Johnson lays out timeline to pass reconciliation bill for Trump agenda

Washington Examiner ^ | January 5, 2025 1:20 pm | Cami Mondeaux

[E. Pluribus Unum]

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) laid out an ambitious timeline to pass a massive budget reconciliation bill later this year comprising all of President-elect Donald Trump’s biggest priorities into a single package. 

The package will include policies ranging from taxes and energy to immigration and national defense, which will all be tied together in a single reconciliation bill to be passed by the House and Senate. It’s not yet clear what specific measures will be tucked into the package, but Johnson told Fox News on Sunday the goal is to finalize instructions for the reconciliation bill by February. 

“It’ll have a lot of pieces. We’ve made a lot of campaign promises; President Trump did as well, and reconciliation is the way to get it done,” Johnson told Maria Bartiromo on Sunday Morning Futures. “Reconciling the budget, which we will pass in early February, is how we’ll get all of our committees, committees of jurisdiction involved on all these big issues.”

Republicans have been planning for months to use budget reconciliation to secure early wins for Trump, utilizing the rare procedural tool to circumvent Democratic opposition in the Senate to advance key agenda items. There are certain rules for how often reconciliation can be used, and Republicans will only be able to utilize it for budget-related legislation such as taxes, spending, and the debt limit.

But Republicans can’t start moving their spending priorities through Congress on day one. Reconciliation requires both the House and Senate to pass a budget resolution, which sets tax and spending levels that are then directed to specific committees to achieve a certain budgetary outcome. 

Johnson said he hopes to accomplish that by February, which would then pave the way for committees to create legislation adhering...

[oldplayer]

Is this how the commies passed Obamacare?

[No name given]

I believe so.

[MNJohnnie]

Yes

[tennmountainman]

How much pork will the bill have?

[Leaning Right]

> How much pork will the bill have? <

Just under the amount where Trump would refuse to sign the bill.

And of course, up will go the deficit. ⬆️

[It Aint Easy]

You don’t even want to start down that path.

[grobdriver]

Idiots.

[VeniVidiVici]

If they didn’t do it, it would never pass the Senate.

Everyone bitches that the Republicans don’t get down and dirty in the trenches and play the same rules as the Left, and then when they do, folks still complain.

[radu]

Time to hammer our congresscritters, telling them NO MORE OF THESE BILLS. Single-issue bills, period. We get screwed every time they pass these humongous bills.

[ProgressingAmerica]

“Everyone bitches that the Republicans don’t get down and dirty in the trenches and play the same rules as the Left”

If you’re going to play the hypocrisy game at least don’t be dishonest about it.

A fat bill that nobody reads isn’t “getting down and dirty in the trenches”, it’s just politics as usual. Nobody desires politics as usual. Cut it out with the Mickey Mouse games.

[jz638]

Is this how the commies passed Obamacare?

sort of!

Obamacare was passed in the dark of night with some big mistakes in the legislation (even aside from the obvious) because Ted Kennedy's corpse was barely able to fog a mirror and they needed his vote to pass the initial legislation.

Once Kennedy died, the Senate didn't have the 60 votes to pass major legislation, so Nancy Pelosi devised a strategy where they'd pretend the ACA was approved by the House (which it wasn't) while passing another piece of legislation to fix the fatal flaws that they could fix in the legislation using the reconciliation path to get through the senate where they no longer had 60 votes.

[mass55th]

"It’ll have a lot of pieces."

I'll bet. How many RAT proposals will this idiot allow to be thrown into the Bill? He's a weasel who has allowed the RATS to load crap up in every funding Bill he's allowed to be voted on. He ran for Speaker the first time promising he wouldn't do that, that he would send single subject Bills, and funding Bills for one department at a time. He's done nothing that he promised before his first Speakership.

Fox News article from October 2023. Article is the 14th title on the page...2/3rd's of the way down the right side of the page:

Gaetz weighs in on Republicans selecting Mike Johnson as newest House speaker

Two paragraphs quoted from the article:

"One issue in particular that attracted conference members to Johnson was his support for single subject appropriations bills, or spending bills that fund one department or initiative at a time rather than a spending package that can force members to support some spending levels they would be uncomfortable with otherwise supporting, Gaetz said."

"He talks about single subject spending bills being the organizing principle in the House of Representatives. That is what I've been fighting for since January," Gaetz said of Johnson. "It is the reason Kevin McCarthy was vacated and despite the swamps, best efforts, we got a good godly man who's going to advance Republicans."

Johnson has failed miserably by failing to introduce single-subject Bills. The only reason he changed course with the last stop-gap Bill was because of the severe opposition that grew once social media became aware of what was in it.

[Wuli]

Should not publicly or procedurally lay out a “timeline”, but should have in mind the bill that is needed and a dedication to work for it. Laying out a specific timeline just invites Dim glee and public chagrin when the timeline is not met, on time.

[j.havenfarm]

I agree with you emphatically, but this is an exception. If memory serves, reconciliation can only be used twice a year— maybe it’s even only twice a session. Much of Trumps agenda will not get passed because it can’t get 60 votes in the Senate. So anything that’s core to the agenda, such as border wall and controls, that can argued to have budgetary impact must be jammed into reconciliation, or it’s simply not going to happen. I’m with you absolutely. I don’t like it, but this is how it must be done

[Political Junkie Too]

That was the famous "Slaughter Rule" by Louise Slaughter where the House would "deem" the first bill to have been passed because a second bill that relied on the first bill was passed. The House never followed through on this.

The bill eventually did pass the House because Democrats got Bart Stupak (D-MI) to support it by promising to not include federal funding for abortions. They couldn't put it in the reconciliation bill, so instead, Obama issued an executive order forbidding federal funding of abortions, and Stupak's coalition agreed to support Obamacare.

Stupak chose to not run for re-election afterwards.

-PJ

[Candor7]

We need Trump, Johnson and Thune to all be united in the goal to make America Great Again.

These men are called to Greatness. The question is , “ Will they answer that call.”

Only men who understand their call and the greatness that history holds for the can answer such a call.Trump is one that can. The other two? Well we will have to see.

[Political Junkie Too]

If memory serves, reconciliation can only be used twice a year— maybe it’s even only twice a session.

Reconciliation can only be used once a year, but can be used separately for one spending (budget) bill, one revenue (taxation) bill, and one debt ceiling bill each year. They can combine these into one, two, or three bills, but combining uses up each bill type for that year.

They cannot put non-spending or taxing or debt limit provisions in the relevant bill -- they must be pure budget, taxation, or debt limit bills. The parliamentarians must review the bills for compliance with the respective chambers' rules.

-PJ

[bigbob]

Git it done by the end of January Mike.

[j.havenfarm]

Thanks for the refresher