House Budget Committee Chair Jodey Arrington (R-Texas) floated a framework for advancing President Trump’s legislative agenda during a private meeting of panel members Tuesday morning, sources told The Hill.
Arrington explained the latest blueprint to committee members shortly before he told lawmakers during a closed-door meeting of the broader House GOP conference that his panel will take up a budget resolution on Thursday, an ambitious timeline for the group that has thus far struggled to coalesce around a plan. The committee has officially scheduled the Thursday meeting.
The framework Arrington outlined — according to two sources and Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.), who sits on the panel — includes a $1.5 trillion floor for spending cuts with a $2 trillion target, a structure meant to give committees flexibility when crafting the package, one of the sources said.
The blueprint also includes a $4.5 trillion cap on the deficit impact of the Republicans’ plan to extend Trump’s 2017 tax cuts. Because most of those cuts will reduce federal revenues, they add to the federal debt. Arrington’s framework would instruct the Ways and Means Committee, which has jurisdiction over tax policy, not to exceed $4.5 trillion in new deficits as the result of the tax provisions — a figure Republicans are hoping to offset with cuts to federal programs elsewhere in the budget.
One source said there was “some degree of understanding” that if the $2 trillion in cuts is not achieved, the deficit increase number could decrease.
It remains unclear if the framework discussed in the meeting Tuesday morning will be the product that the conference forges ahead with. Neither Arrington nor Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) outlined the framework during the closed-door House GOP conference meeting after the Budget Committee huddle Tuesday morning, two of the sources said.
While the level of cuts is far higher than the proposed $500 billion floor that leadership included in a previous proposal, it is still lower than the roughly $2.5 trillion that several conservatives are pushing for.
“These numbers were discussed this morning,” Norman told The Hill, but noted that the committee floated alternative ideas, including the House Freedom Caucus budget resolution, which was released Monday. The conservative group is looking at a two-track reconciliation strategy, with the first bill providing $200 billion in border and military funding and $486 billion in cuts.
House Republicans are under mounting pressure to move a budget resolution to advance Trump’s domestic policy priorities. Republicans on Capitol Hill are looking to use the budget reconciliation process to pass items on his wish list, which, if successful, would allow the party to circumvent Democratic opposition in the Senate. But it requires near-unanimity in the conferences, which is difficult to achieve in the slim House GOP majority.
Passing a budget resolution unlocks the reconciliation process.
Johnson has insisted that the House move first on a budget resolution, insisting that a one-bill strategy is the best way to achieve Trump’s agenda. Senate Republicans, however, have favored a two-bill track, and the chamber is moving ahead with that plan as the House struggles to come to an agreement.
The Senate Budget Committee is set to mark up its own budget resolution on Wednesday.
The level of spending cuts in the House budget resolution has been one of the final — and major — hang-ups as the chamber looks to coalesce around an agreement.
