House GOP leaders push Senate to take up budget resolution for kick-starting Trump agenda

House Republican leaders issued a not-so-subtle warning to their Senate counterparts on Monday: It’s time to get moving on President Trump’s legislative agenda. 

House Speaker Mike Johnson, Louisiana Republican, issued a joint statement with his leadership team and House committee chairs noting that, with the government funding debate for the current fiscal year now behind them, “our focus returns to delivering President Trump’s full America First agenda.”

“The House is determined to send the president one big, beautiful bill that secures our border, keeps taxes low for families and job creators, grows our economy, restores American energy dominance, brings back peace through strength, and makes government more efficient and more accountable to the American people,” they said.

Tuesday will mark one month since the House adopted a budget blueprint laying out the chamber’s benchmarks for sweeping tax and spending cuts that will be part of a massive reconciliation package encompassing Mr. Trump’s agenda. The budget reconciliation process allows Republicans to pass their priorities without the threat of a Democratic filibuster in the Senate. 

Senate Republicans want to make changes to the House budget, but lawmakers in the lower chamber prefer to keep their plan intact. 

“We encourage our Senate colleagues to take up the House budget resolution when they return to Washington,” Mr. Johnson and the House GOP leaders said. “This is our opportunity to deliver what will be one of the most consequential pieces of legislation in the history of our nation. Working together, we will get it done.”

The House and Senate both return to Washington on Monday evening after a week-long recess. Republicans are hoping to finalize a budget blueprint within the next three weeks before Congress departs for its traditional two-week recess for Easter and Passover. 

Sen. John Hoeven, North Dakota Republican, said on Fox News that the Senate could take up a compromise budget the first week of April.

“We’re going to try to iron out the things that we need to address in the House [budget],” he said. 

Senate Republicans want to provide more flexibility for tax cuts than the House budget allows with its $4.5 trillion net cost ceiling. 

Permanently extending Mr. Trump’s first-term tax cuts, which are set to expire at the end of the year, is estimated to cost $4.6 trillion under the Congressional Budget Office’s traditional current law baseline. 

But Senate Republicans are hoping to use a different baseline that would effectively wipe away the cost of extending tax cuts already in place and give the party more budget room to work with as they look to add new tax cuts that could cost trillions more. 

Mr. Trump has endorsed using the current policy baseline as he pushes for a permanent extension of his 2017 tax cuts, as well as new breaks like no taxes on tips, overtime pay or Social Security benefits. 

Mr. Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, South Dakota Republican, have been holding weekly meetings with the top two GOP tax writers and two key Trump administration officials to discuss the tax cut and reconciliation plans. 

The group, which includes House Ways and Means Chairman Jason Smith, Missouri Republican, Mike Crapo, Idaho Republican,  Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and top Trump economic adviser Kevin Hassett, will meet again Tuesday.

Another issue that falls under the jurisdiction of the tax writing committees and the Treasury Department is the debt limit. 

House Republicans’ budget calls for a $4 trillion debt limit increase to be included in the reconciliation legislation. But Senate Republicans are not sold on whether to include that in the party-line bill or try to pass it through regular order, which would require cooperation from Democrats.

The two chambers also need to settle on how much spending they want to cut in the reconciliation process. The House budget sets a goal of $2 trillion, but Senate Republicans may want to lower that.

The House budget also calls for a $100 billion increase in defense spending, but Senate Republicans want to push that figure up to $175 billion or more. 

House Republicans have not shut the door on changes to their budget blueprint but have warned the Senate to keep alterations minimal, given their plan was a carefully negotiated compromise needed to clear their razor-thin majority.  

“We ran the House one-vote margin gauntlet, and we were successful, probably to their dismay, and certainly against the odds,” said House Budget Chairman Jodey Arrington, Texas Republican. “But we did it, and now it would be a mistake to veer from that framework and cause us to either slow down or to stymie altogether.”