House Republicans know they’ve got a long way to go before they come up with a tax proposal to fold into a reconciliation bill, but many insist they aren’t sweating Speaker Mike Johnson’s spring deadline.
“We’re making great progress with all the different groups of members and with the broader conference and committees,” Rep. Jodey Arrington, who heads the House Budget Committee, told reporters Tuesday afternoon. “The internal discussions have been very productive, so I don’t see any reason why we can’t make an aggressive timeline.”
Arrington said a budget resolution is coming “very soon” but that he couldn’t disclose an “exact day.” Johnson told reporters this week that he’s looking to pass “one big, beautiful bill” through the House in April. And House Majority Leader Steve Scalise said at a news conference this week that he’s confident about that timeframe, too.
Some Republicans are being realistic about how hard this may be to pull off, especially on taxes — a major priority for Republicans and the policy area where they were able to pull off a big-ticket legislative win during Donald Trump’s first term.
“There’s so much that’s gotta be worked out,” said Rep. Vern Buchanan, who sits on the Ways and Means Committee and who was uncertain about the conference’s ability to meet the April deadline. “We’re moving in that direction. Whether we’ll get there or not, I don’t know.”
But the rest of the Republicans NOTUS spoke with insisted that Johnson’s timeline was realistic.
Rep. Russell Fry told NOTUS that April is “a tough deadline” from Johnson but an important one for his party to meet. He said the sooner businesses and workers in his district know more about changes to their taxes, the better.
“It’s something that we aspire to, and where I think he’s coming from is that the American people expect a win. The businesses want some reassurances on what exactly is gonna happen this year,” Fry said.
Getting every Republican on the same page has already proven to be a tough task for House leadership. The party appears inclined to pursue one bill for reconciliation instead of two, and fiscal hard-liners are demanding that a debt limit increase be included, which would put the entire package at risk from the get-go. Republicans have failed so far to reach a consensus about standalone tax issues like state and local tax deductions, even as blue-state Republicans say they have a plan to stick together on SALT reform.
Rep. Nicole Malliotakis, who’s on Ways and Means, told NOTUS that her party is still ironing out details on the tax portion of reconciliation, but they’re mostly trying to modify credits that were authorized through the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.
“I think we’re gonna look at the death tax because it impacts a lot of family farms. I think they’re gonna look at SALT deductions,” she said. “I think they may or may not make some changes to the corporate tax rate, I don’t know. But I think a lot of it is extending and enhancing the current deductions.”
The brainstorming about what exactly needs to be modified is still in preliminary stages.
“We’re having ongoing discussions about what has been most impactful from last time, what’s important to move forward, what changes need to be made. I’m anxious to hear from colleagues and folks along the way,” Rep. Adrian Smith, who’s also on Ways and Means, told NOTUS.
But one SALT-focused blue-state Republican, Rep. Chris Smith, said his party has already made a lot of progress negotiating stand-alone tax issues, which gives him confidence about Johnson’s deadline.
“Everybody’s got a piece of the puzzle that they’re trying to work through, quickly,” Smith told NOTUS. “Our numbers are so close that there will be challenges, but not ones that can’t be overcome.”
Still, lawmakers acknowledge that getting a big tax package together isn’t the only thing on their plates before spring.
“Reconciliation is gonna include debt limit, taxes, energy production, immigration, spending cuts. There’s a lot of things,” Rep. Darin LaHood told NOTUS. But he said he thought his party could still achieve working all that out by April.
Another Republican on Ways and Means, Rep. David Schweikert, told NOTUS that the focus on the process was distracting from his conference’s overall goals to “maximize economic growth and minimize its impact on debt.”
“I’m just shocked at how much the press cannot seem to — the process stories are easy because you don’t have to do math,” he said.
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Emily Kennard is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow. Violet Jira contributed reporting.