DORAL, Fla.—As a House Republican retreat in Florida drew to a close on Jan. 29, many lawmakers suggested they had made progress on a reconciliation budget bill designed to avoid any filibuster attempt by Democrats in the Senate and further President Donald J. Trump’s agenda.
But the more fine-grained blueprint Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) hoped for ahead of the gathering at Trump National Doral Miami had not yet materialized.
In an interview with The Epoch Times, Rep. Keith Self (R-Texas) characterized the results so far as “a process” rather than a blueprint.
“Until we get past the fear of the CBO [Congressional Budget Office] and the Senate Parliamentarian, it’s going to be a process,” he said.
Under the Byrd rule, the parliamentarian can strike various provisions from any reconciliation bill, including those not deemed to impact spending or revenues directly. The CBO, meanwhile, would furnish estimates of any reconciliation legislation’s cost.
Rep. Morgan Griffith (R-Va.) said the work-in-progress was more than a process. He told The Epoch Times that he and his colleagues had reached the stage of a “draft blueprint.”
Rep. Jack Bergman (R-Mich.) told The Epoch Times that lawmakers “have a hard time—we all do—getting past specific numbers.”
“They’re getting close to a blueprint,” Bergman said.
Rep. Nathan Moran (R-Texas) also stressed the complexity of drawing up the reconciliation budget.
“We’re going to continue to iron out things until the very last minute,” he told The Epoch Times.
While Republicans have generally talked of cuts and efficiencies, not all of the reconciliation budget will likely be characterized by austerity.
House Republican Conference Chair Lisa McClain (R-Mich.) told The Epoch Times that House Armed Services Committee Chair Mike Rogers (R-Ala.) and other lawmakers spoke of a need for additional defense spending.
“Everything’s on the table right now,” McClain said.
Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.), a member of the House Armed Services Committee’s Europe subcommittee, suggested Ukraine aid would continue, a sore subject for many other Republicans. He accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of being “fixated on recreating the failed Soviet Union.”
“So any effort to try to work with him is going to fail,” Wilson told The Epoch Times.
On the other side of the ledger, Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.), who chairs the House Appropriations Committee, told The Epoch Times that changes to Medicaid were “on the table.”
“We put a lot of extra people on during COVID,” he said.
Earlier in the day, Johnson told reporters that benefits reductions were not coming for Medicaid, Social Security, or Medicare.
“What we’re talking about is efficiencies in the programs to make them work better for the people who receive those benefits,” he said, adding that waste, fraud, and abuse of those programs were in focus.
As his colleagues trickled out of Doral, Rep. Ben Cline (R-Va.) struck an optimistic tone on the group’s collective effort, which comes after a suite of far-reaching Trump executive actions have driven a demand for quick action from the president’s base, along with pushback from Democrats and the judiciary.
“We know that reconciliation is a challenging process, but we know we can achieve it in a way that is fiscally responsible,” Cline told The Epoch Times.
Rep. Celeste Maloy (R-Utah) told The Epoch Times that her fellow Republicans were “still talking—but that’s kind of the point, right?”
“On our side of the aisle where we disagree, we’re okay with disagreeing. But then at some point, we’re going to have the vote, and I think everyone wants to deliver a win,” she said.
