Washington – President Mike Johnson, R -La., Explores the means to appease two rival factions which have become the biggest roadblocks in the Chamber to a massive bill for President Donald Trump’s agenda: Republicans in the blue state who want more important tax lightening for their voters and conservatives who want Medicaid to launch earlier.
Johnson suggested to journalists on Wednesday that the provisions for a higher and local tax deduction (salt) and to apply new Medicaid work requirements could be integrated earlier into the final package when he looks at a deadline for the self-imposed Memorial Day for the passage.
“I am convinced that we will be able to adjust the dial, so to speak, so that we can achieve an agreement that will meet the criteria that everyone has and that we can advance this thing,” said Johnson after having met the Pro-Salts Republicans and the members of the Hard-Right Freedom Caucus.
“If you make more salt, you should find more savings. So these are dials, metaphorical dials, which I speak of,” he said. “We are trying to do it in a neutral manner – it was the commitment we made from the start.”
When asked if the Republicans accelerate Medicaid’s work requirements to extract more important savings in a revised plan, Johnson replied: “Everything is on the table.”
This approach has the potential of gaining conservative careers which require that new work requirements for the beneficiaries of Medicaid intervene earlier than the date of 2029 currently proposed.
“This is the compromise that could work,” said representative Tim Buchett, R-Tenn.
The Republicans have made constant progress on the bill this week, even if certain key problems are not resolved. Eleven chamber committees have now adopted their parts of the legislation, sending them to the budget committee to break together in a single package.
Johnson can only afford three republican defections on the final bill in the closely divided house, so even small factions like the Salt Caucus have enormous power in negotiations. These members also tend to come from critical districts of the battlefield which will determine the balance of powers in the next elections.
But it is far from clear that the approach will work, because the spectrum of more immediate MEDICAIDI cuts could alienate other politically vulnerable Republicans who already have heat for the reductions and limits of the expenditure of the bill.
The two parties Thursday has always remained distant and Johnson said that he expected the talks to extend to the weekend, even if he remained by a deadline of the Memorial Day to pass the massive tax reductions, the energy and the border package in the lower room. Tensions also boiled inside the GOP house on the salt problem all week, with cracks even among the pro-salt members as to the opportunity to lift the ceiling from $ 10,000 to $ 30,000.
But the moderates and the conservatives emerged from Johnson’s office on Thursday saying that their two -hour meeting was positive and that no red line was traced on each side.
“We are still working on figures,” said moderate representative Mike Lawler, RN.Y., a member of the Caucus de Salt who says that he will vote against the bill unless the deduction ceiling is increased more than the current proposal of $ 30,000. “The main thing is (a higher salt cap) will be in the bill, and we will work it.”
“The central problem is that if the salt ceiling increases, there is more money you should find,” added conservative representative Byron Donalds, R-Fla., A member of the Caucus Freedom who presents himself for the Governor.
But such a trade could create a problem of Rubik cube for the republicans of the house. Although deeper cups of Medicaid and a greater deduction of salt can be a pleasant trade with a taste with a few dozen careers and a handful of members of the blue state, this can leave a bitter taste for others – especially politically vulnerable members. While the Republicans have opted for some of the most dramatic potential reductions in the health care program, their current proposal would still lead to 8.6 million people to lose their insurance coverage, according to an early estimate of the non -partisan congress budget office.
We do not know that Johnson has the voices to adopt existing Medicaid cups, which include new work requirements and a multitude of stricter controls and documents, which, according to criticism, will create expensive charges for legitimate recipients.
Representative David Valadao, R-Calif., Who has the largest part of Medicaid recipient of any district held by the GOP, said that he was undecided on the existing MEDICAIDA provisions.
“I have not yet looked at the details, so we cross it and see the real impact,” he said.
The first year representative Rob Bresnahan, R-P-., Who narrowly overturned a district held by the Democrats last year, also said that he was not taking a position on the MEDICAIDI provisions.
Another vulnerable republican, the representative Don Bacon of Nebraska, said that he would be “ready for the date when the MEDICAID provisions come into play.
Valadao, Bresnahan and Bacon all represent a few dozen swing districts kept by the GOP that the Democrats target in their quest to capture the room next year. And they consider Medicaid as their most powerful problem, arguing that the existing bill will impose suffering among the vulnerable.
“Moderate self-writings spent months wrongly promising the American people, they would draw a red line on the Medicaid cups. Now, they want to trigger these cuts before mid-term? Good riddling,” said Justin Chermol, spokesperson for the campaign committee of the Democrat Congress.
Meanwhile, some conservatives have expressed a deep reluctance to spend more money to provide salt relief to people in high tax states. Representative Beth Van Duyne, R-Texas, a tax hawk who attended Thursday’s meeting, said when entering the speaker’s office that she thinks that “it will be difficult” to raise the salt hat.
But representative Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., Who was not in meetings, said: “If we land the plane, it will be because” Trump. “
“President Trump was largely responsible for all transactions landed at home,” she said.
