The House Freedom Caucus released a budget resolution on Feb. 10 that would allocate hundreds of billions of dollars toward spending on defense and the border in addition to raising the debt ceiling.
Reconciliation allows for measures related to taxing, spending, and the national debt to pass Congress without being subject to the 60-vote filibuster threshold in the Senate that most legislation has to clear.
A budget resolution must pass both houses of Congress in order to allow a reconciliation bill to be voted on. While budget resolutions do not require the president’s signature, a bill passed through reconciliation does.
The caucus’s budget resolution includes $200 billion for the military and border security. It would also include a $4 trillion debt ceiling increase “to give stability to the financial markets and ensure Democrats cannot use it as leverage against President Trump,” said the Freedom Caucus in a statement.
“President Trump was elected with a mandate to close the southern border, stop the flood of illegal aliens, begin repatriations of those here illegally, and restore accountability to our government,” said Freedom Caucus Chairman Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.), who put forth the budget resolution, in a statement.
“The House Freedom Caucus has always believed that Congress must rapidly give the president the funds he needs to do this,“ he continued. ”Given the current delay in the House on moving a comprehensive reconciliation bill, moving a smaller targeted bill now makes the most sense to deliver a win for the president and the American people.”
The second part of the Freedom Caucus plan is on taxes as the GOP looks to extend the 2017 Trump tax cuts in which the individual income brackets are set to expire after this year.Ongoing Discussion Among Congress Republicans
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) announced a proposal this month that would include $175 billion in border security and $150 billion in defense funding.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said the Senate has not complicated the process much, in response to reporters’ questions regarding the perceived divide between the House and Senate when it comes to getting to a resolution to unlock the reconciliation process. Johnson said he talked with Graham at the Super Bowl on Feb. 9 and that the two “are on the same page.”
“There is no daylight between us. We all want exactly the same thing. We are working on the best and most effective and efficient way to get there,” he told reporters on Feb. 10.
Johnson reiterated his support for one big reconciliation bill that has all of Trump’s legislative priorities. Trump has said he prefers one bill but would not mind two as long as Congress passes his agenda items on the border, taxes, and energy.
