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The House voted on Thursday to pass a budget framework authored by Republicans in the Senate, after delays and negotiations between GOP leadership and hardline deficit hawks in their caucus.
Speaker Mike Johnson appeared at a joint press conference with Senate Majority Leader John Thune on Thursday as the two tried to convince holdout conservative Republicans to back a Senate budget framework which does not include language guaranteeing that committee chairs will find at least $1.5tn in spending cuts.
Congress is seeking to pass a budget framework for the upcoming year that would begin the reconciliation process, which will combine the Senate-passed legislation with a framework passed by the House in February to create one bill that would then be passed by both chambers.
“Congratulations to the House on the passage of a Bill that sets the stage for one of the Greatest and Most Important Signings in the History of our Country. Among many other things, it will be the Largest Tax and Regulation Cuts ever even contemplated,” President Donald Trump wrote on Truth Social on Thursday.
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Originally, the vote on the Senate framework was scheduled by the speaker to take place Wednesday evening. But after more than an hour of negotiations and delays on and off the House floor, Johnson pushed it to the next morning.
Congressional leaders struggled on Wednesday and into Thursday to win over that contingent of conservative deficit hawks, and a vote was pushed back again several times Thursday morning. But Johnson projected confidence, while a handful of conservatives who’d previously been against the Senate framework seemed to indicate that their opposition was wavering.
“I believe we have the votes,” Johnson told reporters Thursday morning.
Voting on the resolution began shortly after 10:30am on Thursday. Johnson’s prediction was correct: the measure passed, 216-214, shortly after 11:00am. Only two Republicans – Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Victoria Spartz of Indiana – voted against the resolution, alongside all Democrats.
“I told you not to doubt us,” a triumphant Johnson then gloated after the vote, according to Punchbowl.
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“By clearing this critical hurdle, House committees can now work in tandem with Senate committees to swiftly prepare their respective parts of the reconciliation bill, keeping us on track for markups during the next work period,” the speaker of the House said after the vote.
He continued: “We will not waver in our commitment to delivering a bill that reduces spending, secures the border, keeps taxes low for families and job creators, restores American energy dominance, reestablishes peace through strength, and makes government work better for all Americans.”
The budget framework passed by the House in February includes steep cuts to nondefense spending that many experts say will not be doable without touching a major political landmine: Medicaid. The nation’s health insurance program for low-income families and persons accounts for nearly $1tn a year in spending.
Conservatives are more than happy to chop away at that number, and are eager for Elon Musk’s DOGE initiative to discover what it believes to be waste, fraud or abuse within Medicaid and other federal programs as Congress seeks to reach that $1.5tn spending cut floor. But Republicans in frontline purple districts are far less enthusiastic, with many outright saying they will vote against final passage of the budget if Medicaid service reductions or eligibility cuts are implemented as a result. The speak claimed it was possible to make the savings without major cuts to “essential programs” like Medicaid.
The plan also addresses a number of other priorities held by Trump, including a surge of funding for border security and the further construction of a wall across the southern border. Additionally, it would extend the 2017 tax cut legislation signed into law under Trump’s first term, a favorite target of progressive groups which accuse the GOP of funding tax cuts that disproportionately benefited wealthier Americans with spending cuts that affect the poorest families in America.
“In unifying behind this budget resolution, congressional Republicans are telling us they are serious about their agenda to rob everyday Americans in order to deliver a big payout to the ultra-wealthy in tax cuts. As they now work to actually write the bill that they intend to push through via the reconciliation process, which will deplete funding for health care, nutrition, and other critical human needs in order to line the pockets of CEOs and billionaires, they should know we are also serious in our efforts to fight back,” the nonprofit consumer rights group Public Citizen said in a statement after Thursday’s vote.
A number of conservatives who originally were opposed to the Senate resolution changed their votes on Thursday, even as many still had posts stating their opposition to (or, in some cases, their open derision of) the Senate plan near the top of their respective social media accounts.
Those flipped votes, including Chip Roy of Texas and Andy Biggs of Arizona, did not immediately release statements explaining their decisions after passage on Thursday.
