(The Center Square) – The Republican multitrillion-dollar budget reconciliation package may undergo significant edits before reaching the House floor after party leaders conceded to holdouts’ demands.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., wants the 1,116-page policy bill to pass the House before Memorial Day next Monday, but fiscal hawks on the House Budget Committee stalled his plans Friday by opposing the mammoth legislation that committees spent weeks drafting.
Reps. Chip Roy, R-Texas; Ralph Norman, R-S.C.; Andrew Clyde, R-Ga.; Josh Brecheen, R-Okla., refused to support the alarmingly expensive bill, which, among other things, would permanently extend President Donald Trump’s 2017 tax cuts and cost anywhere from $3.3 trillion to $4.1 trillion over the next decade alone.
Russell Vought, director of the federal Office of Management and Budget, pushed back on deficit and spending concerns after the failed Friday vote, saying the budget reconciliation bill as written “deserves the vote of every member of Congress” and that Republican holdouts’ criticisms are “profoundly wrong.”
After receiving promises from Johnson that the Medicaid work requirements will take effect sooner than currently written and that further renewable energy subsidies will be cut off, the four lawmakers all voted present in the reconvened budget hearing Sunday.
The legislation now moves to the House Rules Committee, which Roy and Noman are also members of, to receive the final changes early Wednesday before hitting the House floor Thursday.
But Johnson’s challenges are far from over, with Roy and others expressing their continued dissatisfaction after the Sunday night vote.
“Thanks to discussions over the weekend, the bill will be closer to the budget resolution framework we agreed upon in the House in April, but it fails to actually honor our promise to significantly correct the spending trajectory of the federal government and lead our nation towards a balanced budget,” Roy said on X.
But other Republicans in vulnerable seats will likely object if they consider the promised changes to Medicaid and renewable energy subsidies too drastic. A dozen of those lawmakers even sent Johnson a letter in April, warning they will withhold their support on the House floor if Medicaid is substantially changed.
