DORAL, Florida — House Republicans are in for a long day of tough conversations about how to pay for President Donald Trump’s massive legislative agenda at their Florida retreat, with various factions already drawing red lines over the package.
Speaker Mike Johnson told GOP members during a closed-door meeting Tuesday morning at Trump’s Miami-area resort that the level of spending cuts contained in the party-line package encompassing border, energy and tax policy will be determined by what is achievable in the committee process, according to two people in the room.
House GOP hard-liners are pushing for massive cuts across the federal government in that sweeping legislation, which is set to be passed using the budget reconciliation process. Republicans in competitive districts, however, have raised concerns about slashing the social safety net and some other federal programs.
Johnson noted House committee chairs will walk through their plans and options for possible spending cuts in meetings throughout the day Tuesday. He also reiterated his ambitious timeline for the reconciliation package, with the House Budget Committee taking up the budget resolution next week and the measure hitting the House floor the following week.
Still, the speaker sparked anxiety among some members who wanted to hear a more definitive game plan. One House Republican in the room, granted anonymity to speak candidly about the discussions, said GOP leadership was “talking in circles” during the meeting, leaving Republicans in the same spot as where they started.
Johnson and GOP leaders have purposefully kept their plans incredibly broad, assuring that the process will be “member-driven.” He spoke the morning after Trump outlined a broad and pricey list of policy initiatives for the reconciliation package.
Whip Tom Emmer in a brief interview earlier Tuesday indicated GOP leaders are trying to stave off major fights within their conference for now — arguing they don’t need to leave the retreat with concrete decisions about the reconciliation package, as well as a separate, bipartisan effort to extend government funding and raise the debt limit. “We need to get everybody on board when the day comes to vote on something. Up until then, people can disagree,” Emmer said.
In the Tuesday morning meeting, Johnson also stressed the importance of teamwork to GOP members in the meeting, as well as “remembering the lessons” Republicans learned during their last reconciliation attempt in 2017 — where internal fighting bogged down and eventually killed the party’s effort to pare back the Affordable Care Act, sparking a wave of GOP losses in the 2018 midterms.
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