So....today starts the final push to get the republican reconciliation bill passed-and sent to President Trump for signage.
The bill ultimately passed the senate with JD Vance having to break a 50-50 tie...as three republicans voted against it-
And now it moves to the house-whose leaders have decided to ‘start right in on it’ today.
and there were the normal sorts of rumblings and ramblings and complaints yesterday, as members of the house watched members of the upper chamber modify their work- and make it a less appealing bill to conservatives.
Listen to Chip Roy- a Texas congressman-who was on-air with Harris Faulkner on fox yesterday morning as the senate neared a final vote.
He is one of the important house members who is-not-happy with the senate’s tampering- but- listens to how he goes out of his way to emphasize that-basically? - this must pass.
There are all sorts of GOP congressmen and senators who aren’t happy that this isn’t the perfect bill for them-
But at this point, basically, it’s ‘too big to fail’.
And what i mean is- so many elements of the republican and Trump agenda- are in this bill-
So many promises made during the 2024 election cycle are in this bill-
And it does so much on immigration, energy, lowering prices and keeping low-tax promises- that it must pass.
Which is why I don’t see these grumbly house members ultimately blocking it any longer...and demanding even more changes.
I’d be surprised if we didn’t get a few days of drama and complaining out of the house, before they ultimately rubber stamp what the senate did here.
The main reason being the senate is the tougher chamber to pass bills through. There is the 60-vote filibuster threshold that blocks virtually all progress. Thank God this bill can be passed on a simple majority vote.
But there’s also the parliamentarian’s process to maneuver- which we knew would kick out some of the house and republican priorities. And she did.
And then there’s the fact that -with far fewer senators than congressmen- and with far more of them having been in Washington for decades with their own ‘god complex’.... it’s much harder to move them and get their vote.
This all adds up to the basic truth that- geez- if we can manage to get it through the senate...we just got to rubber stamp their version in the house.
That’s the bottom line of this matter- when it comes to this reconciliation bill: it’s got to pass. They’ve pooped and plinked around with it long enough. It makes no sense to tinker with it more-and then send it back to the senate- just to make one or two congressmen a little happier.
Just rubber stamp the darn thing and get it to trump.
That’s how this is most likely to play out, now.
That’s why I’m ignoring all the normal hand wringing and drama-and ginned up headlines today.
Like: the senate mega bill is on a collision court with house fiscal hawks.
No. It’s not.
They’re moaning and complaining-and with good reasons-I’d add- but it’s not like they are going to block or tank this bill now. They know it’s simply got to get done...and that it’s ‘too big and important’ to fail, now.
It’ll ultimately get done and pass, either way. And the way to message it coming out of the vote is: we’ve got future budget bills right around the corner-and will more directly address the debt relief in those bills. Because it must, ultimately, get done.
It's time for GOP leaders to start saying: not every single budgetary matter needs to get done in this one bill- nor can it all be done- in this one bill. This is a big improvement over the status quo and starts to repair the significant damage to the federal budget that the Biden regime did. We’ll deal with the rest in the coming months.
There’s nothing wrong with explaining it that way-and it’s the ‘take’ that the bulk of the American people would accept.
And as for the whiney die-hards on the right who want everything perfect or simply want to get ratings or viewers by bashing their fellow republicans, screw ‘em.
This is a very good bill and a very good start. Huge GOP wins are in it and 2024 campaign promises are kept.
And no, I don’t like everything that’s in it, either. I am absolutely with Senator Johnson and Rick Scott-in spirit-when they say we could easily get back to pre-covid era spending-and should.
But they weren’t going to win that argument or have it happen-in this bill.
I hate the capitulation on salt deduction. It was a very important win for fiscal conservatives in the 2017 Trump/Ryan tax cuts- and it should stay at the lower ten-thousand-dollar cap.
The rest of us taxpayers-across the country- should not be subsidizing the high local and state taxes in the blue states and making it ‘less painful’ for the people in those states to keep electing tax-raising democrat lawmakers.
Let them pay in full for the state and local taxes they are inflicting on themselves.
But- it’s another issue we knew fiscal conservatives weren’t going to win in- if we were going to get this bill passed.
As it stands now-the house and senate republicans have completely capitulated on this-and blown a huge hole in the tax code by going back to this nonsense.
Well, come on: we all know that the congress in 2030 will simply extend it again and keep it at 40 or 50-grand. It’s extremely unlikely that any future congress -no matter which party controls the levers- is going to let this revert to ten-grand per tax filer.
And so- these republicans have agreed to quadruple a significant tax deduction-and it’s going to mean significantly less money coming into the US treasury.
But-bottom line?It’s part of a bill that’s too big and important to fail now...so.... fiscal conservatives need to ‘deal with it’ and try to get that changed, again, in a future budget bill.
We cannot continue this path. President trump knows it. John Thune knows it. Mike Johnson knows it. And so, hopefully, we’ll get some ‘real world’ debt reduction and changes in subsequent budget bills. Sadly, it won’t be in this one.
When senator Ron Johnson was on the show on Monday-explaining why he ultimately went ahead and voted ‘yes’ on this package, he indicated that he and those ‘spending cutters’ got a promise out of president trump and congressional leaders to set up a congressional panel to go line-by-line thru the federal budget and find the cuts and fraud...so they can be detailed and-hopefully-acted upon at a future date.
Let’s hope these leaders are as serious about it as Ron Johnson and Rick Scott and Chip Roy and that sliver of people who know we need to ‘do better’- in these two chambers.
But voting ‘no’ now? On this? With as many wins as you are denying yourselves, your party, and your country if you vote, no? It isn’t even smart.
As Ron Johnson posted after both of his ‘yes’ votes- we need to start cleaning up the major messages the Biden regime left us- and we’ve got to start here.
I look forward to having him involved-because the guy has been a relentless voice-of-reason on this matter, saying, ‘my god, we’ve at least got to cut out the two-trillion dollars in excessive yearly spending that we’ve been doing since covid. A 7-trillion-dollar federal budget is insane and unnecessary-and cannot. Cannot. Become the new norm.
photo credit: Getty Images
audio version of the segment here > BBB passed, now its up to the House