Trump budget blueprint in limbo as House conservatives dig in on opposition

The Senate’s framework for advancing President Trump’s legislative agenda is stuck in limbo as House conservatives dig in on their opposition to the measure despite pressure from President Trump — depriving Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) of the votes needed to adopt the blueprint.

The criticism among hard-liners — largely aimed at the level of spending cuts in the measure — persisted even after a handful of Republicans visited the White House on Tuesday afternoon to meet with Trump, who endorsed the budget resolution and has encouraged GOP lawmakers to line up behind it.

At least two Republicans — Reps. Greg Steube (Fla.) and Byron Donalds (Fla.) — voiced support for the legislation after the meeting, a good sign for Johnson as he looks to muscle the measure through his razor-thin majority. Steube was undecided earlier in the day.

But a large number of GOP critics — including those who met with the president and those who did not attend the meeting — remained unmoved as of Tuesday afternoon.

“The math still doesn’t add up,” Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) said after the meeting at the White House. “The Senate budget still, in my view, produces significant deficits.”

Rep. Andy Ogles (R-Tenn.), who was not at the meeting, said he is “a pretty firm no” and that dozens of others are in the same camp as him.

“I would be surprised if it comes to the floor,” Ogles said of the budget resolution. “There’s so many ‘no’ votes. It’s 30, 40. And what typically happens in this type of scenario, when you hit a critical mass, suddenly more people go ahead and vote their conscience. And so 30 can easily become 50.”

“It’s nowhere close,” he added.

Johnson is pushing for a vote on the resolution this week before the House breaks for two weeks to celebrate Passover and Easter. But the Speaker has few votes to spare: He can afford to lose only three GOP votes, assuming united Democratic opposition and full attendance.

In a sign of those testy waters, the House Rules Committee still had not scheduled a meeting on the budget resolution as of Tuesday afternoon, despite the panel usually considering legislation for the week on Monday. The atypical schedule has raised eyebrows in the Capitol.

Johnson, nonetheless, is exuding confidence. Returning to the Capitol from the White House on Tuesday afternoon, the Speaker said Trump was “very helpful and engaged” during the meeting, and he thought the president changed some minds in favor of the blueprint.

“We had a lot of members whose questions were answered, and I think we’re moving, making great progress right now,” Johnson said.

“I think we’ll be moving forward this week,” he added — a notable change from leadership’s previous target of a Wednesday vote.

Asked by The Hill on Tuesday if the conference would have the votes to adopt the budget resolution on Wednesday, House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-Minn.) said “we’re going to have a good week,” similarly deflecting from the initial target date.

Roy attended the White House meeting along with Donalds and GOP Reps. Wesley Hunt (Texas), Brandon Gill (Texas), Michael Cloud (Texas), Marjorie Taylor Greene (Ga.), Scott Perry (Pa.) and Harriet Hageman (Wyo.), a source told The Hill.

Hageman — who has not publicly expressed criticisms with the Senate’s budget resolution — raised “things she wanted to see” during the meeting with Trump, two sources told The Hill, a sign that the skepticism of the legislation is among a wider group than publicly known.

The crux of the GOP dispute is the fact that the resolution directs each chamber to find a different minimum of spending cuts. House committees, for example, are mandated to find at least $1.5 trillion in spending cuts, while Senate panels have to find at least $4 billion in slashes — a fraction of the House’s amount.

“There’s such a divide between 1.5 trillion and 4 billion,” Ogles said. “I mean, [the Department of Government Efficiency] will cut more this afternoon than the Senate is proposing to do over 10 years.”

“The House typically gets rolled by the Senate in these types of negotiations, so why would I surrender today when they need to come back with a serious offer?” he continued, later adding, “Let’s have a serious conversation; the Senate needs to go back to work and do their jobs.”

One source, who requested anonymity to discuss the private meeting, told The Hill that Trump told lawmakers on Tuesday he would encourage the Senate to embrace steeper spending cuts.

“The president and the administration talked pushing the Senate for cuts,” the source said.

Conservatives are also incensed that the Senate is using a budgetary gimmick known as current policy baseline, which assumes that the extension of the 2017 Trump tax cuts will not impact the deficit — despite the Joint Committee on Taxation estimating it could cost around $4 billion.

Another GOP lawmaker said multiple ideas are being tossed around on how to resolve the impasse, such as getting a more concrete commitment on larger spending cuts from the Senate, or having the House and Senate go to conference to resolve the differences.

House GOP leaders are stressing to members the budget resolution is not final, the Senate resolution does not make changes to the House instructions and all leaders know any final bill has to include historic spending cuts. There is no time, they argue, to delay the process until the two chambers can reach an upfront commitment.

“Some people think we can just wait for the Senate to catch up to the House. … The country can’t afford for us to delay a month or longer to wait on the Senate getting where we are,” House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) said in a press conference.

But members most skeptical of the budget resolution say nothing — not even personal appeals from the president, who has helped whip Republican members on other tough votes — short of written commitments on spending cuts or changes to the budget resolution would get them on board.

House Freedom Caucus Chair Andy Harris (R-Md.) said earlier Tuesday he declined an invitation to the White House meeting — a stunning move for any Republican, let alone the chair of the hard-line conservative group that has presented itself as warriors for the president.

“There’s nothing that I can hear at the White House that I don’t understand about the situation,” Harris said. “Let the president spend time with people whose minds he might change. He’s just not going to change my mind about this.”

Ogles sounded a similar note, suggesting little could be done to win over his vote.

“Totally appreciate the president, where he stands on this,” Ogles said. But, he added, the Senate’s “proposal is a joke.”