House Budget Committee Chair Jodey Arrington (R-Texas) floated a framework for advancing President Donald Trump’s legislative agenda during a private meeting of panel members Tuesday morning. 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 any plan. The committee has officially scheduled the Thursday meeting. The framework Arrington outlined 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. 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 numerous federal programs elsewhere in the budget. House Republicans are under mounting pressure to move a budget resolution to advance President 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.
The Senate is expected to vote late Tuesday or early Wednesday on Tulsi Gabbard’s confirmation for director of national intelligence, after her nomination survived a crucial committee vote last week and cleared a key procedural hurdle Monday. The full Senate went on to advance Gabbard’s nomination 52-46 in a party-line procedural vote Monday night, though Senators Thom Tillis (R) of North Carolina and John Fetterman (D) of Pennsylvania did not vote. The vote started the clock on up to 30 hours of debate before a vote on final passage.
The Senate is also expected to take up a Motion to invoke cloture on Executive Calendar #17 Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., of California, to be Secretary of Health and Human Services.
The House is currently voting on H. Res. 122 – Providing for consideration of the bill (H.R. 77) to amend chapter 8 of title 5, United States Code, to provide for en bloc consideration in resolutions of disapproval for ‘‘midnight rules,’’ and for other purposes, which is the first and only vote of the day.
