Republicans’ “big, beautiful bill” appears on a glidepath to passing the House Thursday morning after GOP leaders rolled out a slew of eleventh-hour changes to appease holdouts from across their conference’s competing factions. A final vote is expected soon.
Catch up quick: After a more than 21-hour Rules Committee markup — followed by several procedural votes forced by Democrats as delay tactics — the House finally adopted the rule governing floor debate for the revised GOP megabill at 2:40 a.m. Thursday. The largely party-line 217-212 vote had just one Republican defection: Rep. Thomas Massie (Ky.), who made it clear he was a “no” from the start.
“If something’s beautiful, you don’t do it after midnight,” Massie said on the floor in the wee hours Thursday.
Dropping just one GOP vote on the rule is a good sign for Speaker Mike Johnson as he navigates his slim majority toward final passage. Johnson was confident early Thursday he had the votes, but couched: “You never know ‘til the final vote tally.”
Johnson flipped at least one holdout overnight: Rep. Ralph Norman (S.C.), who told POLITICO that voting for the party-line bill to enact President Donald Trump’s domestic agenda is “the right thing to do.”
But House Freedom Caucus Chair Andy Harris (Md.) said he was “not a ‘yes’ yet” as of early Thursday, and Rep. Chip Roy (Texas) also appeared on the fence, telling reporters around 3 a.m. that the changes GOP leaders made overnight are “better” but “could still be better.”
Barring last-minute hiccups, the speaker looks on track to hit his self-imposed Memorial Day megabill deadline, thanks to a raft of changes aimed at quelling rebellions from fiscal hawks to swing-seat moderates. Hard-liners got more Medicaid cuts and clean-energy rollbacks. Blue-state Republicans got a bigger boost for the state-and-local-tax deduction.
Here are some of the most significant adjustments, and read up on some other key tweaks:
MEDICAID — Work requirements would kick in at the end of 2026, rather than the start of 2029 as initially proposed. There would be financial incentives for states not to expand coverage to people who are still near the poverty line but have higher incomes than traditional enrollees. And the bill would bar coverage for gender-affirming care for adults under the program, not just minors as initially proposed.
SALT — The cap on the state-and-local-tax deduction would quadruple to $40,000 from $10,000, but be phased out for taxpayers making more than $500,000. The $40,000 deduction cap and $500,000 income limit would increase by 1 percent through 2033. The cap is up from the $30,000 limit GOP leaders initially proposed.
TAX CREDITS — The revised bill would weaken the clean electricity investment and production tax credits to a point where clean-energy developers say they may be rendered largely unusable. Projects would need to “commence construction” within 60 days of the bill’s enactment to qualify for tax credits and be placed in service by the end of 2028. But Republicans did soften rollbacks of credits for advanced nuclear reactors.
What else we’re watching:
— CRA debate: Senate Majority Leader John Thune managed to avoid directly overruling the parliamentarian late Wednesday night as part of the party’s effort to nix California’s EPA waivers. He did so by effectively kicking the question about what rules qualify for consideration under the Congressional Review Act back to the Senate, which voted in favor of changing the definition along party lines. The chamber is set to vote to repeal the waivers Thursday.
— Qatari jet plane controversy: Thune says he believes lawmakers will get “more information” soon about Qatar’s gift to Trump of a $400 million luxury jet for use as Air Force One. The administration is “prepared to brief us on that,” Thune said.
— More Library of Congress fallout: Sen. Susan Collins (Maine) is calling on lawmakers to take charge in appointing the heads of major legislative-branch agencies, including the Library of Congress and Government Accountability Office, following attempted Trump administration meddling. It’s the latest sign of growing GOP pushback to the Trump administration’s inroads into agencies traditionally under legislative purview.
Jordain Carney and Meredith Lee Hill contributed to this report.
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