(The Center Square) – House Budget Committee lawmakers have left for the weekend without advancing a budget reconciliation package, delaying House Speaker Mike Johnson’s, R-La., plans to have a policy megabill reach the floor by early next week.
The 16-21 vote saw five Republicans join all Democrats to tank the 1,116-page legislation implementing President Donald Trump’s tax, energy, border, and defense policies.
After weeks of individual House committee markups, the Budget committee was supposed to compile all 11 bills into one giant reconciliation bill that, among other things, would permanently extend Trump’s 2017 tax cuts and cost anywhere from $3.3 trillion to $4.1 trillion over the next decade alone.
Reps. Chip Roy, R-Texas; Ralph Norman, R-S.C.; Andrew Clyde, R-Ga.; Josh Brecheen, R-Okla., and Lloyd Smucker, R-Pa., ultimately voted against the final product.
While the first four lawmakers opposed the bill due to concerns about deficit impacts and unsatisfactory Medicaid reforms, Smucker supported the bill but changed his vote last-minute to fulfill a procedural requirement that allows the committee to reconsider the bill’s advancement.
Roy, Norman, and the other fiscal hawks have said they cannot support the legislation in its current form because the tax cut portion balloons the debt and deficit, the energy portion keeps too many renewable energy subsidies from the Inflation Reduction Act, and the health portion delays Medicaid work requirements until 2029, when Trump will have left office.
Republicans’ budget resolution instructed committees to find a total of at least $2 trillion in spending cuts to help finance a permanent extension of the $2,000 maximum child tax credit, higher standard deductions, and Qualified Business Income deduction, among other Trump tax promises.
House committees complied, finding savings through proposed rollbacks to some energy and climate subsidies; work requirements for able-bodied, adult Medicaid recipients without dependents; state cost-sharing requirements in the SNAP program; and fees on migrants when they apply for Temporary Protected Status.
But – particularly given Senate Republicans’ plans to use the current policy baseline “gimmick” when calculating the cost of their own additions – Republican hardliners in the House are pushing for more or expedited spending cuts, especially to large programs like Medicaid.
They reference estimates from nonpartisan organizations like the Congressional Budget Office, showing that the budget reconciliation plan in its current form could have dire fiscal consequences like doubling the federal debt over the next 30 years.
“The fact of the matter is, this bill has backloaded savings and has frontloaded spending,” Roy said during the Friday hearing. “If we would reform Medicaid, we could actually get to the core of the problem. But we refuse to do it … We are writing checks we cannot cash, and our children are going to pay the price.”
Meanwhile, House Republicans in vulnerable seats have demanded that the final bill protect the current status of Medicaid, putting Johnson in a difficult position as both sides have promised (and are now proving) that they will withhold their support if their conditions are not met.
Johnson and Budget Committee Chairman Jodey Arrington, R-Ky., are planning to negotiate with hardliners over the weekend, hoping to gather enough Republican votes to pass the megabill out of the Budget committee, to the House Rules committee (which would add any compromise changes), and finally to the House floor for a vote by May 22.
