Jeffries warns GOP over 'big, beautiful' budget bill
Published in News & Features
WASHINGTON — House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries put GOP leaders on notice Thursday that they can’t take Democratic votes for granted when it comes to lifting the statutory debt ceiling by this summer’s expected deadline and passing the annual spending bills needed to avert a partial government shutdown after March 14.
Jeffries, D-N.Y., used a morning news conference to take aim at GOP plans to use the partisan budget reconciliation process to push through potentially trillions of dollars in spending cuts to sensitive federal programs paired with extensions of tax cuts Democrats charge will mostly benefit the rich.
He suggested that if Republicans want to pass that filibuster-proof budget package without Democratic input, they may need to carry the votes on other must-do items as well.
“The Republicans have not opened up any line of communication with us. And they’ve made clear to America that they have a big, massive, beautiful mandate, which presumably means to us that they intend to pass a spending agreement on their own, to avoid a government shutdown on their own, and to raise the debt ceiling on their own,” Jeffries said.
“They’ve had no communications with us. It’s not hard to find me,” he added. “They know where I’m at. They know my number. I haven’t received a single call about a single one of these issues.”
Jeffries’ comments were striking because his own top Appropriations Committee Democrat, Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, has begun “four corners” talks with her counterparts in both chambers on hammering out a fiscal 2025 spending ceiling that appropriators can use to start drafting the long-overdue final bills.
DeLauro said Thursday that it was a good sign for the process that leadership in both chambers is letting appropriators settle on the numbers they need to write the bills. “I’ve always been of the view that if the House and Senate leadership of Appropriations sits down, we can hammer out a topline deal,” she said.
But the Appropriations committees are operating on a separate track from the GOP-only budget reconciliation process and the “big, beautiful” bill Jeffries referenced that represents all of President Donald Trump’s major legislative priorities bundled into one package. And Jeffries made it clear his party intends to make it as difficult as possible for Republicans to get that done — or at least make them suffer politically for it.
Jeffries found some rich ammunition in a leaked 50-page document compiled by GOP Budget Committee staff with input from other panels, that contains trillions of dollars of tax and spending options, putting some sacred cows on the table.
Many of the proposals have almost no chance of being enacted, and House Majority Whip Tom Emmer, R-Minn., made clear after a closed-door meeting Wednesday that Republicans were still “mixing up the batter for a cake” that isn’t yet baked. But the leaked document shows the extent of House Republican planning for a massive fiscal package.
“House Republicans can no longer hide their intentions from the American people. … Their extreme budget plan is out. It’s a 50-page document. I have it in my hands,” Jeffries said. “The House Republican contract against America will end Medicaid as we know it, destroy the Affordable Care Act and eliminate the mortgage interest deduction, which will raise costs on tens of millions of working-class and middle-class Americans.”
Jeffries said Democrats would oppose such plans “with every fiber in our body.”
Democrats know they have little more than the bully pulpit to block a GOP reconciliation package that requires no bipartisan support — assuming Republicans, with their razor-thin majorities, remain united. But Jeffries was sending an unmistakable message to Republicans that not only will Democrats extract a political price, their votes on other key legislative items won’t come for free.
‘Blank check’
Take the debt limit, for example: In December, Democrats made clear they wouldn’t wave through a two-year suspension of the borrowing cap as part of stopgap funding legislation that was a last-minute whim of then-President-elect Donald Trump. Jeffries and others at the time said they wouldn’t give Republicans free rein to cut taxes for the wealthy by taking the borrowing cap off the table.
Now, with Republican plans to raise the now-$36 trillion debt limit via the reconciliation process in shambles due to internal opposition, Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., has suggested attaching the debt limit to a needed wildfire relief funding package. Jeffries said that, too, was a “nonstarter.”
“What we are not willing to do is have extreme MAGA Republicans … have a blank check so they can enact massive tax breaks for billionaires and wealthy corporations and make working-class Americans pay for it through cuts to Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, veterans benefits or nutritional assistance,” he said. “The ball is in the Republicans’ court right now.”
Four corners meet
Nonetheless, prospects for a final appropriations deal on topline spending for the fiscal year that began last October may be in marginally better shape, as top appropriators continue to negotiate behind the scenes.
The four corners of the spending panels were meeting on Thursday, following a meeting between House Appropriations Chairman Tom Cole, R-Okla., and Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins, R-Maine, the day before.
Collins said she and Cole had a “very productive” meeting Wednesday despite initial House spending allocations well below the Senate’s.
“Obviously the House and Senate figures are far apart, it’s about a $90 billion difference, but I am optimistic that we can come up with a topline that we would then give to the leaders to get their blessings,” Collins said. “And then we get the subcommittee allocations and start negotiating.”
Cole added that he thinks the appropriators will be able to get the 12 subcommittee allocations locked in “pretty damn quick” after landing on a topline.
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