Congress

House Republicans float a debt limit, spending pact deal — with themselves

Published

2 years ago

December 20, 2024

House GOP leaders laid out a plan Friday to avert the upcoming debt cliff on their own next year, despite President-elect Donald Trump’s insistence that Congress handle it before he takes office.

During a closed-door conference meeting Friday afternoon, House Republican leaders proposed a commitment to raising the debt ceiling by $1.5 trillion early in 2025. GOP leaders would pair that with a $2.5 trillion cut in “mandatory” spending, the category of government funding that largely runs on autopilot and bankrolls benefits programs like Medicaid, Social Security, SNAP nutrition assistance, Medicare and welfare payments to the poorest Americans.

Under the proposed plan, hiking the debt limit and cutting spending would be done through the filibuster-skirting process Republicans hope to use next year to pass major bills on a simple-majority vote in the Senate. The plan would defy Trump’s demands, as the president-elect insisted this week that Democrats get roped into immediate action to lift the nation’s borrowing cap before he takes office in January.

It would also heighten pressure on congressional Republicans to quickly clear a party-line reconciliation bill next year, despite their ongoing struggles to unite around a basic strategy for harnessing the special budget power to enact priorities like more border security funding and tax cuts.

The debt limit is unpredictable, and delaying action is risky, a hazard Trump has made clear he doesn’t want to inherit. “Congress must get rid of, or extend out to, perhaps, 2029, the ridiculous Debt Ceiling,” Trump posted on social media early Friday. “Remember, the pressure is on whoever is President.”

But House Democrats remain united in opposition to lifting the debt limit before Trump takes office. After Speaker Mike Johnson abandoned a bipartisan deal this week to prevent a government shutdown at midnight Friday, Democrats — and a sizable number of conservatives — overwhelmingly voted against a Trump-backed bill that would have also suspended the debt ceiling for two years.

Now Republican leaders are planning a vote Friday on a funding patch without the language to avert the debt cliff, as they grasp for a new plan to prevent a funding lapse ahead of Christmas.

As the U.S. national debt sits at more than $36 trillion, the nation’s borrowing limit will be turned back on come Jan. 1, just before Republicans take control of Congress and ahead of Trump’s inauguration.

Then starts months of guessing as to when the U.S. might default on its debt, as the Treasury Department does its best to stay under the new debt ceiling by using so-called “extraordinary measures” to shift cash.

When the U.S. hit the debt limit last year, it took just over four months for the U.S. to approach the X-date, the Treasury secretary’s prediction for the day the nation would default on its loans. By deciding to act alone on the debt limit next year, rather than involving Democrats in a bipartisan negotiation, congressional Republicans would be adding an extra time constraint to that usually drawn-out process of making sure a reconciliation package meets the Senate’s rules and whipping near-unified Republican support with slim GOP majorities in both chambers.

While a debt default has never occurred, many economists predict that it would cause irreparable harm across the global economy. Even congressional brinksmanship over the debt limit has degraded confidence in the U.S. as a borrower, resulting in recent downgrades in the nation’s credit score.

Those risks will only increase the onus on Republicans to unite next year around a reconciliation plan, a challenging feat considering divisions among GOP lawmakers over fiscal issues, including whether to target mandatory funding or the discretionary spending Congress controls each year through regular funding bills.

Congress

Todd Blanche won’t get Thursday vote in Senate Judiciary Committee

Published

4 hours ago

July 30, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

The Senate Judiciary Committee has abandoned plans to advance Todd Blanche’s nomination as attorney general Thursday, according to a committee spokesperson.

The decision comes as Sens. John Cornyn (R-Texas) and Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) continue to push the Justice Department to revise a controversial settlement agreement between President Donald Trump and the IRS. A “no” vote from either senator would effectively sink Blanche’s nomination.

The two senators met Wednesday with Judiciary Chair Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) but did not announce any breakthrough.

“Chairman Grassley works to set President Trump’s nominees up for success in committee, not failure,” said the spokesperson, who declined to be named. “Senators Cornyn and Tillis want written assurances from the Department of Justice regarding the Trump-IRS settlement. Tomorrow’s markup is postponed as work continues to secure sufficient support in committee to favorably report [Blanche], who is highly qualified for the job.”

