Today’s notice: Threading the reconciliation needle. Fossil fuel producers vs. the trade war. An update on the Resistance.
Fussbudgets
The Senate adopted an amended version of the House’s budget framework over the weekend, moving the reconciliation process forward. But before Republicans in both chambers can get to the fun part — crafting President Donald Trump’s “one big, beautiful bill” — they still have to work out a number of differences in their budgets.
The House is trying to make changes and send the budget right back to the Senate this week. But the Senate might have further changes after that, and the whole process could take a lot longer than Republicans think.
Essentially, the two chambers look like they might be playing legislative pingpong for a while.
Over the weekend, as Riley Rogerson reports today, House Budget Committee Chair Jodey Arrington expressed deep concern about the Senate’s budget.
“The Senate response was unserious and disappointing, creating $5.8 trillion in new costs and a mere $4 billion in enforceable cuts, less than one day’s worth of borrowing by the federal government,” Arrington said in a statement. “It also sets a dangerous precedent by direct scoring tax policy without including enforceable offsets.”
The Senate’s budget has two different floors: one for its chamber, where committees are only mandated to cut a few billion dollars here and there, and one for the House, where committees are charged with finding $1.5 trillion in cuts. House conservatives have blasted the Senate’s cuts as insulting compared to the House. And they’re mad about how the legislation is getting scored, accusing Senate Republicans of accounting gimmicks.
But the toughest fight is over Medicaid cuts.
Sen. Josh Hawley only supported the Senate budget once Trump promised he wouldn’t sign a reconciliation bill with Medicaid cuts. There are a number of Republicans — in both chambers — who want to make sure the ultimate bill doesn’t pay for tax cuts with Medicaid reductions.
The problem is, there are a bunch of House conservatives who only supported the initial House budget once the blueprint had those cuts.
It’s a classic game of chicken, with each side thinking the other side will eventually cave. And basically every Republican thinks only Trump can force a compromise.
“At some point, President Trump is going to have to step in and say, ‘Let me help you, folks, and share with you my ideas’ in order for us to reach a consensus between the House and Senate,” Sen. John Kennedy predicted to reporters. “That’s the nature of the beast.”
Reading the Tariff Tarot Cards: Energy Edition
The president’s trade war has left many industry leaders scratching their heads. But the confusion may be most pronounced in the fossil fuel industry, where leaders were incredibly excited about Trump’s election and now find their plans largely stymied.
While the tariff policies “technically exempt oil and gas products,” NOTUS’ Anna Kramer writes, Trump’s new rules “are expected to raise prices for the petroleum industry” and “exacerbate existing shortages of critical infrastructure like transformers, which could further impair the slog to get new sources of energy online across the country.”
“There are tremendous stakes for oil and gas in the steel tariffs,” Clayton Seigle, energy sector chief at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told Anna.
This puts at risk a huge part of Trump’s domestic agenda, and a part that could really hit consumers hard with increased energy prices. Despite the strong alliance between fossil fuel producers and this White House, it seems this is another industry not yet ready to speak up.
“Almost entirely, energy industry leaders insisted on speaking with NOTUS on background for this story, unwilling to draw attention from the Trump administration,” Anna writes.
Front Page
- California Democrats Blast RFK Jr. For Canceling the State’s Cash Welfare Pilot Program: “We find it appalling that your Department appears willing to disregard California’s duly- and fairly-awarded pilot,” Rep. Judy Chu wrote alongside others in her delegation.
- Aid Organizations Are Getting Back Pay from the Trump Administration, But Aren’t Sure What’s Next: The Trump administration is still processing payments owed to organizations for work done between Jan. 20 and Feb. 13, according to court documents.
- A House Republican Is Trying to Exempt Oklahoma’s Aviation Academy from Government Shutdowns: The school has trained thousands of the country’s air traffic controllers during a shortage in the workforce, and Rep. Frank Lucas introduced a bill to keep it open at all times.
The House Proxy Vote War May Also Have Been Reconciled
When we last saw House members, they were leaving town because Rep. Anna Paulina Luna’s proposed rule allowing new parents to vote by proxy had gained enough support to force a floor vote, against the stubborn opposition of Speaker Mike Johnson and some other conservatives.
Since then, Trump has expressed support for Luna’s resolution, and on Sunday, Johnson and Luna found a way forward without a vote.
The workaround? Instead of going high-tech with remote voting, Republicans and Democrats are going low-tech with “vote pairing.” (Remember that scene in “Curb Your Enthusiasm” when Larry David finds someone in line who is voting for the other guy and they both agree just to leave? It’s that.)
Whether that solution works forever and for everyone remains to be seen, but for now, Luna seems to have won. As part of the concessions, Johnson will also make the Capitol more parent-friendly with improved daycare access and a nursing room for House members. The deal was first reported by Punchbowl.
Is ‘The Resistance’ Back?
For months, the Democratic Party’s problems have proven too intractable for a cohesive and unified opposition to Trump to emerge. But the sheer scale of Trump’s actions may be changing that.
This weekend, a huge number of people took to the streets to protest administration moves. It sure looked familiar. This is not to say #Resistance 2.0 is upon us quite yet, however. More than one experienced Democratic strategist has told us in recent days that it will take a while to know if the good headlines for Dems of late will actually result in good feelings among a base that has been seething since last November.
—Evan McMorris-Santoro
Week Ahead
- Tariffs, you may have heard, have become a big issue of late. Expect them to get a mention when the House Ways and Means Committee hosts the U.S. Trade Rep. for a hearing on the Trump administration’s trade agenda Wednesday.
- The 25th Annual Congressional Basketball Game is scheduled for Wednesday night.
- “If I Could Turn Back Time: Should We Lock the Clock?” is the name of the Senate Commerce Committee’s hearing on time changes Thursday, scheduled to begin at 10 Eastern Standard Time.
- Official inflation figures for March will be released Thursday.
Not Us
We know NOTUS reporters can’t cover it all. Here’s some other great hits by… not us.
- ‘Everyone is terrified’: Business and government officials are afraid to cross Trump on tariffs by Caitlin Oprysko for Politico
- Is There Any Point to Protesting in Trump’s Second Term? by Molly Parks for Washingtonian
- Big Law Firms Struck a Truce With Trump—and Set Off a Clash With Recruits by Lindsay Ellis for The Wall Street Journal
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