April 8, 2025
By Marc Stier
I want to give you an update on the Trump–Republican budget process. I’m going to start with an overview of the political situation surrounding this process and talk about our prospects for making the budget less harmful or even killing the whole Republican effort. Then I’m going to review what we expect to happen in the House this week. Finally, for those who want them, I’ll discuss some of the gory details of this process.
Two months ago, we thought the critical moment in the budget process would be right now, when the House and Senate have to agree on a budget resolution.
But the Senate has now passed a budget resolution that essentially puts off the difficult decisions to the next two stages of the process, when the legislative committees in the House and Senate make their detailed policy recommendations and those recommendations are combined into a budget reconciliation bill. You can find the details about the Senate action and how the budget resolution it passed differs from the House bill here.
For reasons I explain below, I expect the House will pass the same budget resolution, agreeing with the Senate to put off hard decisions. (The Republicans can only lose two votes this week and if they lose them, the process will get stuck.) House members who want to see deeper cuts in the budget and were disappointed by the budget resolution passed by the Senate. As we explained elsewhere, the Senate budget resolution did not ask its own committees to make the same cuts to Medicaid and SNAP as those requested of the House Committees. And, as we point out below, House Freedom Caucus members want to see deep cut to spending.
While it would be wonderful if this led to a delay if not collapse of the budget in the House this week, we expect pressure from President Trump and Speaker Johnson, and the promise that those deep cuts will come later in the process, will secure enough votes to pass the budget resolution. (But here’s hoping!)
There are very deep tensions among the Republicans about the budget. And thanks, in part, to all you have done (with Donald Trump’s help) in convincing Democrats to unanimously oppose the Republican plans, they will likely have to pass both the budget bill and the reconciliation bill with no Democratic votes.
There are two basic tensions. Freedom Caucus Republicans in the House really want to see deep cuts in Medicaid and SNAP in order to reduce the deficit. So does Republican senator Rand Paul. A handful of Republican moderates in the House do not want such deep cuts in those programs and are willing to live with deeper deficits. Much the same is true of a handful of Republican senators. And President Trump, Speaker Johnson (who is a cipher for Trump), and some senators not only plan to extend the 2017 tax cuts but they also want to implement additional cuts for corporations, for Social Security recipients, and for tipped workers. And that, of course, will add to the deficit.
So, Republicans are going to have to find some compromise on the extent of Medicaid and SNAP cuts and on how deep the budget deficit will be. And that compromise will have to be made when an agreement is reached on a joint budget reconciliation bill. Since that bill will spell out exactly what cuts are being made to Medicaid and SNAP and how they will be made, the more moderate Republicans will not be able to claim they’re not actually voting for cuts but instead are “moving the process along.”
That’s the point when we will have maximum leverage to make the budget less harmful or even to kill it. We will have to bring as much pressure to bear on Republican moderates as possible, especially Pennsylvania Republicans Rob Bresnahan (CD-8) and Brian Fitzpatrick (CD-1), to reject deep Medicaid and SNAP cuts, with the hope that either we reduce the damage to these programs or the moderates and extremists can’t reach an agreement and the process dies.
When we get to that point what you can do to help exert that necessary pressure. And then, whatever happens, we will ask you to do what you can to explain to our fellow Pennsylvanians why any Republican bill—which, along with the tariffs, will redistribute income from working people to the ultra-rich and wealthy corporations—should be condemned and rejected along with those who voted for it.