Senate committees will start rolling out their portions of the GOP megabill as soon as Tuesday, providing a first look at how Republicans in the chamber plan to address some of the House’s most controversial proposals.
Here’s the draft-text timeline POLITICO reported Monday night, though it could change:
— Armed Services plans to release its text Tuesday
— Environment and Public Works is pushing for Wednesday
— Commerce is aiming for Thursday
— Banking is expected Friday
The scheduling logic: Just as the House sequenced its megabill markups from least-to-most controversial to buy lawmakers more time to resolve their stickier policy debates, the Senate will have committees release their least-contentious draft bills first. Finance, which has jurisdiction over tax cuts and changes to Medicaid, is widely expected to be among the final Senate panels to release text, if not the last.
The massive tax-and-spending package will “most likely” hit the Senate floor the last full week of June, ahead of the July 4 recess, per Senate Majority Leader John Thune.
It could come even sooner — but that depends on how conversations go with the Senate parliamentarian, Elizabeth MacDonough. Committee staffers started vetting the megabill with MacDonough last week, and will continue their talks this week and next. MacDonough’s job is to recommend which House-passed provisions and policy priorities must be dropped to comply with the strict rules governing the filibuster-skirting budget reconciliation process.
Thune signaled Monday that Republicans won’t seek to override their referee if they don’t like her rulings, but said he hoped MacDonough could be convinced to greenlight inclusion of the so-called REINS Act “in some fashion.” The longstanding conservative proposal would give Congress more authority to approve agency regulations.
The chamber’s lightning-fast turnaround nods to the weeks of behind-the-scenes work by GOP senators and their aides to prepare for the domestic policy bill’s arrival from across the Capitol. It also shows the immense pressure they’re under from the White House to get moving on advancing President Donald Trump’s sweeping legislative agenda.
The president is starting to play his own hand. Trump met separately Monday at the White House with both Thune and Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), who wants deeper spending cuts but told POLITICO “we all want to get a bill done.” Trump also spoke by phone with Sens. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), who’s pushing a return to pre-pandemic spending levels, and Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), who’s opposed to some of the Medicaid changes endorsed by the Republican House. And the president will likely meet with Thune and Finance Chair Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) either this week or next to talk through the details of the tax portion of the bill.
One key fight to watch this week: Look to see if the Senate backs away from the House’s plan to reup government auctions of federally controlled spectrum. Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) has drawn a red line on it, saying Monday that “we’ll have to take out the spectrum language that’s in the bill right now. That simply is a non-starter for me.”
What else we’re watching:
— Rescissions incoming: The White House plans to send up a package Tuesday outlining $9.4 billion in spending cuts, asking Congress to nix current funding for NPR, PBS and foreign aid. House Republican leaders helped shape the so-called rescissions request over the last few weeks in a back-and-forth with the White House. But Senate Republicans are exploring options for amending the package.
— Billy Long is back: Senate Finance members will vote Tuesday to advance the nomination of Billy Long, Trump’s pick to lead the IRS, six months after the president announced the selection. In his confirmation hearing last month, Long sought to distance himself from his promotion of certain tribal tax credits that turned out to be nonexistent.
Jordain Carney, Benjamin Guggenheim and Jennifer Scholtes contributed to this report.
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