WASHINGTON—With a promise of House passage within the next three months, Speaker Mike Johnson is outlining a very ambitious timeframe to approve President-elect Donald Trump’s big-ticket legislative agenda.
Johnson, a Republican from Louisiana, told NBC News on Tuesday that we are aiming for ultimate passage in April.
He restated that the House intends to enact Trump’s policies on taxes, domestic energy, and border security in a single, magnificent bill. Johnson has also demanded that the plan include increases to the debt cap and spending cuts.
With Johnson’s paper-thin House majority and no chance of gaining Democratic support, it would be an impossible undertaking. With two lawmakers departing for the Trump administration, Republicans’ lead of 219-215 is about to momentarily narrow to 217-215. Johnson had stated his goal of passing a budget resolution by the end of February in order to begin the reconciliation process.
Republican senators are not certain that a single bill covering the entirety of Trump’s goals would be passed quickly.
In an interview, Texas Senator John Cornyn stated, “I believe we’ve seen that the House is operating on a razor’s edge.” The more we argue over one or two measures, the more we are failing to adopt a budget and provide directions for reconciliation. Therefore, I believe it is time to break the glass and admit that the House might not be able to pass what the Senate can. We must all agree on something. What the House can pass is, in my opinion, the actual limiting element.
With greater GOP support, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., is not giving up on his goal of splitting the process into two bills in order to win an early, swift victory on border financing.
I’m optimistic that we can pass legislation addressing the border as part of a reconciliation package. Thune told reporters on Tuesday that the process of how that occurs is still open to debate and negotiation.
A week after Trump met secretly with Senate Republicans to discuss his agenda approach, the one-versus-two measure dispute is still going strong. Both sides have been emboldened to dig in after Trump expressed his preference for one bill during a heated argument, according to senators, but seemed indifferent to the process.
The conference did not resolve the dispute, according to Sen. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D.
Do you think it looked that way? He laughed as he spoke. It didn’t.
GOP eyes $80 billion-$100 billion for the border
Cramer offered a solution: Let the Senate begin with a smaller border-focused package in preparation for needing to switch to two tracks, while Johnson and the House attempt to pass a single one.
As you saw, the House may be an issue, so let Speaker Johnson and his team do what they think is necessary. They are more familiar with the House than we are, he said. We pay our bills in the interim. We perform a scaled-down version. Additionally, you have both of them on the table simultaneously.
The Senate can provide the House till April, he said: The senator went on to say that people will become a little impatient if April drags on for too long.
Taxes are more difficult. It’s going to take longer,” Cramer stated, adding that the two-track argument makes sense in part because border money is more urgent than the tax component.
Although the new Trump administration is ready to crack down on immigration, Sen. Ted Cruz, a Republican from Texas, stated that it would be advantageous to have more resources at the outset.
Cruz stated, “That’s why I believe we should do two bills.”
Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, who will be in charge of the bill’s immigration portion, told NBC News on Tuesday that his committee is communicating with Trump’s advisors.
According to him, Stephen Miller, the Trump adviser who focuses on immigration, is the perfect person to ask about all the things you need for deportation, the wall, and more staff. However, we’ve heard estimates ranging from $80 billion to $100 billion.
Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., stated that Republicans must be prepared to take political chances in order to pass the law and implement tough expenditure cuts to reduce the cost.
“We have a historic opportunity to make the difficult decisions that we need to make,” he remarked. It will also require some bravery and the willingness to risk losing your reelection.
Debt ceiling and SALT deductions
Furthermore, Tillis questioned if House Republicans would raise the debt ceiling on a party-line basis.
I have no idea how that occurs. “It would be extraordinary if it did,” he remarked. However, I fail to understand how it occurs given the House’s votes.
In addition to health care funding and an extension of the federal deductions for state and local taxes (SALT), which primarily affect high-tax states like New York and New Jersey, Tillis proposed easing pressure on Republicans by severing the expiring child tax credit provisions and negotiating them in a separate bipartisan agreement with Democrats.
The child tax credit was awarded to you. For people on the Affordable Care Act exchange, you have the subsidy. By negotiating something in good faith, you have a lot of Democratic goals there that may actually relieve some of the pressure on what we need to do in terms of reconciliation, he said. salt or not. I prefer my pecans salted. Up here, I dislike a lot of SALT deductions.
To placate House members in impacted areas, Republicans intend to increase the SALT deduction in their party-line package for the time being.
Knowing that their votes will make or break the package, five House Republicans have banded together to negotiate a SALT agreement with party leadership. They are representatives. Young Kim, R-Calif; Tom Kean, R-N.J.; Mike Lawler, R-N.Y.; Andrew Garbarino, R-N.Y.; and Nick LaLota, R-N.Y.
LaLota stated on Wednesday that raising the SALT cap for our constituents is our top goal and that we will remain united on it. We have committed to cooperating and supporting one another.
They are still debating the specifics among themselves and do not yet have an offer. According to Lawler, raising the ceiling to $20,000 for couples is insufficient to completely abolish the marriage penalty.
“That’s dreadfully inadequate,” Lawler replied.
Johnson’s April goal is ambitious, according to Jon Traub, a managing principal at Deloitte Tax LLP and a former Republican staff director on the House Ways and Means Committee, which writes taxes.
That’s partly because of the maze of obstacles the Senate budget process will present to let Republicans evade the 60-vote threshold, requiring the bill to be limited to matters of taxing and spending.
I think it s very ambitious timing, Traub said. It s not impossible, since I think the moving pieces are mostly identified and well-known. But putting them together with whatever revenue constraints they will self-impose and getting agreement on the revenue targets in the first place will be difficult.