1 week Ago By The Hill
House Republican leaders on Wednesday scrapped plans to vote on the Senate’s framework to advance key parts of President Trump’s legislative agenda, a major setback that came in the face of opposition from hardline conservatives.Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said the chamber would vote on the measure Thursday.
“We are working through some good ideas and solutions to get everybody there; it may not happen tonight but probably by tomorrow morning,” Johnson told reporters. “This is part of the process, this is a very constructive process, I’m very optimistic about the outcome of this one big, beautiful bill, and this is just one of the steps in getting there.”Still, the delay marks a blow to both Johnson and Trump.
The chamber was initially scheduled to vote on the measure at around 5:30 p.m. Wednesday.
But a number of lawmakers in the party's right flank remained entrenched in opposition to the measure, unwilling to waver from that resistance despite intense lobbying from Trump himself.The president hosted hardline Republicans for a meeting at the White House Tuesday afternoon; fired off a series of Truth Social posts urging Republicans to get in line with the measure; and offered a no-words-minced order to holdouts during the National Republican Congressional Committee’s (NRCC) fundraiser Tuesday night.“They have to do this.
We have to get there. I think we are there. We had a great meeting today,” Trump said at the dinner in Washington, which some of the opponents of the resolution attended.
“But just in case there are a couple of Republicans out there. You just gotta get there. Close your eyes and get there.
It’s a phenomenal bill. Stop grandstanding. Just stop grandstanding.
”The hardliners, many of whom are in the House Freedom Caucus, remained firm in their criticism. They are incensed that the Senate’s budget resolution includes different spending cut minimums for each chamber.The measure, for example, directs House committees to find at least $1.
5 trillion in spending cuts, while Senate panels are mandated to slash at least $4 billion of federal spending — a fraction of the upper chamber’s amount.Concerned that the final package would end up closer to the Senate number than the House, conservatives dug in.“$4 billion in cuts over 10 years is a joke.
House Republicans already passed $2 TRILLION in real cuts. We can support President Trump and fight for fiscal sanity,” Rep. Eric Burlison (R-Mo.
) wrote on X.Some Republicans also voiced opposition to the Senate using the budgetary gimmick known as current policy baseline to permanently extend the 2017 Trump tax cuts. That theory assumes that the extension of the cuts would not add to the deficit, despite the Joint Committee on Taxation estimating it could cost around $4 trillion.
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