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Many Republican senators are watching with a mixture of dread and optimism as the House tries to send a massive tax/spending cut/national security bill to them by Memorial Day.
And some of them aren’t watching much at all.
“I shut most of that out because they debate a lot of stuff. I call it a sandstorm of bad ideas,” quipped Sen. Bernie Moreno, R-Ohio, of the House’s efforts.
As House Republicans consider combining everything from Medicaid to energy policy with the right blend of spending cuts, Moreno said the GOP Congress should focus on what he called its overall goal: permanent extensions of the president’s 2017 tax cuts, the restoration of research and development expensing to 100%, and the addition of new Trump-backed tax breaks for tips, overtime and Social Security.
“They love to make things complicated,” Moreno said of the House’s tax machinations. “I don’t think we need to do anything more than that.”
Yet the House GOP is still working toward a much bigger project, even as some senators suspect it may become a Frankenstein’s monster. One thing is clear: The Senate is essentially guaranteed to amend whatever the House comes up with.
“I don’t know what it’s going to look like when the smoke clears, but it’ll be changed,” said Sen. John Kennedy, R-La. “Too early to tell. The only thing I would encourage my House colleagues to do is make meaningful spending reductions. And I know it’s hard, but it’s also time.”
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Spending cuts may be a requirement for conservatives, but every time Republicans zero in on something to cut, they get pushback from another corner of the GOP. Moreno dislikes House proposals to shrink the federal share of Medicaid spending; some Republicans oppose repealing certain Inflation Reduction Act tax credits; and spending cuts for food aid is becoming a third rail for Republicans.
“The toughest thing is how to pay for these issues. I think we’re at the point now, it’s time to fish or cut bait. How much money can the House save the American taxpayers?” asked Sen. Roger Marshall of Kansas. “Whatever they can do, we can get that amount done over here.”
The House is planning, for now at least, to send its legislation through congressional committees. The Senate has no current plans to do that; they’ll assemble their own bill or tweak whatever the House sends over.
That could lead to a leadership-negotiated Senate bill that amends the House’s work and tees up a final deal.
“There could be a world in which the House passes their bill, and then, you know, we’re here,” said Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas. He said one possibility is to “tweak it, and then send it back to them, and then they pass it.”
That’s assuming that the House can pass its megabill at all. Republicans are already facing big delays as key tax, health care and food markups remain unscheduled.
And if the House stalls out further, the Senate may need to step in to go first. Whether that work would take the form of Trump’s preferred “big, beautiful bill” or passing his agenda in pieces would have to be determined.
Notable
- House Republicans are struggling to juggle Trump’s tax proposals, according to The New York Times.
- Trump’s budget incorporates the reconciliation bill’s big defense spending boost, Roll Call reports.