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By Jennifer Scholtes

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With assists from POLITICO’s Congress team

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) emerges from the office of the House Speaker at the U.S. Capitol on Nov. 14, 2024.

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise outlined five goals this week for what his conference aims to pass through budget reconciliation next year. | Francis Chung/POLITICO

RECONCILIATION LIMITATIONS 

House Republicans outlined their ambitions this week for what they hope to accomplish in sweeping legislation next year that would skirt the Senate filibuster. But a parliamentary reality check looms.

Welcome back to the arcane maze of reconciliation, the special budget power Republicans will attempt to harness next year to pass a partisan bill, or two, with a simple-majority threshold in the Senate, rather than bending policies leftward to attract enough Democrats for 60 votes.

Simple GOP goals like funding the border wall and vague promises to “drain the swamp” will be tested by the Senate’s strict constraints for the budget maneuver, including the late Sen. Robert C. Byrd’s rule that everything in a reconciliation package needs to have a “direct” impact on the federal budget. Given these parameters, Republican leaders on both ends of the Capitol are already trying to align their ambitions and construct arguments to convince the Senate parliamentarian their ideas are inbounds.

“The House obviously doesn't have to contend with the Byrd rule and all the restrictions that we have in the Senate when we think about what we can accomplish in reconciliation,” the Senate’s next majority leader, John Thune (R-S.D.), said this week. “So obviously, it's got to have a budgetary impact, but there are areas where we think we can demonstrate that it does.”

Here are four ways reconciliation could get tricky next year:

Border wall: House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) listed border wall funding among the GOP’s reconciliation goals this week. But the border wall is paid for through discretionary spending, the regular funding Congress controls through appropriations (which does have to clear a filibuster). Historically, that bucket has been off limits under the budget maneuver, while changes to mandatory programs, like Social Security and Medicare, are allowed.

“There’s a lot that they’re going to discover on the House side about the way reconciliation works on the Senate side,” Senate Budget Chair Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) told us this week. “And their choice is going to be to fit the bill within the reconciliation rules or to go back and again blow up the reconciliation rules, despite all their years of fussing about defending the reconciliation rules. We will see.”

Tariffs: Advisers close to President-elect Donald Trump have been talking to top tax writers in Congress about counting tariffs to offset the cost of tax cuts under reconciliation, according to people familiar with the conversations. But GOP leaders are still trying to figure out whether House rules need to be changed to make that happen, according to people in the room during the closed-door conference meeting this week.

Permitting: Right now, lawmakers from both parties are trying to strike a bipartisan deal before year’s end on permitting reform to ease the process of approving projects like building wind farms and oil pipelines. Some Republicans are also considering whether they could accomplish those policies through reconciliation next year, as House GOP leaders promise to use the budget maneuver to “unleash” American energy production.

Convincing the Senate parliamentarian that changes to permitting rules have a direct effect on the federal budget could be difficult. When Republicans used their 2017 tax bill to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas drilling, for example, they were forced to forgo language in the bill to ease environmental review.

Immigration: Enhancing immigration enforcement also made the House GOP wish list Scalise laid out this week. And for a teaser on the limitations there, Republicans need look no further than the parliamentarian’s ruling in 2021, when she rebuffed Democrats’ attempts to use the budget process to enact a pathway to legal status for undocumented immigrants.

— Jennifer Scholtes 

GOOD EVENING! Welcome to Inside Congress, the play-by-play guide to all things Capitol Hill, on this Friday, Nov. 22, as we celebrate the arrival of the 80-foot-tall Sitka Spruce that journeyed more than 700 miles by sea and more than 4,000 miles by truck to adorn the West Front lawn as this year’s Capitol Christmas Tree.

 

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DISASTER AID HEADWAY

Top appropriators and aides plan to spend the weeklong Thanksgiving recess working toward agreement on a bipartisan disaster aid package, aiming for release of bill text as early as their first week back in December and final passage before Christmas.

Both parties are seeking extras that weren’t included in the nearly $99 billion disaster aid request the White House sent this week. And Republicans also want to do some deleting.

