Rep. Jack Bergman, R-Mich., had a message for his Republican colleagues who might be against voting for the budget reconciliation package that the Senate delivered to the House: "This is not game time yet."
"Right now, our number one priority in the House and in the Senate is to get President [Donald] Trump's America First agenda moving forward and that involves what we're going to be voting on this week with the budget reconciliation package that came back to us as a Senate amendment," Bergman said on Newsmax's "Wake Up America" on Tuesday.
"We're not voting on the budget, we're not voting on the numbers this week. What we're voting on is the framework to develop the blueprint so the committees of jurisdiction can actually do their work between the House and the Senate."
Bergman said there are "some differences" between the House's version of the budget reconciliation and what the Senate sent over.
"A lot of us in the House, we want real cuts," he said. "I don't care if it's a dollar in deficit reduction. It means we reduce the deficit, and I know many of my colleagues in the House, and some in the Senate, feel the same way."
Regardless of the divergence between the two congressional chambers, Bergman said that it's "not game time yet" with the budget process.
"Game time will be after we pass what the Senate gave us so that we can go to work in the Senate and not be afraid to tangle with them when it comes to actually getting the money in the right places," he said.
Cutting the "wasteful, non-essential, potentially fraudulent spending," and "rolling back the federal government and how it spends" is "where the real work is going to lie," he said.
"That's where our fiscal hawks — who are arguing against voting for it now — need to refocus forward and say let's have the argument after we pass it," Bergman added.
As a member of the House Whip team, Bergman said he helps work through the issues that members may have in supporting legislation. He said the team's current priority is getting the GOP conference on board to pass the budget reconciliation.
"I'm working with them to find out what their concerns are so that we … can talk to these individuals and assure them that they haven't lost anything in the fight by voting for this," he said. "They don't gain anything by voting 'no' and we need to move forward with President Trump's agenda."
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Nicole Weatherholtz ✉
Nicole Weatherholtz, a Newsmax general assignment reporter covers news, politics, and culture. She is a National Newspaper Association award-winning journalist.
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