House Republicans are on the hunt for deals on Medicaid cuts, the state and local tax (SALT) deduction cap and other contentious topics this week, as the conference looks to advance its package full of President Trump’s legislative priorities.
The search for consensus comes as Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) is eyeing the ambitious goal of getting the “one big, beautiful bill” out of the House and to the Senate by the end of the month, a timeline that is becoming more and more difficult as the key hangups bog down the process.
Without agreement on the controversial topics, the House Energy and Commerce Committee and House Ways and Means Committee are unable to hold key votes on the Trump agenda bill, putting the conference at risk of blowing through leadership’s plan for passage.
Also this week, the House is set to vote on a bill to rename the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America, as Republicans look to finalize one of Trump’s priorities. In the upper chamber, senators are set to consider a resolution that seeks to overturn a Biden-era rule related to rubber tire manufacturing.
And throughout the Capitol, Cabinet secretaries will be making the rounds for hearings this week, as the officials field questions on Trump’s first budget request of his second term.
House GOP looks to work through reconciliation hangups
The GOP’s bill full of Trump’s domestic policy priorities will be the main focus in the House this week, as Republican lawmakers look to work through disagreements over potential Medicaid cuts, the SALT deduction cap and more to keep the package on track for passage by the end of this month.
The House Energy and Commerce Committee will look to tackle the debate over Medicaid cuts on Tuesday and Wednesday, when the panel is scheduled to hold “member meetings.” The committee was initially looking to hold its markup this week, but pushed off the vote amid continued discord.
The main point of contention with the bill revolves around potential cuts to Medicaid. The idea of possible slashes to the social safety net program has rattled the party for months, with conservatives pushing for significant changes to hit its deficit reduction minimum and moderates drawing red lines against such a move.
Centrists are not letting up in their position against Medicaid cuts.
“We’re also debating how much to cut like Medicaid. Right. I have found five hundred billion dollars we can save or most Americans would support it. But we have folks that are in our conference, who wanna do $880 billion. And they have to show us how this will not impact Medicaid or the people on it,” Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) said on “The Hill Sunday” on NewsNation. “That is undermining the safety net that President Trump says he wants to protect. So that’s [the] kind of things you got to work out.”
Behind Medicaid cuts, lifting the SALT deduction cap is emerging as the thorniest issue facing House GOP leadership. Republicans who hail from high-tax blue states are pushing for an increase to the $10,000 cap — which was first instituted in the 2017 Trump tax cut bill — while deficit hawks are sounding off on the prospect.
The SALT deduction cap falls under the jurisdiction of the Ways and Means Committee. Johnson last week said he wanted all panels to wrap up their markups this week to put the package on track for final passage by the end of the month, but the Ways and Means Committee has still not noticed a vote — and there is an increasing notion that it will not take place this week amid the looming disagreements.
“Long Islanders pay the highest taxes in the nation. Albany must do more—but so must Washington. I’m fighting to deliver more SALT relief,” Rep. Nick LaLota (R-N.Y.), a top proponent of raising the SALT cap, wrote on X with a photo that reads “No SALT. No Deal. For Real.”
Additionally, House Republicans are still grappling with how to handle the potential rollback to green energy tax credits passed in the Democrats’ Inflation Reduction Act in 2022 and possible cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), known as food stamps. Disagreements over SNAP prompted the Agriculture Committee to scrap plans for a markup this week, according to Politico.
The House Natural Resources Committee, meanwhile, is scheduled to mark up its part of the Trump agenda bill on Tuesday at 10:15 a.m. EDT.
Despite the consistent — and complicated — disagreements in the package, Johnson is voicing optimism that he will be able to keep the conference on his timeline. On Sunday, he touted progress in their effort.
“Here’s the progress report, good news: Over the last week, seven of our 11 committees of jurisdiction got their pieces of that big, beautiful bill done, and so we have four committees yet to go and then we push it back through the Budget Committee to merge it all together and send it to the Senate,” Johnson said on Fox News. “Failure is not an option here, we’ll get it done.”
House to vote on ‘Gulf of America’ bill
The House this week will vote on a bill to formally rename the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America, as Republicans on Capitol Hill look to codify the executive order Trump signed on his first day in office.
The bill — led by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) — would require that all records of the United States refer to the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America no more than 180 days after the measure is enacted.
“It’s time to codify President Trump’s executive order into law,” Greene wrote on X. “It’s OUR gulf, let’s make the name permanent!”
Renaming the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America was one of Trump’s first moves in office after floating the idea in the weeks prior.
The move has since reverberated in Washington: The Trump administration barred journalists from The Associated Press from covering the president in the Oval Office and Air Force One after the news service refused to use “Gulf of America” in its widely used stylebook. The Associated Press, as a result, sued the administration, prompting a judge to later order White House to restore its access.
The White House, however, went ahead and removed the spot typically reserved for wire services from the press pool covering the president, and The Associated Press asked a federal judge to step in. The judge, however, declined to further enforce its order.
Cabinet secretaries appear on Capitol Hill
A handful of Cabinet secretaries will make the rounds on Capitol Hill this week, as Congress prepares to parse through Trump’s first budget request of his second term.
The White House released the blueprint, known as a “skinny budget,” last week, outlining the president’s fiscal wish list for the year. The document seeks to cut $163 billion in nondefense discretionary spending — amounting to 22.6 percent — while boosting defense funding by 13 percent.
Subcommittees for the House and Senate Appropriations Committees will press secretaries on that budget.
On Wednesday at 10 a.m. EDT, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins will appear before the House Appropriations Committee’s Subcommittee on Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies; Energy Secretary Chris Wright will appear before the House Appropriations Committee’s Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies; and FBI Director Kash Patel will appear before the House Appropriations Committee’s Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies.
On Tuesday at 10 a.m. EDT, Architect of the Capitol Thomas E. Austin will appear before the Senate Appropriations Committee’s Subcommittee on the Legislative Branch; on Tuesday at 10:30 a.m. EDT Rollins will appear before the Senate Appropriations Committee’s Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies; On Thursday at 9 a.m. EDT, Patel will appear before the Senate Appropriations Committee’s Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies; and on Thursday at 10 a.m. EDT, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem will appear before the Senate Appropriations Committee’s Subcommittee on Homeland Security.
Unrelated to the president’s budget request, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is set to appear before the House Financial Services Committee on Wednesday at 10 a.m. EDT for a hearing titled “The Annual Testimony of the Secretary of the Treasury on the State of the International Financial System.”
Senate looks to overturn Biden-era rule
The Senate this week will vote on a resolution that seeks to overturn a Biden-era rule pertaining to rubber tire manufacturing.
The regulation — which went into effect on Nov. 29, toward the end of President Biden’s term — set emissions standards for specific types of processing of the rubber tire manufacturing sector to regulate the emission of some hazardous pollutants.
The House approved the resolution in a largely party-line 216-202 vote in March, with one Republican voting “no” and seven Democrats crossing the aisle to support the measure.
Rep. Morgan Griffith (R-Va.), the sponsor of the legislation, described the Biden-era rule as “handcuffs on American energy,” arguing that his measure would “protect American workers, consumers, and businesses.”
“We are working alongside the Trump Administration to restore American energy dominance,” he added in a statement after the resolution’s passage in the House.
