LATEST: Speaker Mike Johnson has removed Mike Turner as the chair of the House Intelligence Committee. Read more here. DEBT LIMIT DEBATE RAGES House Republicans are, once again, fighting internally about how they should address a major legislative priority. This time, it's the debt limit. GOP lawmakers need to raise the debt ceiling sometime in the next several months or risk a catastrophic default. While Speaker Mike Johnson proposed lifting it using the party-line reconciliation process last month, leaders are now signaling they’d rather deal with it in a spending bill that will have to pass along bipartisan lines, at least in the Senate. Both options come with significant headaches. The so-called reconciliation bill — where the GOP hopes to tackle the border, energy and taxes — is already a mess. But if leaders raise the debt limit in a bipartisan bill, Democrats will expect significant concessions in return for their help. So far, most senators are signaling they’re willing to defer to what the House can pass. Republicans in the chamber largely brushed off questions or were indifferent when asked about including the debt limit in the reconciliation package on Wednesday. Here’s where key groups stand: Leadership: Both Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune have indicated that they’re leaning towards addressing the debt limit outside of a reconciliation bill, though Johnson said he isn’t “wed” to any option. It’s not hard to see why: GOP leaders already have enough on their reconciliation plate, with little room in the vote count for error, and Democrats have reliably helped avoid a default. Conservatives: Here lies leadership’s first problem. Conservative hardliners, who hate raising the debt limit, want it in the reconciliation package. They don’t want leadership making a deal with Democrats, and they want GOP leaders to meet their demands for significant spending cuts in exchange for a hike. Remember, Johnson said in December that Republicans would pair raising the debt limit with spending cuts of $2.5 trillion in a reconciliation package this year. Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) called the suggestion of a massive funding bill with a debt limit hike the work of “swamp creatures.” “I hope the president's team comes in and rejects that, and tells them it's a bad idea,” Roy said this week. Other GOP hardliners aren’t teeing off at leadership, yet. Don’t expect it to last if Johnson keeps leaning toward a bipartisan solution. Appropriator and budget types: Appropriations Chair Tom Cole (R-Okla.) and Budget Chair Jodey Arrington (R-Texas) don't even appear to be on the same page on the debt limit, hinting at more problems here. While Cole has suggested it should be dealt with in a bipartisan spending bill, Arrington has said he thinks it should go in reconciliation. Democrats: House Democrats have made clear that hitching the debt ceiling to more disaster aid for California, as some Republicans have proposed, is a nonstarter for them. They’re not going to let Republicans off that easy. “It should be a negotiating posture,” said Rep. Richard Neal (D-Mass.). “They're going to need us to raise the debt ceiling.” And an important note: If past is prologue, Trump doesn’t care much about the process for how Congress raises the debt limit. He just doesn’t want it to become his problem. So don’t count on him to settle this debate.
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