House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., insisted Tuesday that a final reconciliation bill on the budget will be a "collaborative process between the House and Senate," responding after the Senate over the weekend passed its version of the reconciliation bill.
"The budget resolution is not the law," Johnson said during a press conference. "All this does is it allows us to continue the process, begin drafting the actual legislation [that] really counts, and that's the one big, beautiful bill" that President Donald Trump is seeking.
In addition, the Senate's amendment "makes no changes to the reconciliation instructions that we put into the budget resolution, so our objectives remain intact," said Johnson.
He added that any final reconciliation bill must include the "historic spending reductions" the House has in its resolution while safeguarding essential programs.
The House will not participate in an "us versus them charade" with the Senate, said Johnson. "We've got to be working together and rowing in the same direction," he said, stressing that both he and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., are committed to working together, as are lawmakers from both chambers.
"Republicans have a historic, once-in-a-generation opportunity to deliver relief to hardworking families and set our country back on the path of prosperity," said Johnson. "The American people desperately need us to take this action, and we will."
Congress is still "months away" from reaching the "X date" on the national debt limit, but an agreement must be reached, he added.
"Border security resources are being diminished. Markets are unsettled, and the largest tax increase in American history is set to hit families and businesses at the end of this year if we do not act," said Johnson. "We have no luxury of complacency, and we really don't have time to dither on this thing. So we'll be moving that forward, and you'll see that action this week."
In other matters, Johnson discussed the SAVE Act, which calls for proof of citizenship to vote in America's elections.
"Polling shows that nearly 90% of the American people believe that proof of citizenship should be required to vote," he said. "There are few issues in American politics that enjoy that level of bipartisan support."
The measure should therefore pass with a bipartisan margin, but it won't, Johnson said.
"The Democrats are contorting themselves into a pretzel trying to justify some sort of vote against this," he said. "Last year, they argued we were too close to a federal election to make voting changes. And then they said that noncitizens don't actually vote, and then they said the SAVE Act will somehow result in voter suppression. All that was total nonsense."