Meeting behind closed doors with House Republicans at their policy retreat at Trump National Doral resort near Miami Tuesday, Vice President JD Vance told the assembled group that President Trump still wants to include a provision on the debt ceiling in the massive reconciliation package lawmakers hope to pass in a matter of weeks.
As Politico’s Meredith Lee Hill reports, Vance said that addressing the debt ceiling through the reconciliation bill would allow Republicans to avoid negotiating with Democrats over the issue. In a reversal of their typical roles, Democratic leaders have indicated that they plan to demand a high price for cooperating with Republicans on an increase, suspension or perhaps even elimination of the debt limit.
Vance also advised the lawmakers to write the budget resolution that paves the way for the reconciliation bill with broad strokes, allowing the details to be filled in later. “Some Republicans took that as a directive to make the blueprint as vague as possible — targeting floors for spending cuts that can be altered later on in the process,” Hill writes.
More broadly, Vance reportedly urged Republicans to stick together to deliver on Trump’s agenda. Doing so may be easier said than done, however, given the divisions over fiscal matters within the GOP conference that could make it hard to agree on tax cuts that drive up the national debt, among other potentially sticky issues.
A pair of lawmakers highlighted that division when they stood up to criticize Republicans who did not attend the retreat. One of those non-attendees, Rep. Chip Roy of Texas, said he had better things to do than listening to “excuses” from his colleagues about why they were planning another increase in the debt. “I am in Texas, with my family & meeting with constituents, rather than spending $2K to hear more excuses for increasing deficits & not being in DC to deliver Trump's border security [funding] ASAP,” he said on social media.
Back in Florida, Rep. Dusty Johnson of South Dakota predicted that the path ahead for the GOP will be rocky. “It is going to be a difficult next few weeks,” he said.