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Both chambers of Congress are controlled by Republican majorities. However, the House and Senate are now reportedly at odds with each other over how to proceed with a pending budget bill.
Politico reported Monday that even though the House Republican Conference has already cemented its support of its single-bill strategy, a vote in the GOP-run Senate may not happen for several more weeks. Republicans in the upper chamber of Congress are apparently still considering a two-pronged approach as it contemplates how to move forward.
According to Politico reporter Meredith Lee Hill, this angered House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.), with him calling on “senior Republicans in the room to publicly voice their criticism of the timeline,” according to three unnamed sources.
The House Republican budget bill has multiple controversial provisions that are likely to face resistance from even some Republicans in the Senate. This includes its approximately $880 billion in cuts to Medicaid (which provides health insurance to low-income Americans) over a ten-year period, along with a 10-year extension of President Donald Trump’s tax cut package initially passed in 2017. Republicans have 53 seats and only need 51 votes to pass a bill through the budget reconciliation process, though winning over more moderate Republicans facing tough reelection battles in 2026, like Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine), Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) and Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) could prove difficult. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) isn’t up for reelection until 2028, but she has notably voted against Trump several times and could sink a reconciliation vote if Collins, Ernst and Tillis are also in the opposition.
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Senate Republicans are reportedly “flirting” with breaking up their budget resolution into two bills, with the proposed tax cut package getting its own separate legislation. The Congressional Budget Office has estimated an extension would cost roughly $4.5 trillion over ten years. According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP), the tax cuts are “skewed to the rich,” with the wealthiest Americans getting more than triple the tax cuts that lower and middle-class income families would get.
“Policymakers should seize the opportunity the 2025 expirations provide and make a course correction in the nation’s revenue policies,” the CBPP wrote. “This would mean reversing the regressive tilt of the 2017 law, raising more revenue, and correcting priorities to advance the interests of low- and moderate-income families across the country instead of those of wealthy shareholders.”
Aside from the budget bill, Republicans in Congress also have to pass legislation to keep the government funded by March 14. If there is no agreement by Friday, the federal government could shut down for the first time since 2019, when Trump presided over what was then the longest shutdown in U.S. history
Click here to read Politico’s report in full.
