In a rare Sunday evening session, the House Budget Committee voted along party lines to advance the President Donald Trump-endorsed budget bill that has become the centerpiece of this administration’s legislative agenda. The outcome represents a victory for Trump’s plan to extend his tax cuts and military and border spending while cutting social services, and the vote comes after unusual pushback from congressional conservatives delayed the bill.
Tax bill moves forward after initial GOP dissent
On Sunday, Republicans on the House Budget Committee narrowly voted to move forward with Trump’s tax bill. The legislation, essentially a combination of massive tax and spending cuts, advanced on a 17-16 party-line vote. This vote came after the bill was held up on Friday when four Republicans on the committee sided with Democrats to block the legislation. The dissenting Republicans — Josh Brecheen of Oklahoma, Andrew Clyde of Georgia, Ralph Norman of South Carolina and Chip Roy of Texas — objected that the bill would add to the national deficit. After a weekend of Speaker Mike Johnson negotiating with them for an unspecified set of “just some minor modifications” to the bill, the four objecting Republicans switched their votes to “present” in order to allow the bill to advance.
Trump’s ‘big, beautiful bill’ criticized for cutting services, adding debt
The “big, beautiful bill,” as Trump and his allies have called it, encapsulates the bulk of Trump’s legislative agenda, The New York Times reported. It seeks to make permanent the 2017 tax cuts passed during Trump’s first term, which largely benefited wealthier Americans. It would also exempt tips and overtime pay from taxation, fulfilling a campaign promise Trump made. The plan intends to pay for all of this by enacting significant cuts to Medicaid and food stamps, as well as slashing education and clean energy spending, even as military and border security spending increases. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget has estimated that the bill, as currently written, will add between $3.3 trillion and $5.2 trillion to the national debt over the next 10 years.
The road ahead for Republicans
Even though the bill has cleared the House Budget Committee, it still has several steps and additional negotiations to go before it becomes law. The next step is to advance it to the House Rules Committee, which will likely take up the bill and vote on it before the end of the week. The House will be in recess next week, after which legislators will come back to deliberate. Along the way, Johnson will continue to negotiate with recalcitrant Republicans. The GOP has indicated a Memorial Day deadline to pass the bill, which Democrats oppose for its social services cuts and national debt implications.
Republicans currently control the White House and both chambers of Congress, but divisions within the House or between the House and the Senate could delay or altogether halt passage of this bill. So far, Republicans are publicly remaining confident that this bill and their overall agenda for the country will push forward.
