Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) is racing to bring a blueprint unlocking President Donald Trump’s agenda to the Senate floor this week, an ambitious timeline that would allow the House of Representatives to act before departing for the Easter recess.
Thune told reporters Monday that he wants to move “as quickly as we can” on the blueprint, which sweeps together Trump’s tax, border, and energy priorities, even as he acknowledged the likelihood that it could face further delays.
Republican leadership wants to have a final meeting with the Senate parliamentarian over an accounting tactic that treats Trump’s expiring tax cuts as cost-free. At the same time, Thune is still locking down Republican votes for the measure in a chamber he only controls 53-47.
“Obviously, it’s having everything ready to go, the parliamentarian conversations, making sure our members — we’ve got, you know, obviously, attendance, and also just making sure we get everybody in a comfortable place with it,” Thune said.
“So, it’s a process,” he added.
The biggest sticking point remains the $2 trillion in spending cuts laid out in the House resolution, which cleared the lower chamber last month.
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) will not vote for any bill that cuts Medicaid benefits, as the House blueprint is likely to do, while fiscal hawks want the Senate to go further on deficit reduction and have demands of their own.
At the same time, Thune is facing reluctance from members who fear the accounting tactic would give Republicans, and later Democrats, greater license to increase the debt.
Fielding those concerns has slowed down a process that has already taken weeks. The House approved its budget resolution in late February, prompting complaints that the Senate is dragging its feet.
Now, Thune is butting up against a deadline imposed by the House to approve the blueprint before the end of next week.
One challenge will be getting fiscal hawks on board with a certain degree of ambiguity on spending cuts. The House resolution lays out a floor of $1.5 trillion, but the Senate instructions do not. Instead, its draft resolution includes a placeholder amount of $3 billion.
Thune attributed the discrepancy to a difference in Senate rules. The low floor gives Senate committees the flexibility to navigate reconciliation, a budget process that lets Republicans circumvent the filibuster.
Yet he acknowledged the House target is “aspirational” and will depend on what Republicans can agree on cutting within each committee.
“But that doesn’t mean that we aren’t as intensely committed to finding savings,” he said.
That assurance has not stopped fiscal hawks from making a series of demands ahead of a possible vote.
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) wants an “ironclad” commitment that leadership will establish a spending reduction panel composed of Trump administration officials and lawmakers, including himself.
Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT), meanwhile, has signaled that he wants a vote on the REINS Act, a bill that mandates congressional approval for major regulations.
The message from senior Republicans is that the blueprint is just the first step in the reconciliation process. Once both chambers approve a compromise budget resolution, the conference can get to work on hammering out the finer details of the bill, including the cost savings.
“I don’t want to hear any more about spending cuts,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), the chairman of the Senate Budget Committee. “Those who want to cut spending, there will be a process where you can make your case before the authorizing committee and say, ‘This item should be cut, and here’s why.’ And if you fail, you fail.”
But fiscal hawks see the budget resolution as one of their only points of leverage and have been in negotiations with leadership over what it would take for them to give their vote.
Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA), a member of the Senate Budget Committee, has advised Senate leadership that holdouts will not be entirely placated until Thune simply brings the blueprint to the Senate floor.
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“We need to move,” Kennedy said. “If I’ve learned anything around here, I’ve learned that the sight of the gallows concentrates the mind.”
“If you really want to know where someone stands, call a vote,” he added.