House Republican leaders delayed a vote Friday morning to push their party-line tax and spending package through the Budget Committee amid ongoing GOP opposition.
To placate fiscal conservatives on the panel, Republican leaders are entertaining substantial changes to the bill before lawmakers are expected to vote on passage next week, including enforcing work requirements on Medicaid recipients earlier than the 2029 deadline in the bill and immediately revoking Medicaid benefits from undocumented immigrants. Top House GOP lawmakers plan to continue private talks with the White House and reluctant Republicans, after late-night negotiations ahead of the budget panel’s markup.
Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), a key holdout, said during the Friday markup that “this bill falls profoundly short.”
“It does not do what we say it does with respect to deficits,” Roy said. “The fact of the matter is this bill has back-loaded savings and has front-loaded spending. … And I’m not going to sit here and say that everything is hunky-dory when this is the Budget Committee. This is the Budget Committee!”
House Republican leaders are talking to the Biden administration about imposing Medicaid work requirements in 2027 or earlier, amid reluctance among White House officials to enforce those mandates before 2029, when the current presidency is over. Reps. Andrew Clyde of Georgia and Ralph Norman of South Carolina also said Friday they opposed the bill as written.
House Majority Leader Steve Scalise said in a brief interview Friday morning that White House officials “recognize that our members want to see this moved quicker. They do too. And we’re going to get there.”
Launching the measure from the Budget Committee would not necessarily be a sign that GOP leaders are on the fast track to clearing the more than 1,100-page package they have officially named the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” at President Donald Trump’s suggestion. In 2022, for example, it took Democrats more than 10 months to achieve final passage of their own behemoth party-line package, the Inflation Reduction Act, after the House Budget Committee approved an initial version in the summer of 2021.
Now, Democrats are reveling in the GOP discord over the megabill key to delivering on Trump’s biggest campaign-trail promises.
“There is a strong divide between Republicans and some other Republicans,” Pennsylvania Rep. Brendan Boyle, the top Democrat on the Budget Committee, said during the Friday markup, prompting laughter throughout the room.
The House Budget Committee’s vote is a necessary — but largely performative — step that bundles the 11 different bills Republicans have approved over the last few weeks through their policy committees, including the piece the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee advanced this week and the measure the Energy and Commerce Committee approved after an all-night markup of Medicaid policies forecast to strip health care coverage from more than 10 million people.
Fiscal conservatives voiced disappointment Friday that the package doesn’t include deeper spending cuts or slash tax benefits to low-income households.
“This is not the big, beautiful bill that I had hoped for,” Rep. Chuck Edwards (R-N.C.) said during the markup. “The flaw with this bill is it doesn’t go far enough, fast enough, to get our fiscal house in order. But it does take some great strides.”
Rep. Glenn Grothman (R-Wis.) complained that “too many people out here did not want the wonderful bill that so many of us were expecting in January and February.”
Republican leaders’ decision to enforce work requirements on Medicaid recipients in 2029, rather than sooner, “indicates that there was kind of a lack of sincerity,” Grothman added. “Nevertheless, there’s some good things in here.”
Before delaying the approval vote on Friday, House Budget Chair Jodey Arrington (R-Texas) called the bill the key to “advancing the full ‘America first’ agenda, realizing President Trump’s vision and the House Republicans’ unwavering commitment to making America safe and prosperous again.”
Read the full article here