Congress
Capitol agenda: GOP struggles on affordability message
The Senate is set to vote Thursday on whether to extend Obamacare health insurance subsidies that expire in 23 days. How Republicans will engage remains up in the air, as the party struggles more broadly to reach consensus on a range of “affordability” issues.
Here’s where things stand heading into the big vote.
The Senate GOP’s missing plan — Senate Democrats are poised to get a vote on a three-year extension of Affordable Care Act tax credits — a bill that will likely fail. Republicans are leaning against holding a separate vote on their own alternative as they face internal divisions over what to put forward. The decision isn’t final, and some Republicans could try to advance proposals via unanimous consent.
Mysterious House action — Speaker Mike Johnson surprised a number of Republicans last Thursday when he said he planned to roll out a health care framework in time to present to his conference by early this week. The House GOP strategy is expected to be a major topic of discussion during a retreat of committee staff directors and leadership staff that wraps tonight in Boston. The House Republican plan is likely to encompass bills that committees have been working on to boost health care options beyond the ACA — not an extension of Obamacare subsidies.
The big picture on the GOP and affordability — Republicans’ struggle over how to address the expiring ACA subsidies — a lapse that would raise health premiums for millions of Americans — is representative of broader GOP floundering over how to decisively respond to cost-of-living concerns ahead of the midterms.
Beyond health care, the Trump administration’s proposal to distribute $2,000 rebate checks has gotten a lukewarm response on Blue Light News, and intraparty sparring has weighed on other smaller bills to address things like housing costs and student debt. Top Republicans acknowledge they haven’t done enough to sell the economic benefits of the “one big, beautiful bill,” and internal divisions threaten any attempt to follow up on it.
Just this weekend, congressional leaders released a compromise version of the annual National Defense Authorization Act without housing legislation sought by Senate Banking Chair Tim Scott (R-S.C.) and ranking member Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), after House Financial Services Chair French Hill (R-Ark.) and other key House Republicans objected.
President Donald Trump himself has recently called the emphasis on affordability a “hoax” perpetrated by Democrats, even as 37 percent of those who voted for him last year say the cost of living in the U.S. is the worst they can remember it being, according to a new POLITICO Poll.
“We haven’t probably messaged as effectively as we should,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune said in an interview. “I think we’ll have lots of opportunities now that we’re getting into an election year to talk about the things we’ve done and how they are going to lead to things being more affordable for the American people, probably starting with tax relief next year.”
What else we’re watching:
— NDAA on track for House vote this week: Compromise NDAA text is out and House GOP leaders are targeting a floor vote Thursday or Friday. The first stop is a Rules Committee hearing, which could come as early as Tuesday.
— Government funding action: House GOP leaders are eyeing putting at least one appropriations bill if not two on the floor next week, right before they leave for the holiday recess. One senior House Republican says Appropriations Chair Tom Cole (R-Okla.) and other appropriators are expected to lean on leadership in the coming days.
Jordain Carney, Benjamin Guggenheim, Meredith Lee Hill, Jasper Goodman, Connor O’Brien and Mia McCarthy contributed to this report.
Congress
Shutdown likely to continue at least into Tuesday
The partial government shutdown that began early Saturday morning is on track to continue at least into Tuesday, which is the earliest the House is now expected to vote on a $1.2 trillion funding package due to opposition from Democrats and internal GOP strife.
House Republican leaders have scheduled a Monday meeting of the House Rules Committee to prepare the massive Senate-passed spending bill for the floor. According to two people granted anonymity to discuss internal deliberations, the procedural measure teeing up a final vote would not happen until Tuesday, with final passage following if that is successful.
That’s one day later than GOP leaders had hoped. Their previous plan was to pass the bill with Democratic help under suspension of the rules, a fast-track process requiring a two-thirds-majority vote.
But that plan was complicated by Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries telling Speaker Mike Johnson in a private conversation Saturday that Democratic leadership would not help Johnson secure the 70 or so Democratic votes to get the measure over the line, according to the two people and another person granted anonymity to discuss the matter.
The Tuesday plan remains tentative as GOP leaders scramble to navigate tensions inside their own conference, which could make passing the procedural measure difficult. Some conservative hard-liners, for instance, want to attach a sweeping elections bill to the package.
Jeffries said in a MS NOW interview Saturday that Republicans “cannot simply move forward with legislation taking a my way or the highway approach” while noting that House Democrats are set to have “a discussion about the appropriate way forward” in a Sunday evening caucus call — first reported by Blue Light News.
He did not rule out that Democrats might support the Senate-passed spending package, which funds the majority of federal agencies through Sept. 30 while providing a two-week extension for the Department of Homeland Security — including controversial immigration enforcement agencies.
Democrats, Jeffries said, want “a robust, ironclad path to bringing about the type of change that the American people are demanding” in immigration enforcement.
Congress
Here’s what federal programs are headed for a (possibly brief) shutdown
Government funding is set to lapse at midnight Friday for the military and many domestic programs, but cash will continue to flow at a slew of federal agencies Congress already funded.
