Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) and other House leaders face a short, daunting timeline to sway fiscal hawks who are keeping the “one big, beautiful bill” from passing through the Budget Committee.
The reconciliation package, which cuts $1.5 trillion to offset the cost of preserving the president’s 2017 tax breaks, failed in the Budget Committee on Friday after five Republicans voted against it. Four of the five were Freedom Caucus members who are displeased with the legislation’s timelines and ambiguity over raising the state and local taxes cap.
Republicans are now working through Friday and Saturday to find assurances for the fiscal hawks that there will be alterations to the bill, likely in the Rules Committee, as the Budget Committee’s purpose is to confirm that each committee assigned a portion in reconciliation met their targets set in the budget blueprint.
A vote is scheduled for Sunday at 10 p.m., three sources confirmed to the Washington Examiner. The committee has noticed the Sunday hearing, as well.
BIG BEAUTIFUL BILL IN THE BALANCE: GOP FRACTURES OVER MEDICAID WORK REQUIREMENTS
After the vote, Budget Committee Chairman Jodey Arrington (R-TX) told reporters that Friday was a “catalyst” to push discussions forward.
“You never know until you call the question where people stand, which is the reason I called for a vote,” Arrington said. “You can’t accomplish anything in life without having deadlines and decisions. Today was a deadline and a decision, and it’s one of the decision points to get us to the successful passage of the reconciliation bill.”
The vote’s fate was mostly predetermined. Three of the Republican detractors, Reps. Chip Roy (TX), Andrew Clyde (GA), and Ralph Norman (SC), said on Thursday that they had issues with the legislation and were strongly opposed to voting for it in committee. They demanded substantive changes to the language, particularly the effective dates for Medicaid work requirements, and wanted the SALT cap to be decided on before the vote.
“This was not to be a policymaking or policy-amending exercise,” Arrington said of Friday’s vote. “We struck a deal with leadership when we fashioned the fiscal framework with the budget targets. We did it in good faith. The conference has met those targets. And I believe the right thing to do is to move it on to the next phase, which would be the Rules Committee.”
“Those things have to be meted out through leadership, through other members in the conference … not at the Budget Committee. I don’t think that’s appropriate, so that’s my position … I think we’re very close to the resolutions necessary to get it out of this barn and into the pasture of the Rules Committee,” the chairman added.
The remaining two “no” votes were Reps. Josh Brecheen (R-OK) and Lloyd Smucker (R-PA). Smucker, vice chairman of the Budget Committee, is not opposed to the reconciliation bill but switched his vote from “yes” to “no” for procedural reasons to allow the bill to come back up on Sunday.
The vote came after President Donald Trump, who had mostly stayed out of the fight until Friday, called for unity within the conference. He told Republicans to fall in line and stop being “GRANDSTANDERS.”
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement Friday afternoon that Republicans “MUST unite” behind the bill.
“The White House will continue to have conversations over the weekend strongly urging House Members to seize the generational opportunity before them and vote YES on this historic legislation to fix the mess [former President] Joe Biden created,” Leavitt said. “The White House expects ALL Republicans to vote for this bill and successfully pass it through Committee in the near future.”
But Arrington doesn’t think the president needs to get involved more than he has at this stage in the game.
“He wants this done, and he wants it done at the earliest practical time, and the commitment has been by Memorial Day, and we’ve been on pace, or ahead of schedule, to accomplish that,” the chairman said.
The Freedom Caucus issued a statement shortly after the vote stating that their members who voted “no” would continue to work in “good faith” to pass the bill.
“We were making progress before the vote in the Budget Committee and will continue negotiations to further improve the reconciliation package,” the caucus said. “We are not going anywhere and we will continue to work through the weekend.”
Norman had said ahead of the vote that he wanted to see assurances in writing, particularly moving up the effective date of the Medicaid work requirements. However, House Republican leadership staff said on a press call with reporters Friday afternoon that members would have to rely on a handshake agreement, given that the bill cannot be altered in the Budget Committee.
“We got to make sure that it’s not smoke and mirrors,” Norman said.
“We’re trying to put forth things that make sense from a financial standpoint,” Norman added. “We’ve got a math problem in this country. That’s all it is. We got a math problem. You can say we’ve got a credit and we’re going to save money to the American people when it’s really four years out, we’re funding it, but it’s as if it doesn’t have interest, that doesn’t make sense.”
Roy said during the committee hearing that the bill falls “profoundly short” of what was put forth in its blueprint.
“It does not do what we say it does with respect to deficits … We shouldn’t say that we’re doing something we’re not doing,” he said. “The fact of the matter is this bill has backloaded savings and has frontloaded spending.”
House Republican leadership staff said the bill reflects the $1.5 trillion in spending cuts proposed in the budget resolution that all four holdouts voted in favor of in February and again in April.
Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) told reporters Thursday that he is willing to work through the weekend to find a compromise, including finding provisions for a higher SALT cap and enforcing Medicaid work requirements sooner than the proposed 2029 start date.
“I’m convinced that we’ll be able to adjust the dial, so to speak, so that we can come to an agreement that will meet the criteria that everybody has and that we can move this thing forward,” Johnson said after Thursday’s meeting with Roy and other members of the Freedom and SALT caucuses.
Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA) said ahead of Friday’s vote that leadership has had “really good conversations” with Budget Committee holdouts and they have a “couple final issues that we’re working through.”
“What they want to see is progress and get answers on some of the questions and expedite the timelines,” Scalise told reporters. “Look, we’re all in agreement on the reforms we want to make. We want to have work requirements; we want to phase out a lot of these green subsidies. You know, how quickly can you get it done? It’s not as quickly as saying you just turn it off tomorrow.”
Scalise said Trump, who is returning from a trip to the Middle East, has been following the situation “closely” and admitted that Republicans were prepared for weekend deliberations. He said he’s unsure if Trump is making calls to the holdouts.
FISCAL HAWKS SINK ‘BIG, BEAUTIFUL BILL’ DURING HOUSE BUDGET VOTE DESPITE TRUMP UNITY PLEA
Also hovering over leadership’s head is the continuing debate to raise the SALT cap, after several blue-state GOP lawmakers, such as Reps. Nick LaLota (R-NY) and Mike Lawler (R-NY) said they wouldn’t vote for the reconciliation package unless the SALT cap is higher than the proposed $30,000.
“Issues like SALT are still going to be worked through the weekend,” Scalise said. “We’re having conversations as we go through the weekend to resolve SALT, that’s going to be addressed in the Rules Committee … A couple of additional items, you know, just reworking the timelines of implementation. But that’s Rules, that’s not Budget.”
