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‘There aren’t any easy decisions left’: House GOP awaits Johnson’s play call on Trump’s agenda

By Manu Raju and Sarah Ferris, CNN

Doral, Florida (CNN) — Speaker Mike Johnson’s power within the Republican Party is about to be tested unlike anything he has faced, with Donald Trump’s agenda on the line.

As the House GOP’s policy retreat comes to a close, Johnson and his team must now decide how much of the GOP’s sprawling wish list can actually survive the highly fractious House.

So far, Johnson – who won the gavel for his low-key approach to building consensus from the sidelines, rather than with a megaphone – has refused to rule anything out. But with a key House committee expected to take the first step as soon as next week to formally begin the process, Johnson is preparing to put his finger on the scale.

And multiple GOP lawmakers stressed that he can’t remain neutral much longer.

“We don’t have a plan to unify behind,” said Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Georgia Republican. “Leadership should be bringing a plan forward that we can all start getting on board with.”

Johnson’s allies acknowledge he has had to move cautiously with such a narrow House majority – given that if he took too heavy a hand, he would almost certainly anger some corners of his conference. And starting next week, Republicans can’t lose a single vote in the House.

The speaker’s final plan must somehow satisfy opposite ends of the party – the budget hawks seeking trillions in spending cuts, as well as vulnerable centrists who campaigned on tax cuts, including an expensive local tax break for places like New York and California, something that has prompted sharp pushback from the party’s right flank.

“They’re going to have to come to us – the ones that are fiscally conservative and that have kept our word and asked us what we can live with,” said Rep. Tim Burchett, a Tennessee Republican, referring to Johnson and his leadership team. “They have not.”

Johnson and his team are eyeing a package that would include $2.5 trillion in spending cuts, a move that would impact much of the federal government – hitting health care programs like Medicaid but sparing benefits to Social Security and Medicare that Trump has vowed to protect. The House GOP plan is expected to include tighter immigration laws, stepped-up energy production, a sweeping tax overhaul and amped up spending on national defense programs – all as one massive, take-it-or-leave it package.

“No,” said House Appropriations Chairman Tom Cole when asked if cuts to domestic programs alone could fund the GOP’s agenda. “We could not come anywhere close out of the discretionary budget to funding things of the enormity we’re talking about.”

With Medicare off the table, Cole said of domestic programs: “We just don’t have the bandwidth to do it anymore out of that particular pot of money.”

And already, some of that friction is showing on a different politically explosive issue: Raising the US borrowing limit. When Johnson signaled to fellow Republicans on Tuesday that the GOP likely couldn’t hike the debt limit through the budget process, multiple conservatives in the room chafed at the suggestion of working with Democrats instead.

“I’m going to disagree with him,” Rep. Andy Harris, who leads the House Freedom Caucus, told CNN about Johnson’s suggestion it wasn’t politically feasible. “The Freedom Caucus has provided the pathway to do it in reconciliation. Now he’s blaming it on the Senate. He’s changed his story.”

Johnson had initially hoped to use the budget process since it can’t be filibustered in the Senate, allowing the GOP to raise the debt limit on its terms. But Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune have calculated they wouldn’t be able to raise the debt limit with just GOP votes, so they are now turning to going through the regular legislative process. And that means they’ll need 60 votes in the Senate – and support from Democrats, who will have their own demands.

“We need a play call,” one senior GOP member said. “Time is running out.”

House Budget Committee prepares to take first step next week

To enact Trump’s agenda, Congress will have to take two steps through the complex budget process. First, both the House and Senate will have to adopt a non-binding budget resolution that lays out the overall parameters of their plan. Then, both chambers will have to draft the details in the binding legislation – known on Capitol Hill as reconciliation – and approve it by simple majorities, all while surviving the strict budget rules of the Senate.

The first step could begin as soon as next week, Johnson said, indicating he wants the House Budget Committee to begin voting on the budget blueprint, forcing the speaker to make some key decisions on overall fiscal goals.

“I said to the members, there aren’t any easy decisions left,” said Texas Rep. Jodey Arrington, chairman of the House Budget Committee. “Every nickel and dime has a constituency, and those constituencies make their voices heard, except for one: my children and the children and grandchildren of the people watching right now.”

GOP leaders are discussing the idea of a less aggressive budget resolution in order to keep their party together – with assurances that when it comes time to draft the reconciliation bill, the language will be tougher. But that idea is already facing resistance from fiscal hawks who have warned GOP leadership not to lowball efforts to cut federal spending.

Asked about the GOP’s ability to coalesce behind a budget plan in the next couple days, Burchett said: “Not very good.”

Other Republicans are worried that the budget plan might go too far in the other direction.

Rep. Nicole Malliotakis, the only GOP lawmaker who represents a slice of New York City, said she’s raised multiple concerns about where funding cuts will come from, including Medicaid, as leadership craft their budget proposal.

“Before I vote for the topline number, I’d like to have a general understanding of where some of these decisions are going to be made and where the cuts are going to come from,” Malliotakis said about the looming House vote on the budget blueprint.

And she, along with other New York Republicans, are demanding a more generous deduction on state and local tax breaks after the GOP’s 2017 tax law capped the SALT break.

“We understand how some of our colleagues may feel, but I feel maybe just as bad about voting for a refundable tax credit that might benefit their state,” she said. “So it’s got to be a give and take. It’s got to be a negotiation.”

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