The hard-line House Freedom Caucus is again pressing House Speaker Mike Johnson to follow their lead to pass President Trump’s agenda, this time offering a pathway to avoid a spending showdown in March.
In a letter to Mr. Johnson, Louisiana Republican, the Freedom Caucus’ 11-member leadership board pressed the speaker to use their plan for two bills to force through tax and policy measures. They argued that moving quickly on the first bill would free up Republicans from familiar looming spending pitfalls.
“Congressional Republicans must be as bold as President Trump has been in our duty to secure the border and end inflation,” they wrote in the letter, which was exclusively obtained by The Washington Times.
House Republicans are headed to a retreat in Miami to huddle with Mr. Trump and hash out a plan to use ram through the agenda using the budget reconciliation process, which doesn’t allow a Senate filibuster and will enable Republicans to pass certain tax and policy measures in party-line votes.
Mr. Johnson has favored a single, colossal reconciliation bill with tax cuts, border security and other policies. Mr. Trump also endorsed “one big, beautiful bill,” but then left that decision to congressional Republicans.
The speaker has also set an ambitious timeline to start moving the legislation by the end of February and get it to the president’s desk by Memorial Day.
The Freedom Caucus instead wants to quickly move “phase one” of their budget plan, which spends $300 billion on defense and immigration enforcement, claws back $500 billion of Biden administration spending and raises the debt ceiling.
“Why do they want to throw sand in the gears when we’re just getting started,” a leadership source said of the Freedom Caucus.
However, the Freedom Caucus said moving some of the agenda at a faster pace will free up time to deal with the fast-approaching March 14 deadline to fund the government.
“This strategy sets specific, achievable parameters and it requires Congress to perform prior to the March 14th, 2025, government funding deadline,” the lawmakers wrote.
They warned that if Republicans don’t move quickly, Democrats could try to leverage pairing a disaster aid bill dealing with the wildfires in California with a catch-all, “budget-busting” omnibus spending bill “and there will still be no action from Congress to give the Trump administration the resources needed to secure the border or spending cuts to reverse inflation.”
After phase one, the lawmakers proposed reviving Mr. Trump’s plan to return federal spending to pre-pandemic levels at roughly $6.06 trillion, which the Freedom Caucus has demanded since the GOP gained control of the House in 2023.
“This is how we begin to return to pre-COVID spending levels as we work concurrently through the complexities of a ’phase two’ reconciliation package with tax relief, energy policies, regulatory reform and additional spending cuts,” they wrote.
• Alex Miller can be reached at amiller@washingtontimes.com.