The minority leader of the House of Representatives, Hakeem Jeffries, lamented on Thursday that the Republicans could only advance in the “great and beautiful” agenda plan of President Trump due to the “tragic” death of two Democratic legislators last month.
“Passing this initial budget resolution should have a trap for Republicans,” said Brooklyn Democrat to journalists after the vote. “They had to take out the bill out of the floor last night and barely fought to approve it today. We had two tragic deaths in the democratic Caucus of the Chamber.”
Moments before, the Republicans had approved the measure in a margin of 216-214, after postponing the initial scheduled vote one day before due to a revolt of the fiscal falcons.
“These deaths did not happen last month, Republicans could not have approved the bill today,” Jeffries added, referring to the rule that linked votes fail in the Chamber.
The representative Sylvester Turner (D-Texas) died on March 5 after completing only two months in Congress, followed eight days later by the representative Raul Grijalva (D-Aarz.). With special elections that will not replace the two deceased until the end of this year, the camera currently has 220 Republicans and 213 Democrats.
Two Republicans voted against the victory of Spartz measurement (R -OD.) And Thomas Massie (R-Ky.)-While three legislators were absent: Donald Norcross (D-NJ), who suffered “an emergency medical event” this week; Bob Under (R-MO.); and David Valadao (R-Calif.)
Republicans had to adopt the budget resolution to unlock the reconciliation process to start writing the tax cuts of the Marquee Trump agenda packages, reinforce the defense and spending on border security, and reinforce the energy exploration.
Reconciliation is the only way to obtain the Trump agenda package through the Senate without requiring the 60 votes necessary to break a DEM Filibuster. Republicans have 53 seats in the Senate.
The House Republican Party aims to reduce a minimum of $ 1.5 billion and up to $ 2 billion from the federal budget for a period of ten years to help pay the package. Democrats argue that mathematically, Republicans must cut in Medicaid for that work.
“Nobody has been told about reducing a benefit to anyone in Medicaid that is due duly. What we have talked about is about the return work requirements,” the president of the House of Representatives, Mike Johnson (R-La) clarified to journalists on Thursday.
But concerns about Medicaid have shaken moderate Republicans both in the camera and in the Senate. At the same time, the leadership of the Republican party is dealing with tax hawks that remain inflexible on obtaining deep expenses.
Obtaining the budget resolution was widely seen as the easy part. Write a final bill in which enough republicans can agree on both bobs will be complicated in the midst of different points of view within the Caucus on spending.
