In a massive victory for President Donald Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., the House of Representatives passed a bill Thursday that will set the stage for a massive conservative policy overhaul.
The legislation passed mostly along party lines on Thursday morning after a long night of negotiations between House GOP leaders and fiscal hawks who were critical of its spending cut levels.
Just two Republicans voted against the legislation – Reps. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., and Victoria Spartz, R-Ind. – which passed 216 to 214. No Democrats supported it, as expected. Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., held a press conference on Thursday morning in a bid to allay conservatives’ concerns.
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“I’m happy to tell you that this morning, I believe we have the votes to finally adopt the budget resolution so we can move forward on President Trump’s very important agenda for the American people,” Johnson said. “Our first big, beautiful reconciliation package here, involves a number of commitments. And one of those is that we are committed to finding at least $1.5 trillion in savings for the American people, while also preserving our essential programs.”
Thune added, “We are aligned with the House in terms of what their budget resolution outlined in terms of savings. The speaker has talked about $1.5 trillion. We have a lot of United States senators who believe in that as a minimum.”
It comes after the House’s initial plan to vote on the legislation on Wednesday was quickly scuttled at the last minute in the face of more than a dozen Republican holdouts.
Several of those holdouts said Thune’s public commitment helped sway them in comments to reporters after the vote.
“We have now three strong statements from the speaker, the president and the Senate Majority Leader. We did not have those 48 hours ago. We do now,” said Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas.
Congressional Republicans are working on a massive conservative policy overhaul via the budget reconciliation process. By lowering the Senate’s threshold for passage from 60 votes to 51, it allows the party in power to pass significant fiscal and budgetary policy changes.
In this case, Republicans are looking for some added funds for border security, defense, and to raise the debt ceiling – while paring back spending on the former Biden administration’s green energy policies and in other sections of the federal government, likely including entitlement programs.
GOP lawmakers are also looking to extend Trump’s 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, the provisions of which expire at the end of this year. They will also need new funding for Trump’s efforts to eliminate taxes on tipped and overtime wages.
The House passed its own version of the plan earlier this year, calling for at least $1.5 trillion in spending cuts to offset the new spending and attempt to bring down the national debt – which is over $36 trillion. The Senate’s plan closely aligns with the House version, but mandates a minimum of $4 billion in cuts, a significant gap to bridge.
An unrelated vote was held open for over an hour on Wednesday night, with lawmakers growing impatient on the House floor, while Johnson huddled in a back room with holdouts.
One House Republican told Fox News Digital there was some frustration with how Johnson handled the matter.
“He kept the entire conference out on the floor for 80 minutes while you play graba– with these people,” the GOP lawmaker fumed. “And all day it was like, ‘Oh, we’re going to get this done.'”
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That House Republican said, “All the chatter we were hearing was [holdouts were] down to single digits. But 17 … 20 people were in that room. So clearly there was a much bigger problem than they were letting on all day.”
Traditionally, the House and Senate must pass identical reconciliation frameworks to begin the work of crafting policy to fit into that framework.
Republicans are also working up against the clock – the debt ceiling is expected to be reached sometime this summer, after which the U.S. government risks a national default if it does not raise that limit to pay its debts.
Trump’s 2017 tax cuts are also projected to expire at the end of this year if they are not extended.
