While you were sleeping, key House committees were sparring over Republicans’ plans for taxes and Medicaid spending cuts in reconciliation — and they’re still going roughly 15 hours in.
The House GOP is pushing to wrap up markups for pieces of the package containing President Donald Trump’s legislative agenda. Their goal is to get the full reconciliation bill to the floor next week.
Here’s your recap from inside the committee rooms where it’s all going down.
Medicaid. The House Energy and Commerce Committee is only a few hours into its health portion of the markup. Members are just getting started on this critical piece of the reconciliation puzzle.
There have been only a couple of amendment votes during the consideration of the health title. House Democrats are hammering Republicans over the potential loss of health insurance for millions of Americans.
Republicans keep fighting back, asserting that it’s only those who shouldn’t be eligible in the first place who would lose coverage. So far, this debate has included spats over CBO scores and committee rules.
And this battle is going to keep going. And going. And going. The handful of amendments that Democrats have already filed all hit on the potential benefits and losses.
Buckle up for a long Wednesday in Rayburn.
Taxes. The temperature has dropped to freezing but Democrats are still going on amendments in 1100 Longworth. Republicans are batting them all down.
Ways and Means Committee Democrats unveiled a series of amendments overnight to block tax cuts for high-income Americans — escalating gradually from a $400,000 cut-off up to barring benefits for billionaires. This is a huge chunk of the Democratic Party’s political messaging about the GOP’s tax agenda.
Ways and Means Democrats also used amendments to press Republicans on topics like Trump’s tariffs, clean energy tax credit repeals and expanding the child tax credit.
The big sticking point for the Republicans’ tax package, SALT, created a stir in the hearing and privately.
Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-N.Y.) left the Ways and Means’ markup to join a meeting of SALT holdouts with Speaker Mike Johnson — only to be asked to leave, as we scooped. There’s been tension between Ways and Means and the blue-state SALT crew amid the impasse.
Tech. Energy and Commerce approved its communications title earlier this morning.
The measure includes new spectrum for auction. It would also impose a decade-long moratorium on states’ artificial intelligence laws. The preemption is tucked in a provision that gives $500 million to the Commerce Department to revamp old information technology systems with AI.
But there’s already opposition from some senators to the spectrum language and doubts over whether the AI moratorium will comply with the chamber’s rules.
During a back-and-forth after the midnight hour, the E&C Committee’s counsel acknowledged the AI moratorium is a “policy change,” in response to queries from Democratic Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.) and Lizzie Fletcher (Texas).
This doesn’t bode well for the parliamentarian battle in the Senate. Democrats will use it to argue against the provision’s compliance with the Byrd Rule. Under Senate rules, provisions in reconciliation have to deal with spending and revenue.
Rep. Jay Obernolte (R-Calif.) tried to “clear up” the issue. Obernotle said the moratorium is a “necessary term and condition” for the Commerce Department to fulfill the spending direction.
