameters in the Senate, the two chambers set differing increases in each of their budget resolution instructions. The Senate’s was set at $5 trillion, while the House’s was marked at $4 trillion.
Many Republicans also seem intent on using a gambit that would make extending Trump’s tax cuts appear deficit-neutral and thus allow lawmakers to make them permanent. Doing so has been a red line for Thune and garnered the support of the president — but has alarmed many hardline conservatives worried about the size of the debt.
The size of that debt ceiling increase will depend on whether Republicans stick to that plan rather than a scoring baseline was generally used throughout recent years.
“Until we get that finalized which one we’re gonna go with — which I think we’re going to go with current policy — we’re still open,” Mullin said. “I wouldn’t say we’re all dug in on it, but since the president’s leaning towards current policy, then I think that’s probably the direction that I would say has got a better chance to succeed.”