Summary
The House and Senate are both in session for a busy week as the Senate starts work on a budget resolution and RFK’s nomination to be Secretary of HHS is expected to come to the Senate floor for a vote.
Budget Resolution: On Wednesday and Thursday the Senate Budget Committee will meet mark up the Fiscal Year 2025 budget resolution. The proposal released last week will provide $340 billion in new funding for border security and DOD over four years, as well as energy policy changes, all of which will be offset by yet to be determined spending cuts (tables/summary). The proposal requires the Senate Finance Committee to produce at least $1 billion in savings, much of which is expected to come from Medicaid work requirements and other cuts to the program. This budget package is expected to be the first, and smaller, of two reconciliation packages produced by the Senate. Senate Budget Committee Chairman Lindsay Graham (R-SC) and Senate leadership are focused on moving the first package focused on policy priorities and leaving the President’s tax cut extension for a second package.
Meanwhile, the House Budget Committee was expected to also meet this week but is looking like they will postpone their markup yet again. House Republicans continue to debate the scope and size of their package. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) and House Budget Committee Chair Jodey Arrington (R-TX) remain committed to moving one large package, rather than two. The House Leadership has agreed to cut spending by $2-$2.5 trillion, which would require deep cuts to Medicaid, and other safety net programs. Speaker Johnson continues to have a difficult time threading the needle between the conservative faction of the party that is pushing bigger and deeper cuts, and the more moderate faction that represent swing districts that do not support the cost these cuts will have on the American people.
FY 2025 Spending Bill: We are down to just over four weeks before the FY 2025 Continuing Resolution expires. While the Appropriations Committee leadership continues to meet, there is still no agreement between the House and Senate Republicans on a topline spending amount, much less between the two parties. The spending bill will require bipartisan support to pass, and increasingly Democrats are weary of providing Republicans the votes necessary to keep the government in operation without some kind of assurance that President Trump and his Administration will abide by the law. Following two weeks of drastic, and likely illegal, actions by President Trump and special government employee Elon Musk that ignore the specific allocations of funding appropriated by Congress, Democrats have lost trust that a FY 2025 bill will be enforced as written by the new Administration.
President Trump’s Cabinet: The Senate will continue to use floor time this week to confirm President Trump’s cabinet. They are teed up to hold confirmation votes for Tulsi Gabbard to serve as the director of national intelligence, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. for HHS secretary, Howard Lutnick for Commerce Secretary, Brooke Rollins for Agriculture secretary and Kelly Loeffler to lead the Small Business Administration.
Hearings and Markups:
Ways and Means Committee: On Tuesday the House Ways and Means Health Subcommittee will hold a hearing to examine ways to modernize American health care, focusing on ways to promote healthy living with more options, greater flexibility, and better incentives for patients.
Oversight and Government Reform: On Tuesday the House Oversight and Government Reform Subcommittee on Health Care and Financial Services will hold a hearing to examine the expansion of welfare programs and evaluate strategies to reform deficiencies in the welfare system.
On Wednesday The House Oversight and Government Reform Subcommittee on Delivering Government Efficiency (DOGE) will hold a hearing to examine how Congress can assist the President in the effort to address waste, improper payments, and fraud, including by auditing outdated federal payment systems.
Regulatory Update
The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) is not reviewing any health-related rules, likely due to the regulatory freeze. It remains to be seen how the latest Executive Order mandating that each department or agency repeal at least 10 existing regulations for every new proposed rule. This directive is far significantly more aggressive than a similar EO issued during the first Trump Administration, which required the repeal of at least two existing regulations for each new proposed rule.