News: House Republicans are set to begin marking up their reconciliation package as soon as Congress returns from the two-week recess, according to sources involved with the planning.
The House committees expected to be among the first to mark up include the Judiciary, Homeland Security and Armed Services, three of the key authorizing committees. These markups will likely begin the week of April 28, GOP sources say.
Other committees may also mark up that week, as well.
The Judiciary, Homeland Security and Armed Services panels are responsible for new spending on border security and defense that Republicans are planning in the reconciliation package. This should be an easier lift compared to House panels tasked with crafting a hugely complex tax-cut package or slashing federal spending by hundreds of billions of dollars. So it makes sense to start here.
Here are the maximums the budget resolution directs each of these committees to spend:
— $110 billion for Judiciary.
— $90 billion for Homeland Security.
— $100 billion for Armed Services. The Senate Armed Services Committee has instructions to spend up to $150 billion, and defense hawks have been pressing for the higher sum.
The entire House committee markup schedule has been thrown into flux since the passage of the House-Senate budget resolution last week. House and Senate committees have vastly different instructions for their committees. GOP leadership was still reworking the cadence of markups for the 11 House committees instructed under the resolution.
Speaker Mike Johnson’s leadership team is committed to marking up its reconciliation package first, before the Senate gets started. Remember: tax bills have to start in the House.
Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune are intent on finishing the package before Memorial Day. That’s just 42 days from now. This is a very ambitious timeline, as we’ve repeatedly noted.
Also, paging the White House. Johnson again expressed his dismay with raising the top tax rate for wealthy Americans, something that the Trump administration keeps privately pushing.
Appearing on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures” with Maria Bartiromo, Johnson said he is “not a big fan” of trying to hike the rate for top earners, keeping himself firmly in line with traditional Republican Party orthodoxy on taxes.
Here’s Johnson, trying to tamp down this talk since there’s no way House Republicans would go for it:
“We’re the Republican Party and we’re for tax reduction for everyone. That’s a general principle that we always try to abide by. There’s lots of discussion, lots of ideas on the Hill. People have different thoughts and theories on how we can solve this perfect equation … to get all of this done. But I wouldn’t put any money on any of that yet. I would say just to stay tuned. The next five to six weeks are going to be critical as all of these negotiations happen in the committees of jurisdiction.”
House Budget Committee Chair Jodey Arrington (R-Texas) addressed this recently too, telling reporters that a tax increase for top earners hasn’t been discussed in any meetings he’s been in. Arrington sits on the Ways and Means Committee in addition to wielding the Budget gavel.
“I think the offsets are more for… special interest tax breaks or loopholes,” Arrington said. “And then beyond that, I think the focus of savings is on the spending reduction side.”
