As President Donald Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson departed a Republican conference meeting covering the pending legislative vote on the Budget and Tax bill proposal, they paused to talk to media (two videos below).
President Trump is focused on growing the economy, the Republican budget hawks want spending reduced. President Trump doesn’t want to increase the deduction for State and Local Taxes (SALT), the blue state Republicans demand the red states pay for their state tax policy. WATCH:
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WASHINGTON DC – […] Trump’s Capitol Hill visit comes less than 24 hours before Johnson wants the House Rules Committee to meet and finalize the bill for a floor vote. Johnson told reporters after the meeting that a Wednesday vote “would be optimal” but acknowledged he had to “tie up a few loose ends” with the various factions.
What’s clear is that Trump himself is not interested in stretching out the talks much longer. He said in response to a question from POLITICO that the hard-liners needed to pare back their demands for deeper spending cuts: “I’m a bigger fiscal hawk,” he said. “There’s nobody like me.”
Despite Trump’s pledges to preserve Medicaid, the bill would have significant impacts on the program. The latest Congressional Budget Office analysis released Tuesday found that 7.6 million people would lose their Medicaid coverage if the House proposal became law. But the hard-liners want deeper, “structural” changes that target the program’s expansion under the 2010 Affordable Care Act.
Meanwhile, addressing the SALT group, he said that the tax break — one he pledged to expand last year while campaigning — mainly served to benefit blue-state governors and that the group of holdouts needed to accept the deal to modestly increase the existing $10,000 cap on the deduction.
A senior White House official said Trump “made it clear he’s losing patience with all holdout factions of the House Republican Conference,” and he “wants EVERY Republican to vote yes.”
One House Republican, also granted anonymity to candidly describe Trump’s attitude, summarized the president’s mood as, “He’s done with this.” (read more)
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