Down in Florida on Wednesday, House Republicans tried to coalesce around a plan to pass “one big, beautiful bill.” Meanwhile, up in Washington, Senate Republicans are ready to go with their own Plan B.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune said in an interview that “text is ready” for a budget blueprint that would tee up a two-bill approach to the GOP’s ambitious border, energy and tax agenda.
“We’ve been ready for a while. … Everything is ready to go,” Thune said, explaining that he and fellow GOP senators are partially “waiting to see what the House is going to do.”
“I think there’s a point at which we will decide to pull the trigger,” he added, calling it “a question of — ultimately, of strategy.”
Under the Senate plan that has been described by multiple lawmakers, Republicans would first attempt to pass a smaller bill encompassing border security, defense and energy measures. Later would come a larger, more complex tax-focused bill.
Both would be passed under party-line reconciliation procedures, which first requires the adoption of an identical budget resolution by the House and Senate. The text Thune referred to would provide for passage of the first bill; another blueprint teeing up the second bill would follow.
Senate Budget Chair Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) hasn’t given a hard timeline for when he will take up his Plan B. But Senate Republicans view him as eager to get going, with some predicting that he will move forward in the next two to three weeks. Thune didn’t rule out that timeline on Wednesday but acknowledged that House action could come to bear on the scheduling.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, meanwhile, wants to have his own chamber’s budget resolution written in committee by next week and finalized in the House by the week of Feb. 10. But he’s still struggling to get the unity he will need from his conference to get that one-bill approach across the floor.
