House GOP tries again to push Trump’s budget package forward after setback

Washington — The House Budget Committee returned late Sunday to attempt for a second time to move President Trump’s domestic policy bill closer to the finish line after conservatives rebelled Friday over concerns the legislation does not contain steep enough spending cuts. 

Five Republicans — Reps. Chip Roy of Texas, Ralph Norman of South Carolina, Josh Brecheen of Oklahoma, Andrew Clyde of Georgia and Lloyd Smucker of Pennsylvania — voted against advancing the legislation when the committee met Friday to stitch together the various parts of the reconciliation package into a single bill. Smucker said he supported the bill but changed his vote at the last minute so the committee could bring it up again once their issues were resolved. 

None of the Democrats in the committee voted to advance the measure, causing the vote to fail. Most legislation needs to be voted out of committee to make it to the House floor, where Republicans only afford to lose a small amount of votes due to the slim majority. 

House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, has remained committed to putting the legislation, which would extend tax cuts from Mr. Trump’s first term while temporarily ending taxes on tips and overtime, on the floor before Memorial Day despite the disagreements between some factions in his party. The tax measures, as well as increased spending on the military and border security, would be offset partly by cuts to Medicaid, food stamps and clean energy subsidies.

“The Budget Committee will reconvene this evening. They’ll get that through the committee, and the plan is to move it to the Rules Committee by midweek and to the House floor by the end of the week, so we meet our initial or original Memorial Day deadline,” Johnson said on “Fox News Sunday.” 

Conservatives have taken issue with the bill’s failure to install work requirements for childless Medicaid recipients without disabilities before 2029. They also want to end clean energy subsidies that were implemented under the Inflation Reduction Act, which was signed into law by former President Joe Biden. 

“This bill has back-loaded savings and has front-loaded spending,” Roy said at Friday’s meeting. 

Hours before the Budget Committee was set to reconvene Sunday, Roy said there was progress being made on the issues, but “we’re not there yet.” 

Johnson told Fox News that Medicaid work requirements are a “no-brainer,” but noted that it may not be feasible to implement them immediately because it will take time for states to adjust. 

Ahead of the committee’s vote, Johnson told reporters that “talks have gone great” and there will be some “minor modifications” made to the legislation. 

Meanwhile, a group of Republicans from blue states have threatened to withhold their support in a floor vote if the bill does not raise a cap on state and local taxes that can be written off on federal tax returns. The bill increases the cap on the deduction from $10,000 to $30,000, but several New York Republicans have insisted on raising it even further. 

There also appeared to be a late effort to raise the top income tax rate, though Republican leadership has opposed the idea. 

Republican Rep. Nick LaLota of New York on Saturday floated raising the rate for individuals earning more than $609,350 and married couples earning over $731,200. Doing so, he argued, would help satisfy conservative demands for more cuts and help pay for the state-and-local deduction. 

Mr. Trump put pressure on the holdouts on Friday as he headed back from the Middle East, saying the party doesn’t need “grandstanders.” 

“STOP TALKING, AND GET IT DONE!” Mr. Trump wrote on Truth Social.