“Vivek Ramaswamy could withdraw from working with the Department of Government Efficiency ahead of his bid for Ohio governor, which he intends to formally announce by the last week in January,” Politico reports.

“GOP tax writers are gathering support for creative ways to make the price tag $0 for extending Trump’s 2017 tax cuts,” Axios reports.

“The procedural and budgetary gambit will free Republicans from the burden of finding the $4 trillion in spending cuts. But deficit hawks, including member of the House Freedom Caucus, haven’t completely signed off on the novel approach.”

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said Friday the nation will hit its debt ceiling the day after President Trump is inaugurated and that the agency will begin “extraordinary measures” to stave off the threat of a national default, The Hill reports.

New York Times: U.S. to deploy ‘extraordinary measures’ to avoid default on January 21.

“The national debt will reach 99.9% of gross domestic product later this year and surpass its post-World War II high as a share of the economy by 2029, the Congressional Budget Office said Friday in updated projections,” the Wall Street Journal reports.

“Annual deficits will stay above 5% of GDP for the next decade, remaining at levels the U.S. normally doesn’t reach outside of wars, recessions and crises. The government’s cost to service that debt will continue to climb. Net interest expense, which already exceeds defense spending, will top $1 trillion in 2026. And by 2027, the government’s interest costs will be a larger share of the economy than at any point since at least 1940.”

“In reality, the fiscal picture may be even bleaker than the CBO forecast suggests. The official estimates assume that Congress enacts no new laws. That means the forecast for the next decade includes trillions of dollars in tax revenue that come from the expiration of the bulk of 2017 tax cuts at the end of 2025.”

House Budget Committee Republicans have put together a detailed document with a set of potential offsets and other options for the GOP’s reconciliation package.

It includes cost estimates for corporate rate cuts, various SALT cap options, expanding the endowment tax, a border adjustment tax and much more.

The U.S. government clawed back more than $31 million in federal payments that improperly went to dead people, a recovery that one official said Wednesday was “just the tip of the iceberg,” the AP reports.

“An influential group of five House Republicans from high-tax states is threatening to hold up a major tax package that is a top priority for President-elect Donald Trump unless they get a significant boost to the amount that their constituents can deduct from federal income taxes to reflect state and local taxes already paid,” CNBC reports.

“As negotiations over a major tax cuts bill get underway, they are also drawing a firm line: Simply doubling the maximum allowed deduction from the current $10,000 cap to $20,000, they say, is not enough.”

“President-elect Donald Trump’s long-standing threats to place conditions on California wildfire aid are gaining traction with Republicans, looming over the government’s response to the devastation in Los Angeles and infuriating Democratic leaders who said such actions would be unprecedented,” the Washington Post reports.

“Some Republicans have suggested tying the aid to government funding or an increase in the debt ceiling, which Trump tried to pressure lawmakers to do last month but struggled to sell to House Republicans. Others have suggested forcing California to change its water policies. Linking disaster funding to other priorities could increase the GOP’s leverage — but it could also backfire, with some Republicans already joining Democrats in condemning the threat.”

Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) told his conference that he wants the House to pass the budget resolution for reconciliation by Feb. 27 — a very quick timeline, Punchbowl News reports.

“Speaker Mike Johnson on Tuesday backed away from a plan to address the approaching federal debt cliff in a party-line reconciliation package, acknowledging several major challenges that may force Republicans to deal with the borrowing limit in bipartisan talks with Democrats,” Politico reports.

“Those obstacles include fractious House conservatives and ongoing strategic disputes with the Senate.”

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) said in a brief interview on Monday night that it was his “expectation” that his conference won’t tackle the debt ceiling as part of a border-energy reconciliation bill, Politico reports.

“Democrats are rejecting a tentative pitch by House Republicans to attach wildfire aid to a federal debt limit increase,” Politico reports.

“GOP lawmakers began floating the idea in meetings this weekend with incoming President Donald Trump. The thinking behind the plan, according to House Republicans, is that they’ll need bipartisan support to raise the cap on federal borrowing authority in the coming months and that including assistance for fire-stricken Southern California would be an incentive for Democrats to help solve one of Trump’s most pressing economic problems this year.”

“But Democrats are refusing to entertain the deal.”

USA Today: Speaker Mike Johnson says “conditions” should be placed on California wildfire aid.

“Speaker Mike Johnson confirmed to reporters Monday there’s “been some discussion” of tying California wildfire aid to a debt limit increase, after GOP members raised the issue with Donald Trump in several meetings at the President-elect’s Florida resort this weekend,” Politico reports.

“A group of House Republicans and President-elect Donald Trump talked about tying wildfire aid to a debt ceiling increase Sunday night, as the fires spreading across huge swaths of Los Angeles are estimated to become one of the costliest natural disasters in U.S. history,” Politico reports.

Playbook: “Though no final decisions were made about the way forward, the fact this discussion took place shows just how desperate Republicans are for a plan on how to raise the debt ceiling, given the deep split in their own conference about doing just that.”

Politico: “House colleagues in New York, New Jersey and California — where property taxes can easily exceed the current $10,000 cap for middle-class homeowners — will join him this weekend at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago transition headquarters to advocate for tax relief. The battleground members in the closely divided House know SALT could make or break their midterm campaigns, and interviews with six of them across the three states illuminated their strategy.”

“They plan to remind Trump of his campaign promise to ‘get SALT back,’ argue that the deduction helps middle-class voters in states that help decide House control and even appeal to him as a fellow New York property owner.”

“Elon Musk said Wednesday that his budget-cutting effort on behalf of President-elect Donald Trump would most likely not find $2 trillion in savings, backtracking on a goal he set earlier as co-head of a new advisory body, the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE,” CNBC reports.

George Will: Overhauling government isn’t rocket science. It’s harder.

Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) said in a brief interview Wednesday evening that House and Senate GOP leaders are likely to make a final decision by Thursday about how they’ll pursue the budget reconciliation process to enact their policy priorities and extend expiring tax cuts, Politico reports.