Meadows: Budget still lacks vote, despite death of border tax

The House Freedom Caucus is still holding out on voting for the budget resolution, despite a major victory for the group in eliminating the border-adjustment tax.

“There’s still not enough votes to pass the budget,” Freedom Caucus Chairman Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) said.

Members of the conservative group have withheld support for the budget over a series of policy disagreements, including the level of mandatory spending cuts and the specifics for tax reform, which the budget will have to lay out for procedural reasons.

{mosads}Last week, Freedom Caucus member Mark Sanford (R-S.C.), a member of the budget committee, weighed throwing a wrench into the committee’s markup by inserting an amendment on the border tax. In the end, committee chairwoman Diane Black (R-Tenn.) simply ruled that the amendment could not be introduced so late in the game and Sanford and other Freedom Caucus members on the committee voted to pass the budget through the committee.

But those same members have not committed to voting for the bill on the House floor.

“It obviously adds a little clarity but we still need a whole lot of clarity on tax reform. What’re we going to do with expensing, what’re we going to do with interest deductions, with interest expensing, what’s the rate going to be,” Meadows said.

Republicans had hoped to move the resolution forward before the August recess, but will now aim to pass it in September.