Republicans reach ‘consensus’ on raising the debt limit with single, filibuster-proof bill

WASHINGTON — Congressional Republicans have reached “consensus” on legislation that will increase the nation’s debt limit — while also extending tax cuts, deregulating energy policies and beefing up border enforcement — as they forge ahead with plans to cram all the provisions into a single, filibuster-proof resolution.

“I don’t want to speak for the White House, but I think there’s consensus,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) told reporters Tuesday afternoon.

The Republican leader had joined House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and other GOP committee chairs at the White House earlier to hammer out details for the bill expected to pass via a process known as budget reconciliation.

The process will allow it to clear both chambers of Congress by a simple majority, so long as it only involves changes to revenues and spending — not policy changes — as well as a debt limit increase, which has been long-sought by Trump.

Senate Republicans advanced a $345 billion “skinny” resolution of their own in February, which did not include a suspension of the debt limit or extensions to President Trump’s 2017 tax cuts.

They had previously endorsed a two-track approach, with the second bill focusing just on renewing the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.

But House GOPers passed a $4.5 trillion budget resolution with those tax cuts days before the upper chamber’s version — $4 trillion of which was attributed to a raise in the debt ceiling.

Now, GOP aides have suggested the focus will be on a single piece of legislation — despite the two chambers having been divided over that approach. Thune and Johnson have since expressed confidence that it will pass in the next month and head to Trump’s desk.

House GOP leaders have long been keen on stuffing a debt ceiling increase into the broader “big beautiful” Trump agenda package.

The debt ceiling, which restricts the nation’s borrowing authority, had been suspended under a 2023 deal until Jan. 1, 2025.

However, thanks to “extraordinary measures” at the Treasury Department, Uncle Sam’s credit limit is not expected to run dry until mid-July, according to a study from the Bipartisan Policy Center. Should Congress fail to act by that time, the US would be at risk of defaulting on its debt.

Upon returning from the White House, Johnson acknowledged to reporters that “it sounds like Senate Republicans are coming around on” the debt ceiling and suggested GOPers in the upper chamber are warming up to the House’s plan on the agenda package.

“I don’t want to get out in front of what the Senate is going to do, but it sounds like we will not be far apart,” he said, according to a Semafor reporter.

Under the Constitution, the House is supposed to take the lead on any major tax legislation.

Meanwhile, Johnson and other House GOP leaders felt strongly that they would cede much-needed leverage with hardliners in the lower chamber if the package was split in two.

Last month, the two chambers produced rival blueprints for the marquee legislation, known in parliamentary parlance as a budget resolution, which is needed to unlock the Senate reconciliation process.

The Senate reconciliation process is the avenue which Republicans intend to wrangle the package through the upper chamber because it bypasses the filibuster, which requires 60 votes to quash — something the GOP lacks.

On Monday, Johnson publicly called on his Senate peers to abandon their own budget resolution and fall in line with the House’s plan.

“We took the first step to accomplish that by passing a budget resolution weeks ago, and we look forward to the Senate joining us in this commitment to ensure we enact President Trump’s full agenda as quickly as possible,” Johnson declared in a public statement.

“The American people gave us a mandate and we must act on it. We encourage our Senate colleagues to take up the House budget resolution when they return to Washington.”

The reconciliation process is notoriously cumbersome and Republicans are attempting to carefully craft the marquee legislation in a way that minimizes the Senate parliamentarian striking key provisions.

Johnson is hoping Republicans move the “big beautiful” bill to Trump’s desk by Memorial Day.