LEILA FADEL, HOST:
House Republicans have a goal - get President Trump's massive domestic agenda to the Senate by Memorial Day.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
GOP leaders have been mired in internal divisions over how to actually turn that agenda into law, but they hope to finalize their plans this week.
FADEL: NPR's Elena Moore has been covering these talks and joins us now with the latest. Hi, Elena.
ELENA MOORE, BYLINE: Hey, Leila.
FADEL: OK, so Republicans have been drafting portions of the bill based on a framework they passed last month. Get us up to speed on where things stand.
MOORE: Yeah. Well, GOP members have to come up with 1.5 trillion in proposed savings or cuts to offset the cost of things like making Trump's 2017 tax cuts permanent. That's about a quarter of annual federal spending, and some conservative Republicans say one way of getting there is restructuring some programs like Medicaid, the federal insurance program available for low-income Americans and folks with disabilities. And the committee that oversees Medicaid is scheduled to mark up their portion of the bill on Tuesday. They've been asked to find 880 billion in cuts, but moderate Republicans who face competitive reelection races next year are very much against, you know, massive changes to the program. And given the GOP's razor-thin majority in the House right now, the party needs those votes to get this massive spending bill passed. So this whole week, Leila, is just about finding a compromise.
FADEL: OK, Elena, then what might a compromise look like?
MOORE: Well, I mean, some of the general ideas do have virtually full party support. Here's how House Speaker Mike Johnson defended changes to Medicaid last week.
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MIKE JOHNSON: Our true and honest intention is to ensure that every Medicaid beneficiary who is in that traditional community of folks - you're talking about young, pregnant mothers and the elderly and disabled - those folks are covered, and no one loses their coverage.
MOORE: And most GOP lawmakers agree that there should be work requirements for those on Medicaid expansion, which extends benefits to lower-income childless adults without disabilities. In that same vein, the party has talked a lot about removing what they describe as waste, fraud and abuse.
FADEL: Is that enough, though, to meet their goals for cutting spending?
MOORE: Well, it's unclear. Talks are ongoing this week. On Medicaid specifically, Johnson already made some concessions that make it harder to get to their cost-cutting goals. Moderates seem to be gaining ground on their efforts to stop massive changes to the program, and that could shore up their votes, but that could also risk losing key support from more conservative members who say sweeping cuts are necessary. So even as Republicans get down to the wire here, so much is still being negotiated.
FADEL: So that's one big policy issue in the bill. Are there additional elements that are still up in the air?
MOORE: Yeah, several. A handful of moderate members say their support for the spending bill is tied to whether it will include a higher cap for state and local property tax deductions, known as SALT. Some lawmakers are also on the fence about potential changes to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, called SNAP, not to mention one very big thing - the future and scope of these tax cuts could depend just on how much they can claw back in savings.
FADEL: That's NPR's Elena Moore. Thank you, Elena.
MOORE: Thanks. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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