By Alexis Simendinger & Kristina Karisch
House Republicans are chasing a moving target as they scramble to put together a reconciliation package to fund the government and push through President Trump’s key agenda items.
Conference members huddled at a retreat outside Miami for three days this week, where they discussed funding, further extending Trump’s 2017 tax cuts and border security measures. By the meeting’s end on Wednesday, lawmakers were left without a deal as fiscal hawks refused to push forward without assurances that the package would reduce the $1.8 trillion federal deficit.
Last month, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said he was aiming for $2.5 trillion in savings as part of the reconciliation process — all in “one big, beautiful bill.” But some House GOP members estimate Trump’s tax cuts, border spending and other priorities could add as much as $10 trillion to the federal budget deficit.
Post-retreat, Johnson’s hopes of uniting the fractious GOP conference around a plan and his timeline appear dashed, writes The Hill’s Mychael Schnell. The GOP members departed sunny South Florida with tensions rising in their ranks, as some Republican lawmakers express frustrations with the slow progress.
“There is a feeling that we’re running out of time,” Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.), a Freedom Caucus member, told The Hill. “There’s a feeling that we’ve got to come together and whatever it takes to get the top lines done.”
This week’s meeting did give shape to House Republicans’ party-line policy plans, as several committee chairs outlined the fiscal parameters they will use to begin writing a blueprint. In addition to deep spending cuts, Republicans are aiming for $125 billion in added defense spending.
The Speaker’s initial timeline was ambitious: Release a budget resolution and mark it up by the week of Feb. 3, then hold a floor vote a week later. He would hand off the bill to the Senate the week of Feb. 17. By Feb. 27, lawmakers would have a budget resolution, then they would craft a reconciliation package in March.
The goal: Send the whole package to Trump’s desk before Easter, on April 20.
But after the Doral retreat, Johnson’s expedited timeline is looking highly unlikely.
“We have a general outline, there are some specifics in terms of money that we can save, but there is no set number for what the top line will be, and I think a lot of members are eager to hear what that is,” a GOP lawmaker told The Hill. “But we have a general understanding of where the savings will be coming from, which was good information.”
The Washington Post: Holding the House GOP retreat at a Trump property threatens to ignite the same kind of criticism that dogged Trump’s first term: that he has sought to personally profit from his public position.
TWO-STEP APPROACH: Republican senators, meanwhile, are moving ahead with their own budget plans — in the form of two bills. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) said Wednesday that the “text is ready” for a two-part budget blueprint.
“We’ve been ready for a while. … Everything is ready to go,” Thune told Politico, adding that he and fellow Republican senators are “waiting to see what the House is going to do.”
“I think there’s a point at which we will decide to pull the trigger,” he added. The decision, he said, is “a question of — ultimately, of strategy.”
ORDER-REVERSE CARD: The Trump administration’s Office of Management and Budget on Wednesday rescinded a controversial memo issued late Monday that froze a wide swath of federal financial assistance, which had paralyzed many federal programs and caused a huge uproar on Capitol Hill. The decision came amid strong behind-the-scenes pushback from Republican lawmakers on Capitol Hill, The Hill’s Alexander Bolton reports.
One GOP senator expressed relief over the decision.
“Chaos is never good,” the lawmaker said.
A Trump administration official explained that the move was made to end the confusion over Monday’s directive and end the federal injunction against it. The new memo would not halt the intended freezing of funding that conflicts with Trump’s executive orders.
But a federal judge on Wednesday signaled he will issue a temporary restraining order barring the Trump administration from freezing federal loans and grants, raising concerns the White House will try to enact the same policy described in the now-rescinded memo through other means.
Politico: Monday’s memo ordering a sweeping freeze of federal financial assistance is the boldest and clearest example of the administration not only leaning on the people who wrote Project 2025 — but employing its strategies.