House Republicans met late into the evening Tuesday in Speaker Mike Johnson’s office furiously trying to avoid letting the Senate jump out ahead of them and take any remaining steam out of the House’s “one big, beautiful” budget reconciliation bill.
The House is scheduled to be in recess the week of Feb. 17. And under the timetable that Johnson, R-La., initially laid out, the chamber by then would have adopted the budget blueprint needed to write the reconciliation bill, which can bypass the Senate’s 60-vote hurdle.
But there was no sign late Tuesday that the Budget Committee would be ready to mark up the budget resolution this week. “It’s not scheduled for this week. … We still have some more work to do,” House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., told reporters after the roughly three-hour meeting.
Factions within the House GOP are still wrestling with what the budget’s “instructions” for the reconciliation bill will look like. Some of the most outspoken spending hawks are pushing for at least $1 trillion in cuts over a decade; according to sources familiar with the talks, GOP leaders have proffered around $900 billion.
But Scalise said the gap was narrowing. “I think, when you look at where we are, we’re close to a trillion and still working,” he said. […]
— Read More: rollcall.com
