House GOP Budget Picture Starts to Develop: Increased Overall Spending & CBO est. ~$2,400,000,000,000 in Additional Debt

[essentialsaltes]

House GOP plan to pass Trump agenda set to face key test with budget resolution this week [?]​

The House GOP’s plan to pass a large chunk of President Trump’s agenda is set to face a key test this week when the conference looks to adopt a budget resolution, which would set the legislative process in motion.

The outcome of that effort, however, remains unclear. Three key moderate Republicans told The Hill last week that they were withholding support from the measure until they received more information about the planned spending cuts in the legislation and assurances that those slashes will not significantly impact social safety net programs such as Medicaid. And Rep. Victoria Spartz (R-Ind.), who is known for changing positions on legislation, announced Sunday night that that she was “a NO on the current version” of the legislation.

And the scramble to avert a government shutdown is set to heat up this week, as Congress stares down a fast-approaching March 14 deadline to keep the lights on in Washington.

The budget resolution — which advanced out of the House Budget Committee earlier this month — lays out a $1.5 trillion floor for spending cuts across committees with a target of $2 trillion. It puts a $4.5 trillion ceiling on the deficit impact of any GOP plan to extend Trump’s 2017 tax cuts and includes $300 billion in additional spending for the border and defense and a $4 trillion debt limit increase.

Reduce spending by $2T (let's be hopelessly optimistic)
Reduce revenue by $4.5T
Add $0.3T in new spending
Nets out at $2.8 trillion in additional deficits.

 

[Pommer]

Reduce spending by $2T (let's be hopelessly optimistic)
Reduce revenue by $4.5T
Add $0.3T in new spending
Nets out at $2.8 trillion in additional deficits.

Cue the “but the growth will pay for it all” memes.

 

[essentialsaltes]

Speaker Johnson acknowledges GOP opposition to House budget but confident ‘they’ll get there’​

House Speaker Mike Johnson said Monday he has not yet locked down enough Republican support to advance his chamber’s budget resolution this week but is confident the holdouts will ultimately cooperate.

Republicans from the deeper red districts are pushing for steep spending cuts, while those from areas with more Democratic voters are wary of finding savings from government programs like Medicaid that serve millions of people.

[The Speaker] said he expects the House to approve the budget this week but did not specify which day, although GOP leaders are expected to move as soon as they have enough support locked down.

 

[Akita Suggagaki]

It’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall

 

[Hans Blaster]

It’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall

I heard one person starve, I heard many people laughin'.

 

[essentialsaltes]

Massie is reportedly a "NO" vote from the fiscal hawk side.

Meanwhile 8 Republicans from the Congressional Hispanic Conference are writing about their 'concern' about Medicaid and SNAP cuts, etc.

Capitol agenda: Big, beautiful budget on life support​

Speaker Mike Johnson has several holdouts on his budget plan, which he still plans to send to a floor vote Tuesday evening.

 

[essentialsaltes]

“Don’t touch seniors’ Medicare, and don’t cut Medicaid, because it isn’t just for lazy welfare people. It’s for real people,” Van Drew [R-NJ] told the Washington Post this week. “That’s the new Republican Party, a populist party, a party of working people, a party of blue-collar people.”

polls have shown that cutting it would be politically perilous for the GOP, particularly if the money saved from the cuts is used to fund more tax cuts that disproportionately benefit the top one percent of earners.

Curiously enough, the largest part of the big beautiful bill is $4,500,000,000,000 in tax cuts that disproportionately benefit the top one percent of earners.

 

[civilwarbuff]

House GOP Budget Picture Starts to Develop: Increased Overall Spending & $2,500,000,000,000 in Additional Debt​

If that's the end result I'm not sure there will even be a budget. We might just default.

 

[essentialsaltes]

Speaker Johnson acknowledges GOP opposition to House budget but confident ‘they’ll get there’​

[The Speaker] said he expects the House to approve the budget this week but did not specify which day, although GOP leaders are expected to move as soon as they have enough support locked down.

Not today, Speaker!

voting on the White House’s “big, beautiful bill” has been pushed to another day amid a GOP revolt.

[From when they were still trying to get it done earlier today:]
Three Democrats are absent and all Republicans are present, meaning they can lose two lawmakers to pass the budget. However, several Republicans remain adamant nos: Reps. Warren Davidson (Ohio), Thomas Massie (Kentucky), Victoria Spartz (Indiana) and Tim Burchett (Tennessee).

 

[Pommer]

Not today, Speaker!

voting on the White House’s “big, beautiful bill” has been pushed to another day amid a GOP revolt.

