Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said that debate over how to pass Trump's legislative agenda continues into the weekend (including Super Bowl Sunday), as lawmakers threatened the Senate to move. A contrasting strategy to compete to complete the final details of the package.
Johnson left Capitol just before midnight Thursday after the meeting's Marathon Day, saying he was happy with the progress he made in legislation, but noted that there are still issues that need to be hashed.
“We may have a little more work at the Super Bowl on Saturday and Sunday, but we are very close. I'm very optimistic and pleased with how things are going.” Johnson told reporters.
Johnson and Trump are scheduled to attend the Super Bowl in New Orleans, Louisiana on Sunday.
House majority leader Steve Scullies (R-La.) sounded the same optimistic tone, and on his way out to reporters, he said he still had the House Budget Committee to budget early next week. He said he hopes he can mark up the resolution. weekend.
“We're making progress,” Scalise told reporters. “Obviously, we have goals for next week until we can bring this to the Budget Committee, and tomorrow we will continue to work to resolve the final details throughout the weekend.”
The weekend job in the House plans to advance a contrasting two-track budget settlement strategy early next week as GOP lawmakers compete with Senate Republicans. The Senate Budget Committee is set to mark up budgetary resolutions that include border and energy items but rule out the troublesome tax issues the House is trying to work with.
Senate Republicans are set to pitch Trump with a two-bill strategy at Mar-A-Lago Friday night.
But top house Republicans are pushing aside the notion that Mar-a-Lago's meetings and markup are putting pressure on their operations.
“We have a very strong coalition and the president saw it today,” Scullyse told reporters. “The president saw a fairly broad section of our meeting and we got a lot of details. So I think which senators are going, what they're talking about, that's their business. I don't think so. We have to take care of our business. Our homes take care of our business.”
But already, the Chamber of Commerce has blown away its voluntary timeline. After a cross-section of House Republican ideology met with Trump at the White House early Thursday, Johnson said he believes the group will “have some announcements” by Friday. Lisa McClain (R-Mich.), chairman of the House GOP Conference, similarly said, “We're going to get something before we get home.”
But a top lawmaker who left the Capitol on Thursday night said some issues had not been resolved. McClain said there are “very, very, very, very, very few” problems left to resolve.
Among them are the exact costs of cost-cutting proposals intended to offset some of the expensive Trump priorities, such as no tax on tips and lifting state and local tax (salt) deduction caps.
McLain told reporters during a late-night gathering at the White House and Capitol — some cuts that lawmakers still planned to be accepted across the conference would be accepted, lawmakers still still said I had to “verify.”
“Some of the cuts we're going to make, we need to check,” McClain said. “We need to make sure these are tasty cuts that don't hurt some of our members and can actually do what we can do.”
Scalise considers how Republicans can take that into account and have the impact of savings, as it may not be reflected in traditional Congressional Budget Office (CBO) methods of assessing the budgetary effects of spending bills. He said he was there.
“There is realistic and dramatic growth in the economy of an individual family, with more money on someone's salary and ultimately quantified. But the way to come up with dynamic scoring for CBOs is It's different from OMB [the Office of Management and Budget] And other people. So we'll look at the most accurate model,” says Scalise.
Jason Smith (R-Mo.), chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, called the marathon meeting Thursday “probably my most productive day in Washington.”
Also attending the late-night meeting in the speaker suite was Rep. Mike Lawler (RN.Y.), Freedom Caucus Chairman Andy Harris (R-MD.), and House Budget Committee Chairman Geordy Arrington ( R-Texas), he was in charge. .
