When the Senate passed its version of Donald Trump’s giant budget-reconciliation package on Tuesday, the idea was to jam the House with it: force a rubber-stamp vote on the bill as it was in order to meet a self-imposed July 4 deadline to get the whole messy and unpopular measure onto the president’s desk. Republican pooh-bahs feared that any further back-and-forth between chambers on the vast number of provisions in this bill would tempt more and more Republicans to jump ship or at least threaten to do so to win concessions. Plus there was a truly hard deadline of mid-to-late August when the federal government was expected to hit the debt limit, which the megabill increases.
But instead of jamming the House, Trump& Co. seem to have been jammed by the House itself. Initially, it looked like Speaker Mike Johnson would speed the bill onto the floor, pass a “rule” to advance it by lunch, and pass it by supper or certainly bedtime, leaving Republicans enough time to plan a self-congratulatory signing ceremony with lots of Independence Day trappings. As of Wednesday evening, absolutely nothing has happened to move the bill on the floor, and it’s becoming obvious the number of House Republicans who have problems with it is not small enough to bribe or bully into compliance.
There is certainly plenty to hate for all kinds of Republicans. Swing-district “moderates” upset about the Medicaid cuts in the House-passed bill saw them grow deeper in the Senate. Advocates of a big increase in the SALT deduction saw it get watered down in the upper chamber. And most of all, self-styled fiscal hawks who had grumbled that the House version of the megabill didn’t cut budget deficits enough freaked out when the Senate version spilled over $3 trillion in fresh red ink.
While there were muffled reports of all sorts of mutinous feelings throughout this day, the big public rupture was the release of a three-page memorandum from the House Freedom Caucus trashing the Senate bill thoroughly. Here’s the memo’s “topline:”
This Senate bill – relative to the House: 1) increases deficits, 2) waters down the already only partial repeal of the “Green New Scam” leaving, at best, 50% intact, 3) fails to ensure illegals are fully removed from Medicaid rolls, 4) eliminates the prohibition on Medicaid and CHIP funding for transgender surgeries, 5) only limits Planned Parenthood funding for one year not ten, 6) contains excessive pork for Alaska and Hawaii, and 7) includes more expensive SALT provisions (for just 5 years to reduce the “cost” as a gimmick) to bail out blue states in high tax jurisdictions electing socialists to run their cities.
The document wasn’t signed, but it was pretty clear this wasn’t just some marginal kvetching from a couple of cranks, which is all Republicans could afford to lose and still pass this bill.
Trump was reportedly meeting with House members all day long, but you had to wonder what they were talking about, since the whole point of jamming the House was a take-it-or-leave-it proposition with no opportunity for fixes. A Punchbowl News “special edition” included this ominous line: “Some lawmakers want to take more time to see if they can convince the Senate to change several elements of the bill.” That could easily send Republicans down a very slippery slope in which months of painfully developed deals would unravel.
Perhaps the idea is to just wear the rebels down or listen to them bitch and moan before bringing down the ultimate presidential hammer demanding loyalty to the Boss. If there are concessions to be made, it would probably have to be in terms of executive actions Trump can promise and deliver (e.g., customized Medicaid or SNAP waivers that mitigate the impact of cuts on particular states) or future must-pass legislation. The deficit hawks could in theory be offered more current-year-spending rescissions (or clawbacks) from budget chief Russell Vought or perhaps new and shockingly large cuts to the appropriations bills for next year that Congress is about to consider.
But at the moment Republicans and perhaps Trump himself is realizing the very big downside of the one-bill strategy he insisted on for his entire legislative agenda. Yes, it just gives you one crucial House vote that must be won. But if you lose it, there’s really no plan B.