[From when they were still trying to get it done earlier today:]
Three Democrats are absent and all Republicans are present, meaning they can lose two lawmakers to pass the budget. However, several Republicans remain adamant nos: Reps. Warren Davidson (Ohio), Thomas Massie (Kentucky), Victoria Spartz (Indiana) and Tim Burchett (Tennessee).

As of 23:11 the measure has passed the House.

 

[essentialsaltes]

Reduce spending by $2T (let's be hopelessly optimistic)
Reduce revenue by $4.5T
Add $0.3T in new spending
Nets out at $2.8 trillion in additional deficits.

Trump, Musk scale back promise of saving $2 trillion​

"We're looking to get it maybe to $1 trillion, if we can do that," [Trump said]

So much for optimism. And any reality to the GOP budget plan.

 

[essentialsaltes]

Senate GOP won’t take up House budget resolution until at least late March​

Senate Majority Leader John Thune made clear in a brief interview on Monday night that he did not intend to put the House budget resolution on the floor before the Senate’s expected mid-March break that will start after March 14 — the same day as the deadline to avoid a government shutdown.

While Senate Republicans grapple privately with the House budget resolution, Senate Republicans are expected to focus floor activity next week on a much closer deadline: funding the government.

 

[essentialsaltes]

Trump blindsides staff, Congress with conflicting Medicaid messages​

President Donald Trump surprised some of his own staff Wednesday when he endorsed a House budget that would gut Medicaid, hours after pledging that the safety net program “isn’t going to be touched.”

Republican Medicaid cuts could shutter rural hospitals, maternity care​

HONDO, Tex. — Jaylee Williams needed to find somewhere to deliver her son.

The 19-year-old knew more about barrel racing on her horse Bet-n-pep than the complicated metrics of who takes what health insurance. But relief for Williams and her boyfriend, Xander Lopez, came when they realized Medina Regional Hospital — just 15 minutes from their home — accepted Medicaid, the federal-state program that covers medical costs for lower-income Americans. Provider groups an hour away in San Antonio had refused to take the insurance, she recalled while cradling little Ryker.

But the lifeline that the 25-bed critical-access hospital offered to Williams and Lopez could disappear in Hondo and other communities like it.

Nearly half of all rural hospitals nationwide operate at a deficit, with Medicaid barely keeping them afloat.

Public perception often associates the health-care safety net used by more than 1 in 5 Americans with the urban poor. But rural children and non-elderly adults are more likely to rely on Medicaid or the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) than those in metro areas, according to the Center for Children and Families at the McCourt School of Public Policy at Georgetown University.

About three in four rural residents said Medicaid funding should increase or stay the same, KFF found in a poll released Friday.

More than 35 percent of U.S. counties don’t have birthing facilities or obstetric clinicians, according to a March of Dimes report. In Texas, that figure is even worse: Nearly half of the state’s counties are considered maternity-care deserts. Bell warned that cuts to Medicaid could shutter her [maternity] unit completely.

Rural hospital leaders in Arkansas, Colorado, Kansas, Mississippi, Missouri and Texas who spoke to The Washington Post warned that the enormous cuts congressional Republicans are weighing could further destroy limited health-care access in rural America. Proposals to slash up to $880 billion over 10 years — which is expected to be accomplishedlargely by scaling back on Medicaid — would also impact those who do not rely on the program but do rely on the medical facilities that are financially dependent on the program’s reimbursements.

 

[essentialsaltes]

Speaker Johnson unveils Continuing Resolution to fund the government through September 30​

GOP leadership aides said Saturday that it would increase defense spending by about $6 billion while domestic spending would drop by about $13 billion."

[We are talking about real money, but this is still net savings of $7 billion on a deficit well over a trillion.]

Johnson and Trump have described the bill as a “clean” stopgap bill — noting that it doesn’t include language to enshrine certain Trump priorities, such as DOGE cuts. But Democrats argue this kind of long-term stopgap bill lacks critical language that is contained in full-year negotiated bills that would make it easier for their party to put a check on Trump in court, if needed.

[And given Trump/DOGE actions to freeze spending, the courts have been the only method for Congress to see that the money they appropriated for a particular purpose is actually spent.]

Johnson hopes to hold the vote Tuesday on the 99-page bill, according to people familiar with the plans.

It will be interesting to see if the GOP budget hawks come out against this business-as-usual funding for the next half-year. Speaker Johnson seems to be indicating that for sure this time, the GOP majority will come up with a budget over the summer that addresses deficits for the next fiscal year.

 

[essentialsaltes]

Speaker Johnson unveils Continuing Resolution to fund the government through September 30​

It will be interesting to see if the GOP budget hawks come out against this business-as-usual funding for the next half-year.

GOP Rep. Thomas Massie is expected to vote against the bill, meaning that Johnson can’t afford to lose another Republican vote if it goes along straight party lines and all members are present and voting.

