{"id":7944,"date":"2025-04-03T12:06:59","date_gmt":"2025-04-03T12:06:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/capitol-agenda-whats-next-in-the-gop-budget-saga\/"},"modified":"2025-04-03T12:06:59","modified_gmt":"2025-04-03T12:06:59","slug":"capitol-agenda-whats-next-in-the-gop-budget-saga","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/capitol-agenda-whats-next-in-the-gop-budget-saga\/","title":{"rendered":"Capitol agenda: What\u2019s next in the GOP budget saga"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Senate Republicans have a new budget blueprint<\/a> to jump-start President Donald Trump\u2019s legislative agenda, and Majority Leader John Thune wants to adopt it by Saturday. It\u2019s looking like he\u2019ll make it happen, but things aren\u2019t so clear in the House.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a rundown of where things stand:<\/p>\n

Senators are digesting the budget plan. While we\u2019re not seeing sufficient defections to tank it, some key players have questions. Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins, for example, says she\u2019s undecided on a key aspect of the proposal \u2014 the \u201ccurrent policy baseline\u201d idea that would treat an extension of the 2017 Trump tax cuts as costing nothing \u2014 and is concerned that the House’s budget guidelines would force Medicaid cuts.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s in it? In addition to making tax cut extensions costless, it would let Senate Finance draft another $1.5 trillion of tax relief. It would also green-light a $5 trillion debt-ceiling hike that GOP lawmakers hope will get them through the next election (though Sen. Rand Paul wants to force a vote to shrink that<\/a>). Senate committees would have to cut the deficit by only a few billion dollars, while the House would have to do it by $1.5 trillion \u2014 underscoring the lingering political divides between Republicans in the two chambers.<\/p>\n

Some Republicans believe Trump might be needed to seal the deal in the Senate.<\/p>\n

“He had to do it for the House budget,\u201d Sen. John Kennedy said. \u201cHe may have to do it for the Senate. But that wouldn’t be anything new.\u201d<\/p>\n

You will probably not be surprised to learn that the outlook is less rosy in the House.<\/p>\n

Though Speaker Mike Johnson said he plans to push through the budget next week, he\u2019s seeing defections over the Senate\u2019s changes to what the House adopted in February. It comes after he lost control of the House floor this week in a clash with fellow Republican Rep. Anna Paulina Luna over proxy voting for new parents.<\/p>\n

House Budget Chair Jodey Arrington ripped the Senate’s plan as fiscally irresponsible<\/a> and predicted it wouldn’t fly with his colleagues.<\/p>\n

Trump praised the Senate budget during his Rose Garden trade event Wednesday and later in a post on Truth Social, urging Republicans to \u201cUNIFY.\u201d He attempted to smooth out concerns from the Senate\u2019s deficit hawks<\/a> in a meeting on Wednesday morning.<\/p>\n

Adding to the pressure is rising Republican anxiety about the midterms after Tuesday\u2019s landslide loss in Wisconsin\u2019s Supreme Court race and underperformance Florida\u2019s special elections for two House seats. Some Republicans, including vulnerable members like Sen. Thom Tillis, are now cautioning that Trump\u2019s shock-and-awe governing strategy could backfire<\/a> at the ballot box and are calling for a major recalibration.<\/p>\n

One bright spot for Trump and Republicans here: Johnson just grew his majority by two after swearing in Florida Reps. Randy Fine and Jimmy Patronis Wednesday night. He can now lose up to three Republicans on a party-line vote.<\/p>\n

What else we’re watching:<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

\u2014 Tariff action: <\/b>As Trump rattled financial markets with his \u201cLiberation Day\u201d tariff announcement Wednesday, four Senate Republicans voted with Democrats<\/u><\/a> to end his trade war with Canada. Now, Democratic Rep. Gregory Meeks<\/b> wants to try to force a House vote on rejecting Trump\u2019s latest slate of tariffs.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Johnson fights to unjam the House<\/b>: The speaker signaled Wednesday evening that he may be close to a breakthrough in the proxy-voting clash with Luna that paralyzed the House this week and threatened progress on Trump\u2019s agenda. While Johnson said he still opposes Luna\u2019s effort to allow proxy voting for new parents, he\u2019s been in frequent contact with her<\/a> behind the scenes over potential legislative options to resolve the situation.<\/p>\n

Jordain Carney, Meredith Lee Hill, Brian Faler and Jennifer Scholtes contributed reporting.<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Senate Republicans have a new budget blueprint to jump-start President Donald Trump\u2019s legislative agenda, and Majority Leader John Thune wants to adopt it by Saturday. It\u2019s looking like he\u2019ll make it happen, but things aren\u2019t so clear in the House. Here\u2019s a rundown of where things stand: Senators are digesting the budget plan. While we\u2019re […]<\/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-7944","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\/7944","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=7944"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7944\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7944"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7944"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7944"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}