A key House committee on Friday failed to advance House Republicans’ massive tax-and-spending bill after hard-line conservatives bucked President Donald Trump and blocked the bill over cost concerns.
The House Budget Committee rejected the bill 21-16, with Republican Reps. Chip Roy, Ralph Norman, Josh Brecheen, and Andrew Clyde joining Democrats to vote against it. The four hardliners demanded deeper cuts to Medicaid and other government programs.
It’s incredibly rare for bills to fail at this step in the process, with the committee vote typically serving as a rubber-stamp to the bill before it moves to the House floor.
Stefani Reynolds/Photographer: Stefani Reynolds/B
The setback could be temporary and the panel can still approve the bill once the GOP differences are resolved.
Republican Lloyd Smucker, who switched his vote to “no” to allow the committee to bring it up again, told reporters the committee will hold another vote on Monday.
Trump, whose social media muscle and calls to lawmakers have previously been crucial to advancing his priorities, inserted himself in the debate less than two hours before the vote, berating dissidents and urging them to fall into line.
“We don’t need ‘GRANDSTANDERS’ in the Republican Party,” Trump said in a social media post on Friday. “STOP TALKING, AND GET IT DONE! It is time to fix the MESS that Biden and the Democrats gave us. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”
The bill’s failure exposes the power a small group of lawmakers can wield as Republicans seek to push Trump’s “one big, beautiful bill” through the House with very narrow margins. GOP infighting threatens to kill the bill, or at least significantly delay Republicans’ plans to pass the bill next week.
(Read more: “‘One big beautiful bill’ full of tax surprises.”)
Republican holdouts spelled out their demands during Friday’s committee meeting, including accelerating new work requirements for able-bodied adults on Medicaid to take effect immediately rather the 2029 deadline set in the legislation. The ultraconservatives also want a faster phase-out of clean energy tax credits.
It wasn’t immediately clear how House Republicans will re-group to address the divisions and advance the bill.
“I’ll let you know this weekend if we’re going to return first thing Monday. That’s the goal at this point,” Budget Chairman Jodey Arrington said after the vote.
House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, who is helping to broker a deal among Republicans, said party leaders are in touch with the Trump administration to address some of the changes demanded by hardliners.
“We are all in agreement on the reforms we want to make,” Scalise said. “We want to have work requirements. We want to phase out a lot of these green subsidies. How quickly can you get it done?”
House Speaker Mike Johnson on Thursday pledged he would work through the weekend to broker a compromise between moderates, who are seeking an increase in state and local tax deductions, and ultra-conservatives, who say they won’t support it without more spending cuts.
(Read more: “Here are the winners and losers in the Republican tax bill.”)
Members from both factions — the SALT Republicans representing high-tax districts and the fiscal hawks who want steeper budget reductions — have threatened to block the bill if House leaders don’t acquiesce to their demands.
“No one group gets to decide all this stuff in either direction,” Roy, an ultraconservative Texas Republican advocating for bigger spending cuts, said in a brief interview on Friday. “There are key issues that we think have this budget falling short.”
Both Roy and Norman urged continued negotiations and significant changes to the bill that could in turn jeopardize support among moderates.
“I’m a hard no until we get this ironed out,” Norman said. “I think we can. We’ve made progress but it just takes time.”
If the legislation passes the House, it would then head to the Senate where it would likely undergo significant changes. Several members, including Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri, have stated opposition to the Medicaid cuts in the House bill.
