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WASHINGTON >> As House Republicans missed another deadline Friday to produce a massive budget package of tax cuts and slashed spending, Senate Republicans jumped ahead, unveiling a more tailored $340 billion blueprint focused on President Donald Trump’s deportation agenda and bolstered U.S. defense spending.
Speaker Mike Johnson acknowledged his own chamber’s plan for Trump’s big budget bill would slip into the weekend as House Republicans work overtime to agree to the details. After a lengthy meeting a day earlier with the Republican president at the White House, they are racing to hammer out a package that includes some $4 trillion in tax breaks, massive program cuts and a possible extension of the nation’s debt limit.
“We have just a few final details to iron out,” Johnson said at the Capitol. “It’s going well, and I’m very excited about where we are and the fact we’re going to be moving this forward.”
But the repeated setbacks are frustrating GOP lawmakers as they argue among themselves and they fail to show progress on Trump’s signature legislative priority during the first 100 days of the new administration with unified party control of the House, the Senate and the White House.
At stake are countless Trump campaign promises: making tax cuts that expire at the end of this year permanent, cutting spending on federal programs and ensuring the administration has enough money to launch his deportation operation and finish building the U.S.-Mexico border wall. The package is also expected to meet Trump’s demands to raise the nation’s debt ceiling to allow more borrowing and prevent a federal default.
Trump’s message as he popped in and out of the nearly five-hour meeting Thursday at the White House was simple: Get it done.
Instead, Senate Republicans jumped in Friday as they prepared to head to Trump’s private Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida, for a Friday night dinner as they push ahead with their own scaled-back proposal.
As the House struggles, Republicans led by Senate Majority Leader John Thune of South Dakota have proposed a two-step approach, starting with a smaller bill that would include money for Trump’s border wall and deportation plans, among other priorities. They later would pursue the more robust package of tax break extensions before a year-end deadline.
The Senate Budget Committee said that the proposed new spending would finish the border wall and increase the number of Border Patrol agents and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers.
The increased defense spending would include money for growing the U.S. Navy.