Each week while Congress is in session, our Policy team delivers a key update to highlight a topical benefits, health, or retirement news item from the Hill, such as a newly introduced bill, a summary of a committee hearing, or another hot-button matter.
On April 5th, Senate Republicans passed a budget resolution by a vote of 51-48. The Senate resolution has the "complete and total support" of President Trump, but may face headwinds in the House. The new Senate-passed budget resolution includes the tax and spending instructions to the House authorizing committees from the House-passed budget resolution, but includes much different directions to the tax and spending authorizing committees in the Senate. For example, the Senate budget resolution instructs several authorizing committees to report spending cuts that reduce the deficit by at least $1 billion each rather than the more specific, larger spending cut instructions directed at the House authorizing committees. It instead includes a more general, aspirational goal of finding spending reforms that reduce deficits by more than $2 trillion over 10 years through reconciliation, executive orders and rescissions, and scrutinizing spending that did not exist before COVID. The new Senate budget resolution also uses a budget baseline based on current policy instead of current law, which means that the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act tax cuts could be extended (and perhaps made permanent) for very little cost. The Senate budget resolution directs the Senate Finance Committee to report tax cuts that increase the deficit by not more than $1.5 trillion over 10 years, which would allow the Committee to also include some of President Trump's and Republican leaders' other tax priorities, although additional revenue raising provisions likely would still be needed. Further, the Senate budget resolution directs the Senate Finance Committee to report changes to increase the statutory debt limit by $5 trillion instead of the $4 trillion increase in the House budget instructions.
House Speaker Mike Johnson now will seek to have the House pass the revised budget resolution this week before the start of the scheduled two-week spring recess. Speaker Johnson, Whip Steve Scalise (R-LA), and other House leaders sent a Dear Colleague letter to Republican members arguing for support of the Senate version of the budget resolution in order to set up President Trump's legislative agenda for passage and noting that the Senate instructions on spending reductions do not prevent the House from achieving its goals of larger spending cuts. But it appears that some House budget hawks are not yet on board with the Senate approach. For example, House Budget Committee Chair Jodey Arrington (R-TX) labeled the Senate budget resolution as "unserious and disappointing" and specifically criticized the Senate authorizing committee instructions as not including enforceable spending cuts as well as its inclusion of the current policy baseline.
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