The House Budget Committee may take up a 2018 budget resolution next week, kick-starting a process that has been delayed by Republican infighting over spending levels.
Budget Committee Chairwoman Diane Black (R-Tenn.) told the Jackson, Tenn., branch of the Rotary Club that she’s “hoping we’re going to bring [it] up this upcoming week, when we get back and pass it out of our committee,” according to Roll Call.
A spokesman for Black said there were no announcements yet regarding a markup.
{mosads}Twice this summer, Black has been forced to postpone the budget’s committee rollout due to disagreement among Republicans over where the numbers should be set.
While the committee had agreed to push both defense and nondefense spending higher than President Trump’s budget proposal, to $621 billion on defense and $511 billion on nondefense, disagreements have persisted over cuts to mandatory spending.
The conservative House Freedom Caucus has been pushing for $50 billion in further cuts than the $150 billion the committee already agreed to, figures that moderate House Republicans said were too steep.
In a sign of both the time crunch Republicans face on their agenda and the breakdown of the normal budgeting process, appropriators in the House have already begun marking up their spending bills, despite lacking a top-line budget number.
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