House Republicans’ plan for a massive conservative policy overhaul via the budget reconciliation process is expected to miss a key deadline this week, throwing a wrench in the GOP’s ambitious schedule for swiftly enacting President Donald Trump’s agenda.
Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., previously told reporters that House Republicans were aiming to advance their bill out of committee this week.
But Republican hardliners on the House Budget Committee balked at GOP leaders’ initial proposal for spending cuts late last week, multiple people told Fox News Digital, pushing for a steeper starting point in negotiations with the Senate.
“The budget resolution is almost certainly not going to move through committee this week,” one Budget Committee source told Fox News Digital. “Frankly, what was put forward by leadership at the retreat was so far off the mark – literally increasing deficits even further.”
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A senior House GOP aide said it was “extremely unlikely” for the resolution to pass through committee this week.
Meanwhile, the national debt continues to climb past the $36 trillion mark, with the U.S. deficit currently running over $710 billion for this fiscal year.
House Republicans huddled at Trump National Doral golf course and resort for three days last week, where committee chairs detailed possible avenues to pursue spending cuts.
Senate and House Republicans hope to use their majorities to pass a broad range of Trump’s agenda items through reconciliation. By lowering the threshold for Senate passage from 60 votes to 51, it will allow Republicans to bypass Democrats and enact sweeping policy changes – provided they are linked to the budget and other fiscal matters.
But to do that, the House Budget Committee will need to pass a budget resolution that will include specific instructions for various other committees under policies of their jurisdiction.
Conservatives have demanded that the final product of the process be deficit-neutral, if not deficit-reducing – something Johnson promised last week.
Johnson said the guidelines for spending cuts would be a “floor” rather than a “ceiling,” giving lawmakers more flexibility to find more savings.
But Rep. Ralph Norman, R-S.C., a House Freedom Caucus member who sits on the budget panel, argued that those cuts likely will not extend much past their stated “floors.”
“I guess they want to get the resolution out. I do, too. I want to get it out of committee, have an up or down vote. But if you set that floor too low, that’s all that’s going to be achieved,” Norman said. “I have no confidence that they would exceed whatever level we put in there.”
Norman said leaders’ initial offer amounted to roughly $300 billion as a floor for spending cuts, but that it also included $325 billion in new spending, but “does not include interest.”
The Budget Committee source who spoke with Fox News Digital said the offer was raised to roughly $900 billion in spending cuts with roughly $300 billion in new spending on border security and defense.
The source said it was “building in the right direction” but still “woefully inadequate.”
Norman suggested he wanted the starting point raised to $2 to $3 trillion.
“Anything less than that is really sending the signal that we’re just not serious about it,” he said.
Norman is one of several Freedom Caucus members on the House Budget Committee who could potentially tank the bill, considering it’s virtually unlikely to get Democratic support.
But steeper spending cuts could also risk rankling Republicans in districts that depend on whatever funding goes on the chopping block.
Democrats have used Republicans’ pursuit of deep spending cuts as a cudgel, accusing them of wanting to gut Social Security and Medicare. GOP leaders have denied eyeing those benefits.
Rep. Ben Cline, R-Va., another Freedom Caucus member on the budget panel, said he was optimistic but that there were “a lot of conversations about starting the process from the most conservative position possible.”
“The Senate is not as interested in fiscal responsibility, so we recognize the need to set parameters for authorizing committees that encourage that… from the beginning,” Cline said.
Johnson said he wanted the bill through committee this week for a goal of passing an initial House version by the end of February.
Congressional leaders hope to have passed a reconciliation bill by May.
The speaker said on “Fox & Friends” Monday morning of reconciliation talks, “Republicans are working right now to negotiate what that looks like. We don’t want to blow a hole in the deficit by extending the Trump-era tax cuts, for example, but we’re definitely going to get that extended. So we got to find those savings.”
