The House and Senate are back today. President Donald Trump is at the White House.
News: The first big moment of this week will come Tuesday. That’s when Speaker Mike Johnson, Senate Majority Leader John Thune and House and Senate Republican committee chairs will meet to begin hammering out how to meld their very different budget resolutions for reconciliation. At stake — the fate of Trump’s legislative agenda.
You don’t need us to fully review how different the two budget resolutions are, but as a reminder, the House’s resolution includes a minimum of $1.5 trillion in spending cuts and $4.5 trillion for tax cuts. The Senate’s “skinny” budget resolution includes $325 billion in new military and border security spending plus energy policy changes.
Johnson and his House Republican leadership team have been adamant that they believe their resolution should win out because of the razor-tight GOP margin of control in their chamber. Yet, the Senate isn’t going to agree to $880 billion in Medicaid cuts or other massive reductions in federal spending that the House has approved.
House and Senate Republican leaders want to pass a compromise budget resolution before the Easter break. The plan, as of now, is for the Senate to consider the legislation on the floor first.
But in order for that to happen before the scheduled two-week recess, the Senate would need to vote on the compromise budget resolution next week. During a Fox News interview on Sunday, Sen. John Hoeven (R-N.D.), suggested that the Senate could indeed have a compromise budget resolution on the floor as soon as next week.
Meanwhile, staff-level work on the tax components was “virtually nonstop” over the recess, per a Senate aide. Remember, GOP congressional leaders and the White House also have to hammer out a compromise on the non-tax details. For example, the Senate’s defense number is $50 billion higher than the House’s.
One of the other main topics of conversation expected in the Johnson-Thune-chair meeting is Congress’s next big fight: the debt limit.
Johnson would like to keep the debt limit increase as part of the reconciliation package. But Senate Republicans are skeptical of that. For his part, Trump would like the borrowing cap lifted as soon as possible and doesn’t care how.
Johnson is still under the assumption that he can get the final reconciliation package passed through both chambers and to Trump’s desk before Memorial Day. We’re skeptical of this timeline, as is pretty much everyone else in town. The “X date” for the debt limit hasn’t been set yet, although that would be close. Problems at the IRS are a potential issue too.
But let’s play out another scenario. What if Congress lumped together the debt limit and disaster aid, something that lawmakers and aides have been talking about for some time? It would take the hugely controversial provision out of the reconciliation package and lump it in with tens of billions of dollars in aid for California and other disaster-stricken areas.
The political dynamics here are somewhat favorable for Republicans, although it wouldn’t be easy for GOP leaders. They could put a divided Democratic Party in a jam again while making reconciliation easier. Most importantly, it could reach the floor long before a reconciliation package is completed.
Look at what Democrats are going through at this moment. House Democrats are up in arms against Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer for helping the GOP-run Congress avoid a government shutdown. Schumer spent the recess on an “I’m-not-resigning-as-leader” tour while promoting his new book on anti-semitism. A huge chunk of the Democratic Party has major reservations about Schumer’s strategic decision-making. A debt limit-disaster aid fight could push the Democratic Party’s fissures back to the surface again.
We don’t want to minimize the seriousness of the debt-limit issue. Republicans have to pass a debt-limit increase in order to enact their agenda, including extending the 2017 Trump tax rates. Voting for such an increase has been anathema to most hardline conservatives throughout their careers, but they supported it under heavy pressure from Trump as part of the House GOP budget resolution. That proposal included a $4 trillion increase in the borrowing limit.
In order to add the debt-limit provision to a disaster aid bill – which Democrats would be upset about – Johnson would first have to pass a rule. Then the House could consider the measure. If passed, it could put Schumer in an uncomfortable spot. The New York Democrat knows raising the debt limit is among the most serious issues Congress faces. Yet he would be under pressure to force Republicans to go with it alone, meaning using reconciliation to pass it themselves.
But for this week, Johnson’s goal is to keep the focus completely on reconciliation and party unity in order to have a chance of getting the reconciliation package over the finish line at some point this spring or summer.
The GOP leadership doesn’t want to spend necessary time on any other issue.
But this week, they have to deal with two situations.
First, Rep. Anna Paulina Luna’s (R-Fla.) resolution to formalize remote voting for new mothers and fathers has reached the requisite signatures to get a vote on the floor. Johnson is vehemently opposed to this measure.
Second, the GOP leadership is going to try to avoid having Rep. Brandon Gill’s (R-Texas) resolution to impeach U.S. District Judge James Boasberg come up for a vote. Boasberg ruled against Trump’s deportation of Venezuelans.
The House GOP leadership plans two moves to show they are taking on what they call judicial activism.
– They will put Rep. Darrell Issa’s (R-Calif.) bill on the floor to forbid district judges from issuing nationwide injunctions. This bill is unlikely to come to the floor this week since the House has a shortened schedule due to the late Rep. Raul Grijalva’s (D-Ariz.) funeral.
– The House Judiciary Committee will announce hearings on Boasberg and will try to bring him in to testify. It will be difficult to drag a sitting judge in front of a House committee to testify.
