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The House keeps talking about another party-line bill following the passage of President Donald Trump’s huge tax and spending cut package.
Senate Republican leaders find that a bit ironic.
The president and House leaders spurned the Senate’s pitch to do a national security spending bill first, then pivot to the trickier tax fight — opting instead for the agonizing but successful “big, beautiful bill” approach.
Now that Speaker Mike Johnson is floating as many as two more party-line bills, some GOP senators are essentially telling the House: We told you so.
“I’m glad the House realizes that the Senate was right, that we needed to do multiple reconciliation bills,” Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., the No. 2 leader, told Semafor.
Barrasso and other Republicans interviewed for this story said they support exploring whether it’s possible for the party to jam more pieces of its agenda into another so-called budget reconciliation bill, which can evade a Democratic filibuster.
But there are still some sour grapes about the big tactical dispute in February.
Johnson and House Ways and Means Chair Jason Smith argued that pricey new tax cuts couldn’t pass their chamber without being combined with energy provisions, spending cuts and national security spending. Many senators took that to mean that the House could probably only handle one party-line bill, period.
“Didn’t we just have this discussion six months ago … the speaker said ‘You can only pass one bill.’ Now you think you can pass three?” said Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., the No. 4 GOP leader and a former House member.
“I’m not saying we shouldn’t have another one, I’m just saying the irony is: ‘Oh we’re gonna have three. Before, we could only pass one.’ So, which one is it?” she added.
Notably, most Republicans don’t know what would go in the next bill, though conservatives want further spending cuts.
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The speaker and Smith’s megabill approach was more about easing passage of the tax cuts by pairing them with other goodies that appeal to Republicans — and less about saying the House could only pass a single party-line bill, according to a House Republican leadership source.
“These senators are misunderstanding the debate that was had … The House thought it was important to tie together border, energy, spending reductions and tax cuts. And, now that we’ve accomplished all of those things in one bill, we would of course be ready to consider future reconciliation bills in various other areas of public policy,” this source said.
But after going through a laborious and painful process to round up 50 votes for Trump’s megabill, there’s some doubt about how viable another one would be in either chamber.
Some senators and aides think the promise of another bill was mostly used as a carrot to finish the first bill, though Senate leaders are certainly not ruling out a repeat.
Six months into this Congress, the Senate has already gone through three exhausting, unlimited vote-a-ramas. Another party-line bill would mean two more such marathon sessions — after lots of grumbling from senior Republicans about the grueling nature of the first three.
Not to mention that several key components of Trump’s wishlist violated Senate rules for filibuster protections or couldn’t get the support to pass.
“There’s a lot of interest in that, for sure. And the speaker’s been talking a lot about doing it. But then, they don’t have to go through the Byrd Bath over there,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., told Semafor, referring to the parliamentary process of vetting a reconciliation bill’s policy provisions.
The View From Democrats
“How could they be so dumb, given how unpopular this bill was, to repeat it?” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., told Semafor, referring to the first reconciliation bill.