Complicated questions frequently end up boiling down to simple ones. Right now, after a knock down drag out fight in the Senate, the BBB is back in the House. And Donald Trump has to convince the Freedom Caucus that they should pass the BBB. And now, preferably as soon as humanly possible so that everybody can go home and bar-b-que. But there are a few major hangups: the main one is that Trump doesn’t seem to know what’s in his own bill, particularly with respect to Medicaid. That is a flaming red flag. And the usual quick and dirty “we’ll fix it later” ploy is not working this time. This is leading to serious trouble, the kind of trouble that possibly a seasoned legislator could remedy but Trump? AYFKM? NOTUS:
One White House meeting attendee, Rep. Tim Burchett, told NOTUS there was little the president and his team could tell him to win his vote. Although he said leadership has floated “fixes” to the bill after passage — which would ostensibly mean further legislation to undo this legislation — he said he doesn’t see the point of enacting policy he disagrees with.
“Now we’re having to once again hear the line, ‘Let’s pass this and then we’ll fix it later,’ Burchett told NOTUS. “And we never fix it later, and America knows that.”
“I’ve been here six years — whatever,” Burchett continued. “It’s the same game. And there’s enough of us now that have had enough of it.”
The Freedom Caucus released a three-page memo Wednesday laying out its concerns with the reconciliation bill. Included among their gripes are that the legislation increases the deficit, fails to terminate some subsidies for renewable energy, allows undocumented immigrants to receive Medicaid and dramatically increases the state and local tax deduction.
Republicans are rushing to get holdouts on board, but this time, Trump and Johnson are without one of their key negotiating chips: They can’t change the bill, not unless they want to send it back to the Senate for another round of approval there.
That would be a quintessential disaster. The bill was vehemently fought in the Senate, Lisa Murkowski publicly sold her soul, Thom Tillis resigned over the damn thing, and when all the shouting was over, J.D. Vance had to break the tie. So a return visit to the Senate is to be avoided at all costs.
“Only in Washington is the Senate so arrogant — the House of Lords — that they say, ‘Oh well, you know, you can’t change this,’” Rep. Chip Roy told reporters ahead of the rule vote. “Every legislative body in the world does ping-pong, conferences and other ways to go about it.”
As Republicans try to flip members, Majority Whip Tom Emmer and his deputy, Guy Reschenthaler, spent considerable time on the floor Wednesday engaged in animated conversations with holdouts, including Reps. David Valadao, Dan Newhouse, Juan Ciscomani and Rob Bresnahan.
But with so many issues outstanding, some members are beginning to think GOP leaders are doing more harm than good by trying to get the reconciliation bill done before Trump’s self-imposed July 4 deadline.
“Mike’s a fool if he keeps us here,” one senior House Republican told NOTUS.
Trump has imposed the deadline so that he can peacock and pose and say how wonderful it is for America, on her birthday, to have this BBB (which is now the bla bla bla bill) passed but don’t count on it to happen. Not unless something truly miraculous happens on July 3.
“Thom Tillis resigned over the damn thing,”
Minor quibble but I think Tillis is still in the Senate. He’s just decided he won’t run for re-election next year but hasn’t yet given up his seat (which would be the result of resigning).
I’m sorry but just how stupid is Chip Roy?
““Only in Washington is the Senate so arrogant — the House of Lords — that they say, ‘Oh well, you know, you can’t change this,’” Rep. Chip Roy told reporters ahead of the rule vote. “Every legislative body in the world does ping-pong, conferences and other ways to go about it.”
If the House doesn’t agree with the Senate’s proposal, then they make changes and send it back to the Senate. Which is exactly what he says at the end of his gripe about the Senate’s arrogance.
As I understand the whole process, the House sends a bill to the Senate. Then either the Senate passes/approves the bill as is or the Senate makes changes and sends it back to the House for the House to vote on. Then, either the House approves the Senate’s version or the House makes its own changes and then both chambers appoint members to work out the differences between the two versions. (I also believe that the British House of Lords is a bit more limited in its dealings with budgetary bills than the US Senate is. Certain aspects of budgetary bills are officially prohibited to the Lords but the Commons will often waive their exclusive authority on the bills.)