House Appropriations Chair Tom Cole (R-Okla.) said that includes nixing funding for programs the Education Department “ought to do,” as well as climate change efforts. The disaster bill still “needs to be a very robust package,” added Cole, who toured disaster-wrought areas in North Carolina last weekend. “We understand that. We agree with that.”

Congressional Republicans want to “stay within the broad number” the White House outlined in the emergency aid request, Cole said. “Certainly don't want to go above it, if we can avoid that.”

The emergency disaster package could get hitched to a stopgap spending patch before the Dec. 20 government shutdown deadline, if Congress resorts to another funding punt.

It’s unlikely the Small Business Administration’s disaster loan program gets refilled before Congress acts on the broader disaster aid package. Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) acknowledged that reality this week, as Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) continues to block quick passage of Tillis’ measure to replenish the program that has been depleted for more than a month.

Tillis said he still plans to keep seeking agreement for speedy passage of his standalone bill, to draw attention to federal loans still on hold for more than 10,000 disaster survivors trying to borrow money to rebuild homes and businesses. “Definitely I’m going to be hitting it every week until we get something done. I just want to keep on pounding,” Tillis told us.

Jennifer Scholtes 

 

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FUNDING DEAL STASIS  

Four weeks from today, Congress faces the next government shutdown deadline. A final bipartisan agreement before Dec. 20 is unlikely but not out of the question.

“I would still love an approps deal. That's probably not possible,” Cole said this week.

The Hill is still waiting on Speaker Mike Johnson and President-elect Donald Trump for firm directions forward. Congressional Republicans are listening to GOP leaders on whether they wish to broker a final bipartisan funding deal in December or to kick the deadline into Trump’s second term.

Cole said he understands Johnson’s aversion to passing a catchall omnibus spending bill next month but is anxious for a breakthrough on a “topline” funding deal that sets overall totals for military and non-defense funding to kick off final negotiations on the 12 spending bills. “Look, he doesn't want to do a Christmas omnibus, and I get that. And I've certainly supported that decision. But I hope we get a topline soon,” Cole said.

Despite the long odds, Senate appropriators are not ready to give up hope on avoiding a stopgap funding patch next month. “I still want us to get it finished before Dec. 20. But we may have to do a short CR,” Senate Appropriations’ top Republican, Susan Collins (Maine), said of the likelihood of a continuing resolution.

“We’re going to keep doing our job,” Appropriations Chair Patty Murray (D-Wash.) added. “I’m not going to preclude anything by guessing.”

— Jennifer Scholtes 

HUDDLE HOTDISH

Snow in the nation’s capital!

Some video of that lovely Sitka spruce rolling into town.

A Thanksgiving warning from the Consumer Product Safety Commission.

Celtics green was the obvious choice for the Massachusetts delegation at the White House.

Marie Gluesenkamp Perez doesn’t want more lawyers running for office.

QUICK LINKS 

House Republicans are playing the Trump card in committee chair races, by Eleanor Mueller.

How Gaetz crashed and burned, by Meridith McGraw, Natalie Allison, Mia McCarthy and Ursula Perano.

Behind Schumer’s silence on Trump’s picks, a bid to spotlight GOP divides, by Carl Hulse at The New York Times.

Democrats find hope in state legislative races, from Liz Crampton and Madison Fernandez.

 

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TRANSITIONS 

Isabel Sanchez, executive director at the Future Forum Caucus, has transitioned to serve as a transition aide for Rep.-elect Johnny Olszewski (D-Md.) and will join his team come January, Co-Chair Rep. Haley Stevens (D-Mich.) announced at a PAC event welcoming 12 members-elect.

Send us your transitions at insidecongress@politico.com.

MONDAY IN CONGRESS

The House and Senate are out.

MONDAY AROUND THE HILL

Start brining your turkeys for those early Thanksgiving festivities.

Trivia

THURSDAY’S ANSWER: Barry Scanlon correctly answered that Florida Democrats Bill McBride and Alex Sink are the only married American couple to have run unsuccessfully in separate gubernatorial races.

TODAY’S QUESTION, from Jordain: Perhaps due to chronic depression, this president is said to have slept up to 11 hours a day and always took an afternoon nap lasting at least one to two hours? 

Send your answers to insidecongress@politico.com.

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