The meeting could still be rescheduled if Cornyn and Tillis are placated, but any delay threatens Senate GOP leaders’ plans to confirm Blanche before the chamber adjourns for its summer recess next week.

Congress

White House pitches Senate GOP on ‘tight’ party-line bill focused on military, farm aid

Published

8 hours ago

July 29, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

White House officials urged Senate Republicans on Wednesday to quickly adopt a spending blueprint for a narrowly focused party-line spending bill, but they struggled to quash GOP skepticism about the administration’s vision.

White House budget director Russ Vought stressed during the private lunch meeting with Senate Republicans that the next package passed under the filibuster-skirting budget reconciliation process should include only President Donald Trump’s most urgent priorities — particularly defense spending and aid for farmers.

Vought said Republicans should not seek to cut spending or otherwise offset the deficit impact of the tens of billions of dollars the Trump administration wants enacted, nor should they attempt to raise the debt limit.

“It should be tight,” he told reporters as he exited the lunch. “It should be for the defense needs that we need now, for the [agriculture] needs that we need now. And to get this as straight a shot to the president’s desk as possible.”

That approach comports with the $95 billion framework the House adopted last week before lawmakers there left Washington for their summer recess. But Vought and other White House officials faced pushback in the room Wednesday on a variety of issues.

Majority Leader John Thune warned afterward that he doesn’t believe he has the votes for the narrow budget resolution the Trump administration is contemplating. He said there was a disconnect between the narrow bill the White House is seeking and the political challenges it creates.

Those challenges revolve around “vote-a-rama” — a feature of the reconciliation process that allows Democrats to force a series of amendment votes that could put GOP senators in tough spots. The more committees the budget resolution “instructs” to deliver legislation, the more opportunities Democrats will have to create political mischief for Republicans.

“Some of the things that are contemplated being done in this reconciliation bill, or in this budget resolution legislation, are things that could implicate a number of committees,” Thune said. “Obviously that creates an uphill challenge in terms of trying to ensure that you have 50” votes.

Senators also aired concerns about Trump’s obsessive focus on the GOP elections bill known as the SAVE America Act. The House blueprint contemplates including parts of that bill in the party-line package.

But Senate Budget Chair Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) said doing so in the Senate could involve more committees — and open up the range of issues Democrats would be able to force politically troublesome votes on.

“I think we all hate vote-a-rama,” Johnson added. “Some people are more sensitive to the kind of votes they have to take.”

In another complication, some Senate defense hawks want more military spending than the $60 billion House Republicans laid out in their own framework. Johnson said he and other Republicans expect to meet with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth later Wednesday to discuss the Pentagon’s needs.

But other Senate Republicans, such as Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), aren’t convinced it’s a good idea to pursue another party-line bill at all.

“It used to be we would try to figure out how we worked through some challenging problems with the minority,” she said.

Murkowski added that the Trump administration’s strategy of relying on the reconciliation process to avoid bipartisan negotiations only works if a majority of Republican senators go along with the plan.

“It’s not always guaranteed that you get 50” votes, she said.

Vought, meanwhile, leaned on the potential for yet another party-line reconciliation package to be enacted after the midterm elections as another vehicle to deliver key priorities. That could include a debt limit increase, he said, along with yet another tranche of defense cash to meet Trump’s $1.5 trillion goal for annual military spending.

The various legislative vehicles left some GOP senators scratching their hands as they left the lunch.

Asked if he had gotten clarity from Vought & Co., Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) said, “‘Not really’ is the short answer.”

Congress

Cruz drops plans to advance AI bills next week

Published

11 hours ago

July 29, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Senate Commerce Chair Ted Cruz said Wednesday he is again postponing a highly anticipated markup of artificial intelligence bills planned for next week.

Instead, the Texas Republican said in an interview Wednesday, the panel will only take up bills focused on kids’ online safety.

Cruz said senators could not strike a deal on AI legislation in time for the committee to vote next week.

“We are going to do a markup on kids’ safety next week,” Cruz told Blue Light News. “We have moved the broader AI markup to September. … It’s our intention still to mark those up, but it is taking longer to get bipartisan agreement.”

Cruz said the committee would mark up the Kids Online Safety Act, led by Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), along with other measures.

Under the panel’s rules, the chair must publish an agenda a week in advance. The committee did not immediately respond to a question about exactly which bills would be on the docket.