Speaker Johnson's budget victory likely to be short-lived

This week, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) managed to get the framework of the budget passed in a House resolution.

The measure passed 217-215, with Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) walking across the aisle to fight against the budget deficit.

Small Win

To be clear, while most people were celebrating the vote, this was nothing more than the framework of the budget that passed, and it was still a struggle for Johnson to get it through the House.

Democrats are adamant they will not back this budget, as they claim there are massive Medicaid cuts included, but the resolution does not even mention Medicaid. This was a point of contention from the Republicans who were hesitant to back the resolution.

Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) had even noted that they still had a long way to go to get a budget passed and on Trump’s desk by May, stating, “We took one necessary step, but there are many miles to go.”

I can tell you flat out, if they create a budget that has even a single cent of deficit included, there will be resistance among the GOP Caucus that will prevent the bill from going through the House.

Johnson Excited

When Johnson was finally able to get the resolution passed on the floor, he took a victory lap.

The House Speaker stated, "We got it done. This is the first important step in opening up the reconciliation process. We have a lot of hard work ahead of us. We are going to deliver the America First agenda."

Majority Leader Scalise (R-LA) added, “Trump helped us with a number of members. Look, Trump has been an incredible ally in this whole process. Talking to anybody that we asked that really needed to clarify things.

“I’m not going to talk about who Trump talked to and what they talked about. I wasn’t privy to those conversations.”

Back to Reality

Everyone seems to be forgetting that the final bill will still have to go through the Senate before it gets to President Trump’s desk, and the bill, as is, will not work for Republicans in the Senate.

Senator Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) broke the bad news to Johnson this week, stating, “The tax cuts are not permanent; they don’t use current policy [budget baseline]. It would be a major overhaul.”

Senate Finance Committee Chair Mike Crapo (R-ID) was asked directly if he would accept the current House budget plan, and he answered simply, “No.”

This more or less means that everything the House put in that outline is useless in terms of getting it passed in the Senate. And knowing how these people love to wait until the last second, there is not going to be much time to make adjustments once the bill goes to the Senate and gets reworked. So, like I said… this was a small victory for Johnson, but it is pretty much all smoke and mirrors when it comes to the final bill that will need to be presented.