Speaker Johnson Shares Big Update After Speaking With Trump
Some Republican leaders are trying to enact a large package codifying President Donald Trump’s agenda into federal law by the Fourth of July.
It implies the comprehensive policy revamp might be on Trump’s desk for signature before the 250th anniversary of the United States’ foundation, Fox News reported.
“I’ve said all along, my goal is for the president to sign this one big, beautiful bill on July 4th,” House Ways & Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith, R-Mo., told Fox News.
House Republicans are debating differences on clean energy and Medicaid in talks to find at least $1.5 trillion in spending cuts to pay for Trump’s tax policies.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told reporters days earlier on Capitol Hill, “We’ve got three legs to the President’s economic agenda: trade, tax, and deregulation, and we hope that we can have this tax portion done by Fourth of July.”
Republican lawmakers are working on legislation worth trillions of dollars to further Trump’s tax, defense, energy, immigration, border security, and debt-ceiling plans.
Trump’s tax plans, a cornerstone of his campaign and the most expensive part of the measure, include extending the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) and removing taxes on gratuities, overtime pay, and retiree social security benefits.
Republican leaders and tax hawks have warned that failing to extend the TCJA before its provisions expire at the end of the year may result in a more than 20% tax spike for millions of households.
House GOP leaders said in a letter to lawmakers dated April 5, “Immediately following House adoption of the budget resolution, our House and Senate committees will begin preparing together their respective titles of the reconciliation bill to be marked up in the next work period. As always, this will involve input from all Members and will keep us on track to send a bill to the President’s desk by Memorial Day.”
However, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., has now backtracked on that deadline, telling reporters that he believes the House can complete its piece by Memorial Day.
A House GOP leadership aide told Fox News that Johnson “stated his goal is to move the bill through the House by Memorial Day” and that it was “not in conflict” with sending a bill to Trump by July 4.
When asked if that goal was feasible, Rep. Mike Lawler, R-N.Y., told Fox News Digital, “It’s gonna have to be.”
Republicans are racing not just to meet the TCJA deadline, but also to avoid a national financial default. According to various forecasts, the United States will run out of funds to pay its bills this summer – a rather ambiguous date depending on a variety of factors, including yearly tax filings.
If that date passes without action on the debt ceiling, domestic and global financial markets will be in upheaval.
Republicans are hoping to advance Trump’s objectives through the budget reconciliation procedure. By decreasing the Senate’s passage threshold from 60 to 51 votes, the ruling party may sideline the opposition, in this case Democrats, while enacting laws addressing spending, taxes, and debt.
After the House and Senate agreed on budget “frameworks” earlier this year, the appropriate committees are working to develop policies in accordance with the expenditure cuts or surpluses provided.
Seven of the 11 House committees have finished their work thus far. However, three important panels—Waways and Means, Agriculture, and Energy and Commerce— had to postpone preliminary plans to pass their chapters this week.
Republicans in blue areas, who GOP leaders see as vital to maintaining the majority, have expressed concerns about slashing Medicaid too severely. The Energy and Commerce Committee is responsible for identifying $880 billion of the $1.5 trillion in expenditure cutbacks.
Negotiators have emphasized that they are simply interested in addressing waste, fraud, and abuse in the system, but that has not prevented Democrats from accusing the GOP of attempting to slash important healthcare programs that benefit millions of Americans.
