House Budget Chair Jodey Arrington said Thursday he wants the House to move a budget blueprint for a narrow, party-line policy package in June as House GOP leaders weigh whether they can advance the long-shot legislation by the end of July.
“We can do a resolution and put flexibilities in the budget resolution,” the Texas Republican said, noting Republicans can add spending caps and other targets in the blueprint required to kickstart the filibuster-skirting budget reconciliation process.
Speaker Mike Johnson hosted a meeting Thursday morning with Arrington, Majority Leader Steve Scalise, several GOP caucus heads and some key rank and file members, where the discussion centered around the path forward on advancing a third reconciliation bill — a follow up to the “big, beautiful bill” from last July and the immigration enforcement measure Republicans hope to pass in the coming days.
Republicans at this latest meeting discussed ways so-called Reconciliation 3.0 could tackle fraud and improve affordability of everyday goods, according to four people granted anonymity to share private conversations.
Arrington said this future bill will focus on six or seven committees of jurisdiction — far narrower than the GOP tax cuts and spending megabill Republicans passed last year but more expansive than the immigration bill currently winding its way through the Capitol, which only looped in two panels to contribute to the legislative product.
Republicans ultimately decided to push off a vote on the immigration package until after the upcoming Memorial Day recess. But Arrington said he didn’t think that delay would throw off his summer timeline for crafting and passing the third reconciliation bill.
Johnson, following the meeting, said Republicans are “going through the process, putting the ideas on the white board, narrowing them down to what will be in the final bill” and described the gathering as “a very productive meeting with stakeholders and caucus chairs and committee chairs from across the conference.”
“What we’re doing is, step by step, just like we did with the big, beautiful bill … each successive meeting adds in more members, and that’s how we build consensus on it,” Johnson continued. “We’re very bullish about it. We believe we’re going to get some great policy through.”
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