In a massive setback, House Republicans have failed to push their big package of tax breaks and spending cuts through the Budget Committee.
This came as a handful of conservatives joined all Democrats in a stunning vote against it.
The hard-right lawmakers are insisting on steeper spending cuts to Medicaid and the Biden-era green energy tax breaks, among other changes, before they will give their support to President Donald Trump’s “beautiful” bill.
They warn the tax cuts alone would pile onto the nation’s $36 trillion debt.
The failed vote, 16-21, stalls, for now, House Speaker Mike Johnson’s push to have the package approved next week. But the holdout lawmakers vowed to stay all weekend to negotiate changes as the Republican president is returning to Washington from the Middle East.
Four Republican conservatives initially voted against the package — Roy and Reps. Ralph Norman of South Carolina, Josh Brecheen of Oklahoma, Rep. Andrew Clyde of Georgia. Then one, Rep. Lloyd Smucker of Pennsylvania, switched his vote to no.
Tallying a whopping 1,116 pages, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, named with a nod to Trump, is teetering at a critical moment.
The conservatives are holding out for steeper cuts while GOP lawmakers from high-tax states including New York are demanding a deeper tax deduction, known as SALT, for their constituents.
At its core, the sprawling package extends the existing income tax cuts that were approved during Trump’s first term, in 2017, and adds new ones that the President campaigned on in 2024, including no taxes on tips, overtime pay and some auto loans.
It increases some tax breaks for middle-income earners, including a bolstered standard deduction of $32,000 for joint filers and a temporary $500 boost to the child tax credit, bringing it to $2,500.
It also provides an infusion of $350 billion for Trump’s deportation agenda and to bolster the Pentagon.
To offset more than $5 million in lost revenue, the package proposes rolling back other tax breaks, namely the green energy tax credits approved as part of President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act. Some conservatives want those to end immediately.
The package also seeks to cover the costs by slashing more than $1 trillion from health care and food assistance programs over the course of a decade, in part by imposing work requirements on able-bodied adults.
Ahead of Friday’s vote, Trump had in social media post, implored his party to fall in line.
“Republicans MUST UNITE behind, ‘THE ONE, BIG BEAUTIFUL BILL!’ We don’t need ‘GRANDSTANDERS’ in the Republican Party. STOP TALKING, AND GET IT DONE!”
Donald Trump
Big, Beautiful Betrayal
Democrats slammed the package as a “big, bad bill,” or as Rep. Pramila Jayapal called it, “one big, beautiful betrayal.”
They emphasized that millions of people would lose their health coverage and food stamps assistance if the bill passes while the wealthiest Americans would reap enormous tax cuts. They also said it would increase future deficits.
Brendan Boyle, the top Democratic lawmaker on the panel, “That is bad economics. It is unconscionable.”
The Budget panel is one of the final stops before the package is sent to the full House floor for a vote, which is expected as soon as next week.
Typically, the job of the Budget Committee is more administrative as it compiles the work of 11 committees that drew up various parts of the big bill.
But Friday’s meeting proved momentous even before the votes were tallied.
The conservatives, many from the Freedom Caucus, had been warning they would block the bill, using their leverage to demand further changes. Republicans hold a slim majority in the House and have just a few votes to spare to advance the measure.
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