The House of Representatives passed President Donald Trump’s “one big, beautiful bill” on Sunday night, advancing it toward a chamber-wide vote later this week.
It follows plans to advance the bill on Friday morning being derailed by a revolt by four conservative members of the House.
To re-vote on the bill, members of the House Budget Committee were called back to Washington for a meeting at 10 p.m. In a vote that was almost party-line, it passed the panel 17 to 16, with four Republicans voting “present.”
There will probably be “minor modifications” to the final bill, Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., told reporters in the committee room just before the vote started. He then vanished into a back room with the four GOP holdouts who sunk the bill on Friday morning.
In a subsequent series of statements to reporters shortly before the vote started, Johnson expressed confidence by saying, “I think what is about to happen here is that every member, every Republican member, will give a vote that allows us to proceed forward, and we count that as a big win tonight.”
Expecting “productive discussions” with different House GOP factions, the speaker stated, “I am absolutely convinced we’re going to get this in final form and pass it in accordance with our original deadline.”
The fiscal hawks wanted guarantees that tougher crackdowns on Medicaid and green energy subsidies in the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) would be included in the final bill before a House-wide vote, so four conservative members of the House Freedom Caucus on the committee blocked the bill from moving forward on Friday.
After receiving those assurances from House GOP leaders, the four conservatives voted “present” on Sunday night in an attempt to advance the conversation.
The House Budget Committee’s advancement of the legislation is primarily a procedural one. The House Rules Committee is the last gatekeeper before a House-wide vote, and lawmakers have indicated that some changes will be introduced as amendments there early this week.
Notably, Representatives Chip Roy (R-Texas) and Ralph Norman (R-South Carolina), two fiscal hawks on the Budget Committee who called for additional changes, are also members of the House Rules Committee.
“After much effort and participation over the weekend, the Budget Committee advanced a reconciliation bill tonight that establishes the groundwork for significant spending cuts and reforms, border security, and much-needed tax relief. In a statement following the vote, Roy noted, “It is important that the bill will now advance Medicaid work requirements and reduce the availability of future subsidies under the green new scam.”
Meanwhile, Norman told Fox News Digital that the four conservatives received written confirmation of those promises from House GOP leaders.
Earlier this year, the House Budget Committee approved a framework that included “instructions” for several other committees to implement Trump policies within their purview.
House committees started drafting those policies after the House and Senate passed their frameworks, and they have since been reassembled into the massive bill that the House Budget Committee advanced on Sunday night.
The budget reconciliation process, which enables the party in control of both Congress and the White House to pass massive pieces of legislation while totally ignoring the minority, in this case Democrats, is being used by Republicans to advance Trump’s agenda.
In order to align with the House’s own simple majority, it lowers the Senate’s threshold for passage from 60 votes to 51. However, only provisions pertaining to federal spending, taxes, and the national debt must be included in the legislation.
Republicans are using the bill to implement Trump’s campaign pledges on defense, energy, immigration, tax cuts, and debt ceiling increases.
House Republican leaders have won the battle to quell Friday’s GOP mutiny, but before the bill is taken up by the House Rules Committee, lawmakers will still need to endure intense negotiations over any changes.
Republicans claim they are only cutting Medicaid for waste, fraud, and abuse, but conservatives disagree with some parts of the legislation’s crackdown on the program. Conservatives have argued that, among other things, there was a significant window of opportunity to reverse the Medicaid work requirements for able-bodied individuals, which are not scheduled to take effect until 2029.
Additionally, they are advocating for a more vigorous attempt to revoke the green energy tax subsidies that were implemented in the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) of the previous Biden administration.
Their campaigns have put them up against Republican lawmakers whose districts have businesses that have profited from the tax breaks, as well as moderates who are apprehensive about large Medicaid cuts.
Red state Republicans have mostly rejected the demand for higher state and local tax (SALT) deduction caps made by moderates in high-cost-of-living regions as a means of supporting high-tax blue states.
However, the Republicans who hold those seats contend that it is an existential issue for their districts, where the House majority was won and held thanks in large part to GOP victories.
The “big, beautiful bill” won’t likely be finished by Republicans in the House, though, as they have already indicated that they will probably make changes to it.
House and Senate leaders were “in close coordination” on the final product, Johnson stated on Fox News Sunday, adding, “we hope that they don’t make many modifications to it.”
Any modifications will need to be reintroduced into the House; identical bills must pass both houses before Trump signs them into law.
Republican leaders have stated that they intend to have a bill signed into law by July 4th.
