House GOP gets down to business with reconciliation bill

Republicans on Thursday evening took an important first step to enacting President Donald Trump’s domestic agenda by advancing a budget blueprint out of committee out of committee. The bill outlines an aggressive slate of spending cuts, tax changes, and security measures.

“We declare victory,” Rep. Andy Harris, R-Md., told reporters on Thursday morning. “This is it. We believed that it had to be done rapidly to give the president border funding as soon as possible, we believed it had to have meaningful deficit reduction, and we believed that it had to be able to advance the president’s tax policies. It all happens here.”

But it’s a long, rocky road to turning that blueprint into law.

The proposal marks step one of budget reconciliation, a legislative process that circumvents the 60-vote threshold needed to break a filibuster in the Senate. It allows Congress to more easily “reconcile” government spending with the intent of a budget. Although it is primarily a tool to adjust spending, both parties have used the process to enact major policy reforms that would otherwise fail in a divided Congress. Republicans hope to use budget reconciliation to reimplement the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act and shore up border security.

The budget blueprint calls for $1.5 trillion in cuts from discretionary spending and up to $2 trillion in cuts from nondiscretionary outlays between 2026 and 2034. The bill also would raise the U.S. government’s debt ceiling by $4 trillion and clear the way for up to $4.5 trillion in new spending to pursue Trump’s agenda.

So far, having advanced the budget out of committee with little hassle is a good tiding for Republican leadership, which is navigating this Congress with just a one-seat majority. The GOP needs its members in agreement to advance any legislation. Jim Curry, professor of political science at the University of Utah, said that agreement could fall apart as the budget gets further along in the process.

“This is how they tried to do the [Affordable Care Act] repeal and replace—that was through reconciliation,” Curry said, referring to the attempt to repeal Obamacare in 2017 that failed at the last minute with a surprise downvote from Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.

“You got a budget agreement that set top lines, but at the end of the day, they couldn’t get agreement to pass once the substance was in place,” Curry added.

At the moment, the biggest question about the agreement is whether Republicans can find the cuts they’ve outlined—especially the $2 trillion in nondiscretionary spending. Everything Republicans hope to do turns on those spending reductions

Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, said on Thursday that figuring out what Congress can do directly depends on how many cuts it can enact. That applies to re-implementing Trump’s signature Tax Cuts and Jobs Act from 2017 that overhauled tax policy in almost every category.

“If we achieve, for example, $2 trillion [in cuts], we will get to $4.5 trillion [in spending],” Roy said. “In other words, the sky’s the limit on the tax policy, but it’s tied to achieving spending restraint. We’ve been trying to get where it's dollar-for-dollar. Understand the importance of that paradigm shift; Republicans have got to embrace spending restraint.”

While lawmakers are largely quiet about where, exactly, the cuts would come from, conservatives believe eliminating waste and abuse in programs like Medicaid is low-hanging fruit, as is implementing work requirements for some welfare recipients.

“It's able-bodied people who don’t take care of a child, less than 59 years of age. You know the definition. I’m not hauling pregnant women off to work, you know that,” Rep. Harris said when asked about what those work requirements could look like.

Republicans have repeatedly stressed that they’re not looking to change the core parameters of welfare programs like Social Security or Medicare.

Having advanced their budget out of committee, Republicans must pass it on the House floor. Leaders haven’t said when, exactly, they plan to bring it to a vote but are expected to attempt its passage when Congress reconvenes the week of Feb. 24.