Others are undecided, including GOP Rep. Tim Burchett, who told CNN on Monday he is still weighing whether to back it. GOP Rep. Tony Gonzales has previously said he’d oppose any stopgap bill, but that was before President Donald Trump called on all Republicans to support it.

[Budget runs out on Friday leading to potential shutdown. Coincidentally... total lunar eclipse!]

 

[essentialsaltes]

House Republican support grows for keeping clean energy tax breaks​

In a letter shared exclusively with POLITICO, 21 House Republicans — whose districts have drawn billions in new investments because of the Inflation Reduction Act incentives — said developing clean energy was critical for the U.S. to meet President Donald Trump’s goal of becoming “energy dominant.” And they threatened to resist their colleagues’ efforts to gut the law to help pay for a small fraction of the GOP’s multi-trillion-dollar tax-cut package.

The growing pushback against eliminating the IRA’s hundreds of billions of dollars in tax credits and other incentives — which have largely benefited GOP-controlled districts — will complicate efforts by House Republicans to slash federal outlays without shrinking Medicaid spending as they seek to offset the tax cuts in their budget bill.

Other Republicans have also professed their support for certain incentives, such as during a Ways and Means member day hearing in January. But they could face pressure not just from their fellow GOP lawmakers, but from Trump himself, who has vowed to gut the Inflation Reduction Act while deriding it as a “green new scam.”

In my district, I like the green new scam, but if you ask Trump whether he likes them anywhere...

I WOULD NOT LIKE THEM HERE OR THERE.
I WOULD NOT LIKE THEM ANYWHERE.
I DO NOT LIKE THE GREEN NEW SCAM.
I DO NOT LIKE IT, SAM-I-AM.

 

[Pommer]

House Republican support grows for keeping clean energy tax breaks​

In a letter shared exclusively with POLITICO, 21 House Republicans — whose districts have drawn billions in new investments because of the Inflation Reduction Act incentives — said developing clean energy was critical for the U.S. to meet President Donald Trump’s goal of becoming “energy dominant.” And they threatened to resist their colleagues’ efforts to gut the law to help pay for a small fraction of the GOP’s multi-trillion-dollar tax-cut package.

The growing pushback against eliminating the IRA’s hundreds of billions of dollars in tax credits and other incentives — which have largely benefited GOP-controlled districts — will complicate efforts by House Republicans to slash federal outlays without shrinking Medicaid spending as they seek to offset the tax cuts in their budget bill.

Other Republicans have also professed their support for certain incentives, such as during a Ways and Means member day hearing in January. But they could face pressure not just from their fellow GOP lawmakers, but from Trump himself, who has vowed to gut the Inflation Reduction Act while deriding it as a “green new scam.”

In my district, I like the green new scam, but if you ask Trump whether he likes them anywhere...

I WOULD NOT LIKE THEM HERE OR THERE.
I WOULD NOT LIKE THEM ANYWHERE.
I DO NOT LIKE THE GREEN NEW SCAM.
I DO NOT LIKE IT, SAM-I-AM.

So, how much are green eggs, the dozen?

 

[essentialsaltes]

When is a day not a day?

When it interferes with the House GOP's craven abdication of its Congressional power to rein in the presidential use of emergency powers.

full text -- apparently something trying to be slipped into the budget bill

 

[Nithavela]

When is a day not a day?

When it interferes with the House GOP's craven abdication of its Congressional power to rein in the presidential use of emergency powers.

full text -- apparently something trying to be slipped into the budget bill

View attachment 362166

How long does that session last? Does that mean that the emergency declarations are continued?

 

[Fantine]

What numbers and percentages are in the details of The Laffer Curve?

Bill Clinton, who not only ended his two terms with budget surpluses but led in the most profitable and successful decade in our history, began his presidency by raising taxes on the rich. (Wikipedia)

President Clinton oversaw a healthy economy during his tenure. The U.S. had strong economic growth (around 4% annually) and record job creation (22.7 million). He raised taxes on higher income taxpayers early in his first term and cut defense spending and welfare, which contributed to a rise in revenue and decline in spending relative to the size of the economy. These factors helped bring the United States federal budget into surplus from fiscal years 1998 to 2001, the only surplus years since 1969. Debt held by the public, a primary measure of the national debt, fell relative to GDP throughout his two terms, from 47.8% in 1993 to 31.4% in 2001.[1]

4% annual growth! 22.7 million new jobs!

Raising taxes on the rich not only coexists with widespread (with an emphasis on widespread!) prosperity, but also gives America budget surpluses instead of deficits.

The greedy and self-interested will try to convince Americans otherwise. Don't listen to them!