House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy said due to Congress’ hectic schedule, lawmakers are delaying action on President Donald Trump’s border wall during an appearance on Fox Business’ “Morning’s with Maria” Tuesday.
Lawmakers arrived back from their August recess Tuesday and have no shortage of pressing matters to address. In the month of September along, Congress will need to pass a short-term spending bill to keep the government open, raise the federal borrowing limit and pass a disaster relief package to help Texas begin its recovery from Hurricane Harvey.
“We’ve got a lot of busy things happening here,” McCarthy said. “We have to deal with Harvey, we have the debt ceiling, we have a continuing resolution, which will be just about a three-month continuing resolution. So you will deal with the wall a little later in the year.”
Building the wall was one of the president’s top campaign platforms during the course of the election. The lower chamber already passed a measure allocating $1.6 billion for a “physical barrier construction along the U.S. southern border,” which has not yet been taken up in the Senate. The House is slated to vote on Harvey relief funding Wednesday, which McCarthy confirmed will not be attached to the debt ceiling.
The House is slated to vote on Harvey relief funding Wednesday, which McCarthy confirmed will not be attached to the debt ceiling — a proposal that received sharp pushback from conservative members. The Senate has not ruled out linking the two before sending the debt-ceiling bill back to the lower chamber.
In addition to disaster relief aid, the debt ceiling and the continuing resolution, the leader said Republicans still hope to pass a budget which will allow them to move forward with the reconciliation process for tax reform.
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