Speaker Mike Johnson and his leadership team urged their Senate GOP counterparts on Monday to vote swiftly on a House-approved budget framework now that lawmakers are returning to Washington after a weeklong recess.
The public nudge comes as GOP leaders on both sides of the Capitol feel pressure to show quick progress toward enacting President Donald Trump’s agenda of tax cuts, border security enhancements, energy deregulation and new military spending. First, however, they have to agree on the fiscal outlines of the package, and the House and Senate have approved competing blueprints.
Johnson & Co. said Monday that the Senate should simply take up the House version: “The American people gave us a mandate and we must act on it,” they said, noting that the House “took the first step to accomplish that by passing a budget resolution weeks ago, and we look forward to the Senate joining us in this commitment to ensure we enact President Trump’s full agenda as quickly as possible.”
“Working together, we will get it done,” they added.
But the GOP leaders on opposite ends of the Capitol are still very much divided on what to include in the package and continue to criticize their counterparts after months of disagreement. Senate Republican leaders are now deciding how substantially they want to tweak the House framework before punting it back across the Capitol.
A Senate GOP aide granted anonymity because they were not authorized to respond publicly said Monday that if House GOP leaders wanted their budget “to be a serious option,” they should have included instructions for Senate committees. “Instead, the House made theirs a performative exercise,” added the aide.