House leaders are aiming to send a funding package to President Donald Trump Monday, days after the Senate passed the legislation just before the deadline to avert a partial shutdown.
The effect on most federal programs is expected to be minor, and employees who are furloughed would miss just one day of work if the House acts on schedule — which is not assured.
This time, many of the services that have the greatest public impact when shuttered — like farm loans, SNAP food assistance to low-income households and upkeep at national parks — will continue. That’s because Congress already funded some agencies in November and earlier this month, including the departments of Energy, Commerce, Justice, Agriculture, Interior and Veterans Affairs, as well as military construction projects, the EPA, congressional operations, the FDA and federal science programs.
Still, the spending package congressional leaders are trying to clear for Trump’s signature next week contains the vast majority of the funding Congress approves each year to run federal programs, including $839 billion for the military.
Besides the Pentagon, funding will lapse for several major nondefense agencies beginning early Saturday morning.
That includes federal transportation, labor, housing, education and health programs, along with the IRS, independent trade agencies and foreign aid. The departments of Homeland Security, State and Treasury will also be hit by the shutdown.
Congress
Senate passes $1.2T government funding deal — but a brief shutdown is certain
The Senate passed a compromise spending package Friday, clearing a path for Congress to avert a lengthy government shutdown.
The 71-29 vote came a day after Senate Democrats and President Donald Trump struck a deal to attach two weeks of Homeland Security funding to five spending bills that will fund the Pentagon, State Department and many other agencies until Sept. 30.
The Senate’s vote won’t avert a partial shutdown that will start early Saturday morning since House lawmakers are out of town and not scheduled to return until Monday.
During a private call with House Republicans Friday, Speaker Mike Johnson said the likeliest route to House passage would be bringing the package up under a fast-track process Monday evening. That would require a two-thirds majority — and a significant number of Democratic votes.
The $1.2 trillion package could face challenges in the House, especially from conservative hard-liners who have said they would vote against any Senate changes to what the House already passed. Many House Democrats are also wary of stopgap funding for DHS, which would keep ICE and Border Patrol funded at current levels without immediate new restrictions.
If the Trump-blessed deal ultimately gets signed into law, Congress will have approved more than 95 percent of federal funding — leaving only a full-year DHS bill on its to-do list. Congress has already funded several agencies, including the departments of Agriculture, Veterans Affairs and Justice.
“These are fiscally responsible bills that reflect months of hard work and deliberation from members on both parties and both sides of the Capitol,” Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Susan Collins (R-Maine) said before the final vote.
The Office of Management and Budget has issued shutdown guidance for agencies not already funded, which include furloughs of some personnel.
Republicans agreeing to strip out the full-year DHS bill and replace it with a two-week patch is a major win for Democrats. They quickly unified behind a demand to split off and renegotiate immigration enforcement funding after federal agents deployed to Minnesota fatally shot 37-year-old U.S. citizen Alex Pretti last week.
But Democrats will still need to negotiate with the White House and congressional Republicans about what, if any, policy changes they are willing to codify into law as part of a long-term bill. Republicans are open to some changes, including requiring independent investigations. But they’ve already dismissed some of Democrats’ main demands, including requiring judicial warrants for immigration arrests.
“If Republicans are serious about the very reasonable demands Democrats have put forward on ICE, then there is no good reason we can’t come together very quickly to produce legislation. It should take less than two weeks,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said Friday.
Republicans have demands of their own, and many believe the most likely outcome is that another DHS patch will be needed.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), for instance, wants a future vote on legislation barring federal funding for cities that don’t comply with federal immigration laws. Other Republicans and the White House have pointed to it as a key issue in the upcoming negotiations.
“I am demanding that my solution to fixing sanctuary cities at least have a vote. You’re going to put ideas on the floor to make ICE better? I want to put an idea on the floor to get to the root cause of the problem,” Graham said.
The Senate vote caps off a days-long sprint to avoid a second lengthy shutdown in the span of four months. Senate Democrats and Trump said Thursday they had a deal, only for it to run into a snag when Graham delayed a quick vote as he fumed over a provision in the bill, first reported by POLITICO, related to former special counsel Jack Smith’s now-defunct investigation targeting Trump.
Senate leaders ultimately got the agreement back on track Friday afternoon by offering votes on seven changes to the bill, all of which failed. The Senate defeated proposals to cut refugee assistance, strip out all earmarks from the package and redirect funding for ICE to Medicaid, among others.
Graham raged against the House’s move to overturn a law passed last year allowing senators to sue for up to $500,000 per incident if their data had been used in former special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into the 2020 election. But he backed off his threats to hold up the bill after announcing that leaders had agreed to support a future vote on the matter.
“You jammed me,” Graham said on the floor Friday. “Speaker Johnson, I won’t forget this.”
Meredith Lee Hill and Jennifer Scholtes contributed to this report.
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