GOP budget adopted in House after late arm-twisting

WASHINGTON — House Republican leaders rammed through their framework for a “big, beautiful” budget package Tuesday night after they initially couldn’t muster the votes, only to pull a last-minute switcheroo and start the roll call as Democrats who’d already started leaving the Capitol cried foul.

It was a major victory for Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., who’s struggled to unite the conservative and centrist factions of his conference to rally around a budget reconciliation process that could deliver much of President Donald Trump’s agenda without the risk of a Senate Democratic filibuster.

Trump spent hours lobbying holdouts on Tuesday after Johnson, his leadership team and key committee chairs spent weeks trying to rally support. In the end, just one Republican — Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie, also the lone Republican to oppose Johnson for speaker — voted against the resolution, which was adopted 217-215.

The fiscal 2025 budget blueprint would allow for up to $4.5 trillion in extended tax cuts and new tax breaks, provided Congress finds a way to cut $2 trillion from federal spending over the coming decade. It would raise the nation’s borrowing limit by $4 trillion, while providing up to $200 billion in border security funding and up to $100 billion in defense funding.

The biggest problems appeared to be on the conservative end of the GOP political spectrum. GOP leaders huddled during votes with a number of hard-liners who’ve been firm in recent days that the budget plan doesn’t go far enough to cut spending.

Members getting substantial attention on the floor Tuesday night included Massie and GOP Reps. Tim Burchett of Tennessee, Warren Davidson of Ohio and Victoria Spartz of Indiana.

Republican leaders thought they might catch a lucky break with Democratic absences giving them an added buffer. But three recent absentees made surprise returns to the Capitol late Tuesday, reducing the GOP margin to just one vote they could lose on their side and still adopt the resolution along party lines.

Rep. Frederica S. Wilson, D-Fla., who had last voted on Jan. 23, was back Tuesday night, as was Kevin Mullin, D-Calif., who’s been out due to complications from knee surgery. And Rep. Brittany Pettersen, D-Colo., who’d been out on maternity leave since early January, also returned; Pettersen was spotted on the floor holding her infant son during the vote series.

Intense lobbying

All of the Republican holdouts save Massie eventually came on board, however, after intervention from Trump and a lot of arm-twisting on the House floor during votes.

Davidson, whose main concern had been ensuring that cuts to discretionary spending are made as part of the likely upcoming stopgap appropriations bill needed by March 14, said he’d received “assurances” that cuts would be part of that deal and future spending bills.

Burchett, who spoke to Trump by phone, said the president had asked “to give him a starting point” on spending cuts and tax policy. “And I thought this was it,” Burchett said.

GOP leaders initially tried to work some last-minute magic by holding open an unrelated and noncontroversial suspension vote well beyond the allotted 15 minutes to buy time for some additional arm-twisting on the floor. Then they jumped over the budget resolution, which was supposed to come to a vote next, in favor of the other suspension bill that was scheduled for the Tuesday night vote series.

That was when it became clear, at least initially, that the budget vote would get yanked. GOP lawmakers came out of the chamber and told reporters there would be no more votes Tuesday night; Democratic counterparts were told the same thing by their leadership, and many left the building.

Shortly afterward, members started flooding back into the chamber. House Minority Whip Katherine M. Clark, D-Mass., sent a notice to her caucus to get back for the vote: “House Republicans are trying to jam through their budget resolution after assuring House Democrats that there would be no further votes this evening,” Clark wrote.

To buy time for their colleagues to get back, Democratic House members used their red voting card to vote “no” manually rather than use the electronic voting machines — a considerably slower process.

First step

But the budget resolution marks only the first step toward passing the mammoth reconciliation bill that House Republicans are seeking to enact Trump’s agenda. And the plan remains at odds with that of Senate Republicans, who are pursuing their own slimmer budget blueprint focused on border security and defense, while deferring tax legislation until later in the year.

Both chambers would need to adopt the same budget resolution before taking up a reconciliation bill containing all the specific spending cuts, tax cuts and other measures.

And Senate leaders have already said they would want changes to the House budget plan to make sure that expiring tax cuts from 2017 would be made permanent. The House plan may not provide enough fiscal headroom to accomplish that while offering new tax breaks sought by Trump, including exemptions from the income tax for tips and Social Security benefits.

From the moment the House budget resolution was unveiled two weeks ago, it drew criticism from both wings of the Republican Conference. Ultraconservatives, mostly from the rebellious Freedom Caucus, said an initial draft calling for $1.5 trillion in spending cuts was insufficient. They won adoption of an amendment in the Budget Committee that would force the size of tax cuts to be scaled back if spending cuts fall short of $2 trillion.

Even then, a few conservatives declared their opposition to the measure and several others kept their vote up for grabs until the final moments of floor action Tuesday night.

Before the vote, Davidson said he was still a “no” because “Congress is unwilling to cut anything” as part of the March 14 bill. “Same plan as always: surrender now with a hollow promise to fight later,” Davidson wrote on X, the social platform once known as Twitter. “I can’t support that.”

In a response to Davidson before the vote, Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., wrote: “You’re not wrong.” She voted for it anyway.

Party moderates, meanwhile, earlier expressed concern about the impact spending cuts could have on Medicaid, the health insurance program for low-income families. The budget would instruct the Energy and Commerce Committee to find $880 billion in savings over a decade, and Medicaid is the ripest target for cuts in that panel’s jurisdiction. Cuts to food stamp benefits in the Agriculture panel’s jurisdiction were another sticking point.

But they won reassurances from House leaders after a late-night meeting Monday that included Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., and Energy and Commerce Chairman Brett Guthrie, R-Ky., Johnson said Tuesday, that cost-cutting would focus on Medicaid fraud, while not touching benefits for those eligible for the program.

Republicans also made the case that without their budget blueprint, they wouldn’t be able to deliver the tax cut extensions needed to prevent stiff tax increases after this year when the 2017 provisions are set to expire.

Scalise during floor debate pointed to estimates that as many as 145 million households earning less than $1 million annually would see tax increases if the law isn’t extended.

How big, how beautiful?

The president has said for weeks that he favors the House plan to deliver all of his top legislative priorities in one fell swoop.

But he’s also sent mixed signals that the Senate’s fallback plan might also be acceptable. And in comments to reporters Tuesday, he again suggested he was fine with either approach, or a blend of the two.

“So the House has a bill and the Senate has a bill, and I’m looking at them both, and I’ll make decisions,” Trump said at the White House on Tuesday. “I know the Senate’s doing very well, and the House is doing very well, but each one of them has things that I like, so we’ll see if we can come together.”

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(Roll Call's Briana Reilly, Nina Heller, Aidan Quigley and John T. Bennett contributed to this report.)

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