— Senate Republicans say House budget won’t fly: House Republicans spent weeks in painstaking negotiations before delivering a budget blueprint for “one big, beautiful bill.” Now Senate Republicans are preparing to tear it apart . Despite a razor-thin 217-215 House vote Tuesday, GOP senators indicated Wednesday they would not accept Speaker Mike Johnson’s fiscal framework as-is — heralding a rough road for President Donald Trump’s legislative agenda on Capitol Hill. That’s not to say they want to start from scratch: Most Senate Republicans said today that they were prepared to switch to the House’s one-bill approach after spending more than two months pushing a competing two-bill plan. But they want major, contentious changes to policy choices embedded in the House plan. excerpts: Immediately after the House approved its plan Tuesday, Thune called for any Republican tax bill to include a permanent extension of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. That was an implicit criticism of the House budget blueprint, which allows for $4.5 trillion in net tax cuts — which tax writers in both chambers say won’t be enough to allow for TCJA permanency along with Trump’s other tax priorities “I know my Senate colleagues are committed to, as is the president, permanence in the tax situation. And we don’t have yet in the House bill so we’re going to work together in a cooperative way,” said Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), the No. 2 Senate Republican. Montana Sen. Steve Daines, who led a Feb. 13 letter calling on Trump to make the tax cuts permanent, noted that he and Finance Chair Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) met with Trump on Monday to urge him to make the expiring tax cuts permanent. “We had Howard Lutnick, Scott Bessent on the phone strongly supporting permanence; Kevin Hassett strongly supports permanence,” Daines said, referring respectively to the Commerce secretary, Treasury secretary and National Economic Council director. “The Senate’s behind permanence. I think many in the House leadership will support permanence, as well.” It’s not just the tax extensions that get scrutiny from Senate Republicans. The House framework also includes a provision calling for a minimum of $880 billion in cuts from the committee overseeing some health care programs. Critics argue that it paves the way for deep cuts into Medicaid and other social programs — something some GOP senators strongly oppose. “There might be a lot of things” we change.“There are going to be a lot of concerns over the Medicaid cuts,” said Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.). “I realize it’s just a broad instruction to that committee, but I think there will be concerns about that and what that may lead to.” Some GOP senators last week helped reject a budget amendment from Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) that would have included a floor of $1.5 trillion in spending cuts — same as the House budget — hinting at the looming fight ahead between the two chambers. Hawley said he expected Republicans to support work requirements for Medicaid beneficiaries but reject any cuts that would hit working Americans. Hawley added it was still to be determined how Senate Republicans address those concerns, but he suggested guardrails could be written into the final budget plan guaranteeing that spending cuts would be “not to include the following.” Others, however, want even deeper cuts to spending. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) said the reductions set out in the House budget are “just not adequate.” He said he wants to bring federal spending levels down to where it was before the 2020 Covid pandemic. Senate Republicans also aren’t committing to keeping the House’s planned $4 trillion debt ceiling hike. Some Senate conservatives have warned they won’t support a budget resolution that includes a debt-limit hike, though most of the House’s hard-liners ultimately accepted it. “Acquiescing to a $4 trillion increase in the debt ceiling is for me a non-starter,” said Paul, who voted against the Senate GOP budget adopted earlier this month. “It basically acknowledges that this year the government’s going to be $2 trillion short.” Instead, Senate GOP leaders are still discussing instead tying a debt ceiling increase to the government funding talks now underway — which would require Democrats to help support it. Raising the debt ceiling outside of reconciliation would also allow Congress to temporarily suspend the borrowing limit rather than engaging in the politically risky act of voting on a specific number.
— White House removes liberal outlet from press rotation: The White House today removed a liberal media outlet from the rotation of reporters granted close access to the president , breaking a long-established precedent of journalists — not the White House — determining which reporters cover it. HuffPost, an outlet decried by the right as anti-Trump, was slated to serve today in the press pool, a rotating group of journalists allowed access to the president in smaller settings. Late on Tuesday, HuffPost got an email from press wrangler Allison Schuster, asking which reporter would take the organization’s spot in the pool. Hours later, S.V. Date, HuffPost’s White House correspondent, got another email from Schuster: “Hey — so sorry for the late notice but we actually can’t fit you in the pool tomorrow,” Schuster said. At 5:59 a.m., he got another email identifying a different publication that would serve as the print pooler. — Trump pulls Chevron license to export Venezuela oil, reversing Biden deal: President Donald Trump said today the United States will end the Biden administration’s concessions aimed at promoting free elections in Venezuela, canceling a license that allowed U.S. oil company Chevron to produce and export oil in the country. The move, set to take effect March 1, comes as the Trump administration resets foreign relation policies stretching back decades. Trump said in a social media post the conditions the Biden administration reached with Venezuela in 2022 that allowed the country to export oil “have not been met by the Maduro regime.”
NEVER ACKNOWLEDGE THE TRUTH! POMPEO NEGOTIATED THE PULLOUT WITH THE TALIBAN, EXCLUDED THE AFGHAN GOVERNMENT, RELEASED TERRORISTS FROM PRISONS, DREW DOWN THE US MILITARY PRESENCE, INVITED THE TALIBAN TO CAMP DAVID IN ORDER TO SABOTAGE INCOMING PRESIDENT BIDEN...HOW ABOUT ADDRESSING POMPEO'S CALCULATED STRATEGY THAT COST LIVES? — Trump signals more firings of military leaders: President Donald Trump, in a continued effort to replace Pentagon officials, hinted his administration would fire the military leaders involved in the American withdrawal from Afghanistan . “They’re going to be largely gone,” he said today during his first cabinet meeting, with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth by his side. “I’m not going to tell this man what to do,” he said, turning to Hegseth. “But I will say that if I had his place, I’d fire every single one of them.” BRAIN DEAD MTG SUPPORTS ELIMINATING PBS WHEN SHE IS SORELY IN NEED OF EDUCATING HERSELF! THE MANTRA: WASTE, FRAUD & ABUSE IS MEANINGLESS RHETORIC! TRUMP FIRED INSPECTORS GENERAL WHO CONDUCT THOSE AUDITS....WHEN YOU'RE IGNORANT OF HOW GOVERNMENT WORKS, IT'S JUST ANOTHER DOGE LIE! — DOGE panel eyes criminal referrals for alleged misuse of U.S. foreign aid: Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene said today her Delivering on Government Efficiency Subcommittee will consider recommending “criminal referrals” to individuals she believes have misused U.S. foreign aid. The Georgia Republican's comments came during the second hearing of the subcommittee designed to complement efforts by Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency to root out supposed waste, fraud and abuse — this one focused on scrutinizing the Biden administration for spending billions of dollars in foreign assistance and distributing that money among programs across the globe.
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