After GOP passes budget resolution, Congress to-do list only gets tougher from here

After a cornerstone of President Trump’s domestic agenda cleared a decisive test in the House on Tuesday, Republicans now face a daunting challenge of crafting bill text for an ambitious, partisan budget plan.

At the same time, lawmakers face a looming deadline to fund the government; the current short-term spending bill expires on March 14. That is likely to be the next priority, as there’s no clear plan in place — and Democratic support may be needed to get the measure across the finish line.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune and House Speaker Mike Johnson head to the White House on Wednesday to discuss the spending plans, according to sources familiar with the conversation who weren’t authorized to speak publicly.

Republicans had to overcome bitter, internal divides over spending to pass the framework for a sweeping multitrillion dollar plan to address defense, energy, immigration and tax policy. That effort took weeks, and was supposed to be the easy part in a complicated legislative process known as reconciliation.

The framework includes $4.5 trillion in Trump tax cuts, and $2 trillion in spending cuts that would dramatically reshape the federal budget.

“We got it done,” Johnson told reporters following a House vote Tuesday evening to approve a budget framework. “This is the first important step in opening up the reconciliation process. We have a lot of hard work ahead of us, but we are going to deliver the America First agenda.”

The Republican-led Senate, impatient with the House’s delays, passed their own version of a budget framework last week. Now, GOP members for both chambers will need to coalesce behind one plan, as committee budget writers need to fill in some very large blanks. The two sides will have to go resolve their differences.

Tuesday’s House vote was a critical step to laying out a budget blueprint, allowing Republicans to unlock reconciliation letting the GOP avoid a Democratic filibuster.

House Republicans have a razor-thin majority, and needed virtually the entire conference to vote yes. Several initial hold outs were flipped to support the plan after hours of negotiations with House leadership, including Reps. Warren Davidson of Ohio, Victoria Spartz of Ohio and Tim Burchett of Tennessee.

Burchett, who was concerned about the plan’s big spending plans, switched his support after talking to Trump on Tuesday.

“The problem is it’s Washington, ma’am,” Burchett said on NPR’s Morning Edition. “It’s not a very perfect world. It’s a dishonest community at its core. And this is the best I could get. I’ve often said you’re either at the table or on the menu. And I needed to be at the table.”

Ultimately, the measure passed 217 to 215, with all Democrats and just one Republican voting against it.

Debate over Medicaid

The next steps mark what promises to be a lengthy and difficult path in passing the party’s policy priorities. And it will likely mirror the same struggles to reach this stage: balancing competing demands from within a fractious GOP caucus.

While fiscal hawks are demanding steep spending cuts, other members voice concern about those cuts having to come from Medicaid, the government insurance program that provides health coverage for millions of low-income and disabled Americans.

The House plan calls for an increase in funding to secure the southern border, a boost for military spending and raising the nation’s debt limit by $4 trillion.

The plan also calls for $4.5 trillion in tax cuts over the next decade. Those cuts include renewing the 2017 Trump tax cuts, which are set to expire at the end of the year, as well as other proposals that the president campaigned on, like no taxes on tips, overtime or Social Security.

Spending cut concession

In order to get the budget plan just to this stage, Johnson was forced to concede to a demand from some conservative holdouts for $2 trillion in spending cuts. Under the budget framework, the exact details of those cuts will be sorted out later, by individual committees in the House.

The House Energy and Commerce Committee, for example, would be responsible for coming up with $880 billion in savings. But because the committee has say over spending for programs like Medicare and Medicaid, more moderate Republicans are worried about cuts coming from the social safety net.

Democrats also seized on the potential for cuts to the popular Medicaid program for low-income, elderly and disabled Americans.

“The House Republican budget resolution will set in motion the largest Medicaid cut in American history,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., told reporters after the vote.

Ahead of Tuesday’s vote, several members signaled opposition — but in the end Republican Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky voted against it.

In a post on social media Monday, Massie wrote, “If the Republican budget passes, the deficit gets worse, not better.” Elon Musk responded to the post by saying, “That sounds bad.”

The chair of the House Budget Committee, Rep. Jodey Arrington, R-Texas, credited Johnson for the outcome. There were multiple holdouts before the vote, Arrington acknowledged, but the speaker he said, was “the difference maker.”

“I think that small margin forces you to work together,” Arrington said. “This was an historic election. We know this is a monumental opportunity for us to course correct, for us to reverse course on the last four years, to be frank, and nobody wants to miss that. And everybody had to make some sacrifice or some pain involved.”