WASHINGTON, D.C. – Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R- LA) is running into trouble trying to get enough support from members in his own party on the President’s budget blueprint. Some fiscally conservative Republicans don’t think this version slashes enough spending.
We’re told there are about 15 to 20 Republicans who will not support this resolution. Speaker Johnson still has a slim majority, meaning he can only lose a handful of members in order for the legislation to fail. Some House Republicans we heard from seemed frustrated that members of their own party are not getting on board in this initial step in the reconciliation process.
Over the weekend, the Senate passed the President’s budget blueprint. It includes some of his wish list items like increasing border security, slashes government spending, extending the 2017 tax cuts and raising the debt ceiling. Democrats said in order to pay for these tax cuts, Republicans could eye cuts to funding for critical programs like Medicaid which provides health coverage for low-income families and people and cuts to nutritional programs, too.
Congressman Jack Bergman (R-MI), who is on the Budget Committee, seemed baffled that his Republican colleagues would not want to support this initial step. He used the analogy that this budget blueprint is the first initial step for the two teams: which are the House and Senate, to get onto the playing field in order to play the game: which is finalizing a budget. Rep. Bergman said he doesn’t understand why any of his Republican colleagues would want to prevent them from this initial step, which would allow them to go toe-to-toe with the Senate and fight for the items they really want to see.
“We have to reduce the deficit so to vote anything other than ‘yes’ on this resolution means you’re not allowing your team to go on the field,” said Rep. Bergman. “I don’t understand that.”
The Speaker and the President spoke with some of these Republican holdouts at the White House, hoping to get them on board. When Speaker Johnson returned from that meeting, he seemed more optimistic that they were able to win over some of the members who have been hesitant. We do know that Johnson wants to put this blueprint on the floor sometime this week.
