Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune indicated there was at least one point of agreement from their White House meeting Tuesday: Adding a debt ceiling hike to their party-line tax, border and energy bill.
That’s a gamble some Senate Republicans fear could sink the whole package. And while President Donald Trump told GOP lawmakers that was his preference earlier this month, he’ll now have to convince several skeptical Republicans to get behind the idea.
Johnson called it “everybody’s preferred outcome at this point.” Thune said it was “clearly a preferable outcome,” though he acknowledged he still needs to “determine whether or not the Senate can get on board with that idea.”
Still, plenty of sticking points remain as both chambers hope to work out a deal on a reconciliation bill framework they hope to adopt by the week of April 7.
House Republicans are digging in on the spending cuts their budget blueprint would prescribe for the reconciliation process, with Energy and Commerce Chair Brett Guthrie defending the $880 billion in cuts his committee has been tasked with finding as “realistic.” But Republican senators have aired doubts on that point, fearful of major reductions to Medicaid benefits. Many of them want to adjust the level of savings the committee would be tasked with finding to spare slashes to the popular safety net program.
“I’m not going to vote for something that would lead to Medicaid cuts,” said Sen. Josh Hawley.
That’s not a position all Senate Republicans share, however. Some conservatives want even deeper spending cuts. Thune is hoping to appease those lawmakers by pointing out all the federal funding reductions already undertaken by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency.
Senate Republicans also want to make the expiring 2017 tax cuts permanent — something that wasn’t included in the House GOP blueprint. And Republican senators are making clear they intend to tweak the House-passed budget resolution on that point.
“They said they needed time to do one big, beautiful bill,” Senate Budget Chair Lindsey Graham told reporters, referring to House Republicans. “They had a chance; the product is woefully inadequate.”
What else we’re watching:
- X-date projection: The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office is planning to release its projection for when the U.S. will breach the debt limit at 10 a.m. The Bipartisan Policy Center predicted Monday that the so-called X-date would occur sometime between mid-July and early October if Congress doesn’t act.
- Discharge petition drama: Rep. Anna Paulina Luna is pushing her discharge petition to allow new parents in the House to vote remotely, which has secured the necessary 218 signatures. Hard-liners and GOP leaders both want to kill Luna’s proposal, and hard-liners engaged in a brief standoff with leadership on the floor Tuesday as a way to push for Johnson to find a way to table the effort.
- NPR and PBS face the DOGE spotlight: The heads of
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