House Republicans are gathered in South Florida for a few days to flesh out their plans for the massive budget blueprint they hope to pass in just four weeks’ time.
Politico calls it a “make-or-break moment” for Trump’s agenda.
They’ll need to decide what will be included in that reconciliation bill, how they might pay for it, what they want in a separate government funding bill that will require Democratic votes, how they want to approach a necessary debt limit hike and what, if anything, might get left aside for later. And they’ll need to figure out how best to work with President Donald Trump, who has laid out priorities that don’t always align with those of GOP lawmakers, including an emphasis on tariffs and a push to further lower the corporate tax rate.
“Some Republicans have privately made it clear that they’d rather not include some of Mr. Trump’s most expensive proposals in the legislation, especially as they battle concerns from hard-right Republicans that the bill will cost too much,” Catie Edmondson and Andrew Duehren of The New York Times report.
House Speaker Mike Johnson acknowledged the importance of this retreat. “You’ve all heard me talk about the proverbial playbook that we developed over the last year, leading up to this moment that we knew would happen,” he told reporters at a news conference Monday afternoon. “Now we’re working out the final sequence of the plays. So some big decisions will be made here in the next few days and we’ll align with the Senate and our colleagues there and we will move forward on that agenda — the reconciliation process, the appropriations that we have to wrap up and the other issues that are upon us.”
Trump spoke to lawmakers this evening about his agenda. Trump has promised to extend Republicans’ 2017 tax cuts, some of which are set to expire at the end of the year, and he has floated other tax cuts along with plans to expand energy production and enact sweeping border and immigration changes. On Monday, he said he wants to keep his campaign promises to also eliminate taxes on tip income, Social Security benefits and overtime wages. At a rally on Saturday, he also teased the impossible idea of having tariffs completely replace taxes. “How about just no tax?” Trump said. “You know, if the tariffs work out like I think, a thing like that could happen, if you want to know the truth.”
As Republicans try to enact Trump’s agenda, House GOP leaders at the policy retreat are also scheduled to hold a town hall with their members on Tuesday morning before a session on the budget reconciliation outlook. That will be followed by a couple more days of breakout sessions and separate committee discussions about the reconciliation plan.
Johnson defends conditions on California aid: At his news conference, Johnson also defended Trump’s demands for placing policy conditions — namely, the enactment of a voter ID law and water policy changes — on disaster aid funding for the Los Angeles wildfires. “I think that a commonsense notion that is supported by the vast majority of the American people who do not want to subsidize crazy California leftist policies that are dangerous for people,” Johnson said. "Now, what the terms are and the details of that, we will be working it out.”