House Speaker Mike Johnson could move ahead this week with a vote on the Senate-approved version of reconciliation. But not all Republicans are on board, and if more than three vote against, the House resolution will fail.
Conservative hardliners Andy Harris of Arizona, Andy Ogles of Tennessee, Chip Roy of Texas, and others have expressed concerns with the Senate bill.
Reconciliation is a process that, if agreed to by the majority party in the House and Senate, will bypass a Democrat filibuster in the Senate.
The problem with Republicans, as it is so often, is the issue of spending.
The Senate version, with its proposed $4 billion in spending cuts, doesn’t go far enough for many House members. Harris said on Washington Watch earlier this week that the House would like to see the floor for spending cuts set at $2 trillion.
The $4 billion offer from the Senate is “just a drop in the bucket,” Suzanne Bowdey, editorial director for The Washington Stand, said on Washington Watch Tuesday.
Among the many Trump initiatives GOP lawmakers hope to pass is an extension of the 2017 tax cuts.
House approval would mean the two sides have decided on a plan for how to do the work. This is about procedural rules, not the bill that says all work is done, and now only the President’s signature awaits, Bowdey told show host Tony Perkins.
That’s the message Johnson is trying to hammer home.
Johnson’s plea: Do this and move ahead
“By passing the Senate amendment," Johnson wrote on X Tuesday, "we can get to the next stage in the reconciliation process and draft the essential legislation. This is how we will deliver on the America First agenda we promised the American people. Republicans need to keep working together to accomplish this critical mission."
Passing the Senate’s version would not carve in stone a limit of $4 billion in spending cuts.
“No, and I think that’s one of the points Mike Johnson is trying to make. This is just a shell. It’s a skeleton. So if the two sides come together and agree on this skeleton moving forward (they) can make it whatever (they) want in the end,” Bowdey said.
That was also the message from Trump to concerned Republicans in a meeting Tuesday.
“You can see both sides’ point of view,” Bowdey said. “There’s a lot of wiggle room in this process to do more than what’s being laid out right now.”
In fact, some Republicans would like to see more than double the figure for spending cuts – perhaps as much as $5 trillion – that has been floated, Bowdey said.
Trump gave the Senate version a strong endorsement after it was passed on Monday.
“All the elements we need to secure the border, enact historic spending cuts, make tax cuts permanent and much more are strongly covered and represented in the bill,” he wrote in a Truth Social post. “There is no better time than now to get this Deal DONE! THE HOUSE MUST PASS THIS BUDGET RESOLUTION AND QUICKLY – MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN.”
Rep. James Comer (R-Kentucky) is encouraging Johnson to bring the resolution to the floor for a vote. In an interview with NewsMax Wednesday, he expressed frustration with the unease some in his party have for moving forward.
A vote would allow constituents of Republican holdouts to see how their guys are voting, a good thing, Comer said.
“This is more of a procedural bill than the actual budget reconciliation bill. It’s very frustrating that we have several Republicans, several of my good friends and colleagues, who continue to raise objections to things that really don’t amount to a whole lot. At the end of the day, this legislation just allows us to move forward,” he said.
Bowdey agreed with that view. “We’re really just getting on the train. We haven’t even left the station yet,” she said.
Yet some Republicans remain hesitant to board, perhaps because they see no mechanism for really holding senators accountable for spending cuts when the time arrives for serious legislation drafts.
“There's just an incredible amount of controversial issues that, at some point, both sides are going to have to sit down and really hammer through, whether that's now or whether that's you pass the shell of a plan and then you come to the table later. Regardless, there's going to be hard work in negotiating on both sides,” Bowdey said.
Harris suggested on Monday that both sides should get their ducks in a row and begin reconciliation talks even before passing the procedural framework.
“That’s what they did in 2017, the last time the Republicans tried to do a reconciliation bill. They said, ‘OK, we're going to (temporarily) punt on this issue of the resolution,’” Bowdey said.
At some point, agreement, or Trump agenda stalls
Ultimately, a reconciliation resolution will have to be passed.
“You can’t unlock the framework without it,” Bowdey said.
But for now, Bowdey doesn’t see a clear path for House support of the Senate’s version of reconciliation.
“Complicating matters is that you have to have a rule passed before they can even get to a vote on the plan, and guess who are the gatekeepers of the rules committee? They are these very hard line conservatives who are not going to say, ‘okay, sure, let's vote on this rule, and then it's open season on the budget resolution’ if they sincerely have problems and don't believe that the Senate is going to make further cuts,” she said.
