House Republicans are still furiously working, and sparring, behind the scenes as they try to finalize their plans to consider a budget resolution — necessary for unlocking the process to move forward with legislation to enact President Donald Trump’s domestic policy agenda.
Under Speaker Mike Johnson’s ambitious timeline, the House Budget Committee needs to take up — and adopt — the budget blueprint next week.
But Republicans on the closely watched Budget panel held a call Thursday afternoon about the way forward, where the takeaway was that there is still no set date for a committee markup and senior Republicans were working to find a consensus, according to two Republicans familiar with the call who were granted anonymity to discuss it.
Freedom Caucus members Chip Roy of Texas, Ralph Norman of South Carolina and several other hard-liners on the panel hold enough votes to block a budget resolution, which must advance before lawmakers can write and pass their desired energy, border security and tax bill through the budget reconciliation process.
Many of those fiscal hawks still want Johnson to commit to higher levels of spending cuts in the budget resolution, after the speaker made clear this week he wants to target minimums for those cuts so as to not risk slowing down the process.
“When they say everybody has to give — give up spending the taxpayers money that we don’t have?” Norman said in an interview earlier this week at the House GOP retreat in Florida. “It’s reprioritization more than anything else. And that’s what we got to realize, and that’s what we’ve got to keep focused on.”
Senior Republicans on Friday are continuing to discuss a path forward, the two GOP lawmakers familiar with the process said.
A spokesperson for the House Budget Committee did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
