{"id":4524,"date":"2025-01-06T21:33:47","date_gmt":"2025-01-06T21:33:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/first-step-on-reconciliation-in-limbo-amid-gop-infighting\/"},"modified":"2025-01-06T21:33:47","modified_gmt":"2025-01-06T21:33:47","slug":"first-step-on-reconciliation-in-limbo-amid-gop-infighting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/first-step-on-reconciliation-in-limbo-amid-gop-infighting\/","title":{"rendered":"First step on reconciliation in limbo amid GOP infighting"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Republicans are looking to take the first step to jumpstart the budget reconciliation bill: writing the instructions that will govern the terms of the package. But they\u2019re stuck in limbo amid an ongoing debate about whether to go with a one- or two-bill strategy.<\/p>\n

House and Senate Republican leaders have been struggling to decide if they\u2019ll pass one package on the border, taxes and energy, or whether to do two bills that splits off taxes.<\/p>\n

To start the reconciliation process, Budget committees in both chambers have to write instructions that would both detail how many bills they plan to pass and direct relevant committees to develop language. It\u2019s the first formal step in the budget reconciliation process, which would allow Republicans to pass priorities without help from Democrats. <\/p>\n

But Senate Budget Chair Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) signaled Monday that they\u2019re still discussing the terms and lawmakers haven\u2019t written the instructions yet.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, we\u2019re going to be talking about that,\u201d Graham told reporters when asked if his committee is moving forward with instructions yet.<\/p>\n

Graham also indicated he had concerns about putting everything in one package, worried that taxes could delay border policies that could be in a separate bill.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it would be smart to increase military spending and give the money Trump needs to deport people and secure the border early on. I just think the national security implications of delay are pretty significant,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Republicans on Capitol Hill are now weeks into debate over whether to break off tax cut proposals into their own separate bill so they can pass priorities on the border and energy more quickly. Speaker Mike Johnson has recently been selling his colleagues on a one-bill strategy while Senate Majority Leader John Thune has backed the two-bill push. Incoming President Donald Trump has said he prefers one package, but that he\u2019s open to two bills as well.<\/p>\n

Many Republicans on Capitol Hill say they will defer to Trump\u2019s preference on how to move forward.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhatever direction President Trump wants us to go in, that\u2019s the direction. If he wants one beautiful bill, we\u2019ll do one beautiful bill. If he wants two beautiful bills, we\u2019ll do two beautiful bills,\u201d Rep. Brian Mast (R-Fla.) said Monday.<\/p>\n

But Republicans need to move forward with writing the reconciliation instructions soon if they want to hold to their ambitious timeline of moving at least one bill by the end of April. Negotiations will likely only get more complicated from here \u2014 the instructions are typically considered a simpler part.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe ought to get something done, hopefully, in the month of January,\u201d Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) said Monday.<\/p>\n

Mia McCarthy contributed to this report.\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Republicans are looking to take the first step to jumpstart the budget reconciliation bill: writing the instructions that will govern the terms of the package. But they\u2019re stuck in limbo amid an ongoing debate about whether to go with a one- or two-bill strategy. House and Senate Republican leaders have been struggling to decide if […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4524","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-congress"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4524","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4524"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4524\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4524"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4524"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4524"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}