America's Talking - Republican Leaders Face Competing Budget Demands From GOP Lawmakers

Episode Date: May 10, 2025

(The Center Square) – As the final House committees markup the lion’s share of the budget reconciliation package, nearly three dozen fiscally conservative lawmakers are reminding party leaders to fulfill their spending reduction promises. The $5.8 trillion concurrent budget resolution, which gives congressional committees funding directions to pass President Donald Trump’s tax and other policy goals, barely passed both chambers in April. Fiscal hardliners only backed it on the promise of deep spending cuts. Support this podcast: https://secure.anedot.com/franklin-news-foundation/ce052532-b1e4-41c4-945c-d7ce2f52c38a?source_code=xxxxxx Full story: https://www.thecentersquare.com/national/article_11a46b34-0226-4161-bc11-85c4d3c1040e.html Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome to America in Focus. I'm Brett Rowland, investigative reporter for the Center Square, filling in for Casey Harper, who's traveling this week. Joining me today is Therese Brudrow, who covers Congress for our national team. How are you doing, Terrez? I'm doing great today, Brett. How are you? It's been a busy week, but I heard that Congress has had an even busier week. So what are they doing to finalize spending plans and sort of how did we get where we are today?

Okay. Well, yeah, today has been extremely busy and next week will be even busier. We are, or Congresses rather, in not quite the final stretch, but almost the final stretch of the budget reconciliation process. So there have been eight out of 11 House committees who have marked up these giant bills that basically lay out different spending and savings specifics for different programs under the committee. committee's jurisdiction. This is all part, it's all going to be part of the budget package, which is a $5.8 trillion megabill. And it's been part of his whole ongoing process. Center Square has reported on it. And basically, this is the process by which President Donald Trump's policy agenda can be implemented without having to go through the filibuster. So that's

Republicans are using this process, the budget reconciliation process, so that they can pass a bunch of Trump's policies, such as unleashing, you know, energy, the fossil fuels, especially in permanently extending the 2017 tax cuts. That's what makes part of us so expensive. But so what's happened happening this week is that there's been a lot of committees who have marked up and passed and are going to send to the floor probably by the end next week into a big pack. all of these different policy priorities that will either cut or cost billions of dollars, tens of billion dollars, hundreds of billions of dollars in some circumstances. So this past week, there have been many things touching on student loans, on EVs. So just to get into some of them, this past week, House Committee on Natural Resources, they really looked into, okay, how can we get savings? Because some committees are giving savings targets and some are giving spending targets. So House Committee on Natural Resources, they put a bunch of different provisions into their bills that would boost oil and gas production.

So that's obviously part of Donald Trump's plan to make America energy independent again, as you said. There's been a lot of pushback from Democrats saying that going to be undoing a bunch or undoing a bunch of renewable energy progress. One of the big things that the committees have done and that they have passed is the House Education Workforce Committee. They are trying to simplify and streamline student loan options to find savings and to also help student borrowers be able to get out of debt quicker and to do. That whole process is just such a labyrinth. I mean, there's more than a trillion outstanding student loan debts in America. And so the committee is trying to tackle that. That could also result in a lot of savings.

So just a lot of things going on. Even another committee, they're thinking of putting a $250 EV tax on electric vehicle owners because unlike combustion vehicle owners who pay taxes for the road at the gas pump, EV drivers do not. So again, that's also something that could result in billions of dollars of savings. So a lot of really unconventional but creative ideas to kind of offset financing Trump's tax cuts, his border security and energy policies. The problem, of course, is that just the monumental cost apparently extending the tax cuts because that will result in a bunch of lost revenue. is probably it's going to be difficult to offset that just with other other budget cuts. Terrez, when it, when Congress has, they've said they're going to spend all this money and, and also they're going to cut all this money. Now, is there any penalty or consequence or backstop in case they don't cut what they've pledged to cut from the budget?

Right. So a lot of Republicans are concerned. that this whole plan, impertinently extending the tax cuts, fulfilling all the policy agenda, that it's going to boost the debt and deficit to just skyrocket it. And so House Speaker Mike Johnson got a lot of them to vote

for the initial budget resolution, which basically kicked off the budget reconciliation process, allowed the House committees to start marking up things because he promised them that they'll find trillions in offsets. So, for instance,

Representative Chip Roy, he was a fiscal hardliner who took Johnson out of his word and said, all right, I'll vote for this process to happen as long as you promised me that you'll find trillions in offsets. So the, I mean, Congress, you know, spends all the time and we're already 36 trillion in debt. So as for consequences, the immediate ones, I guess, are that if Johnson and other Republicans on the committees cannot find, find enough cuts to satisfy these fiscal hardliners, then, you know, multiple Republicans have said they will not vote for the final package. And that final vote is expected to come. At least Johnson has said it's an ambitious goal, but he said that next week they're hoping to

vote on it, which would be, that would be huge. But again, it depends. The eight out of 11 committees have marked up their their portions, but Houseways and Means, for instance, has not yet. They're the ones in charge of implementing the tax policy portion. So that's huge. That's obviously the most expensive part of the bill. So that's really something to watch because depending on how they do that, they could, you know, lose or gain or keep, rather, enough Republican votes to pass it or not, not just in the House, but in the Senate. So Republicans have an edge, of course, because through the budget reconciliation process, they don't need 60 votes in the Senate, they just the majority. Now, there are 53 Republicans in the Senate. So basically, Republicans,

they can get this passed with the votes that they have, but only if they don't lose too many Republican votes who are concerned about the fiscal ramifications. Another thing is that there are also some other Republicans who, you know, come from blue states or have kind of uncertain seats. and they're concerned that a lot of the deep cuts that the fiscal hardliners want are going to touch programs like Medicaid, like SNAP, because so many of these, you know, for instance, the House Energy and Commerce Committee has defined 880 billion. And a lot of fiscal organizations have said there's no way you can find that much under programs in your jurisdiction unless you make some kind of reform, some kind of changes, probably some kind of of cuts to Medicaid. So that's the thing is that Johnson and Republican leaders are having to deal with the fiscal hardliners who are saying, you better make those cuts. And then another substantial part Republicans who are saying, you better make those cuts in a way that doesn't

damage a bunch of these entitlement or assistance programs. So again, that's, it's, it is, it's very, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, such a fine line. Um, so Republicans technically can do it, but it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's It really just depends on on how many Republican votes, you know, they lose or they're able to keep. One more question for you. And this is my favorite question than I ask it every year. But what do you think? Do you think the budget, there's a chance of a balanced budget this year.

We haven't had one since 2001. Do you think Congress can do it this year? I know Trump said he wanted one, but it's unclear of how bad he wanted one. Do you think we could get a balanced budget this year? Well, again, the budget, the budget process is really complicated. I mean, Trump also released his preferred fiscal year, 2026 budget, which last year Congress didn't pass one at all. They just did three continuing resolutions. So that's connected to the budget reconciliation process. But again, it really just depends on the scale of the cuts, right? Not just the scale of the cuts, but all. also, if enough Republicans can get on board with it. You know, with Congress, it's difficult to make any predictions. I personally, but again, that's just my personal opinion.

I don't think finding a perfectly balanced budget that's going to pass that is actually going to pass is possible. But I think there are a lot of ways that it can be almost balanced. So I don't know. We'll see. It really is just so up in the air right now. And there's just so much that's going on and that could go on. So it'll be a really interesting thing to watch this next week and possibly the week after that, depending on how it goes. Great. Thank you, Teres, for all your insight into these stories. That's all the time we have for this week. Listeners can keep up with these stories and more at thecentersquare.com.