House Budget Committee Vice Chair Rep. Lloyd Smucker (R-PA) led 32 other House Republicans in demanding that “the reconciliation bill must not add to the deficit.” Notably, the letter was signed by several members of the House Ways and Means Committee and a number of lawmakers in the conservative House Freedom Caucus.
The letter states that if the savings in the bill falls short of “$2 trillion in verifiable savings either through spending reductions or scaling back the size of the tax package” then the Ways and Means Committee’s instruction “must be lowered dollar-for-dollar to keep the reconciliation bill within the agreed limits.” The developments come as the House Ways and Means Committee is developing alternatives to scale the reconciliation tax cuts down from $4.5 trillion to $4 trillion amid concerns that lawmakers will not be able to come up with the full $2 trillion in cuts required under the budget reconciliation plan.