The House of Representatives narrowly approved a Senate budget proposal on Thursday, paving the way for the long-anticipated tax reform package Republicans hope to pass by the end of the year.
The vote frees Republicans to pass a tax reform plan without needing 60 votes in the Senate, allowing them to potentially push it through on a party-line vote. The budget authorizes Congressional tax-writing committees to use the authorization process to tackle tax reform, removing the need for a supermajority and allowing Congress to push it through with 50 Republican votes. But the 216-212 margin by which the budget passed underscores how tricky threading the needle on tax reform will be for the GOP Congress, which must put together a package fiscally responsible enough to satisfy conservatives in the House without spooking moderates in the Senate.
This version of the budget nearly failed to thread that needle: 20 Republicans voted against the Senate-amended proposal, and the House Liberty Caucus released a statement slamming it before the vote.
“This budget never balances, and it adds $5.5 trillion … to the national debt over the next decade,” HLC executive director Matt Weibel wrote. “Passing a budget that doesn’t address out-of-control spending and adds trillions of dollars to the national debt just to achieve some policy goal—which also could be accomplished with a responsible budget—is an endorsement of a warped worldview where the end justifies the means.”
The original House blueprint called for far more spending cuts to avoid growing the deficit, but the Senate largely defanged them so the budget could squeak through on a 51-49 vote.
House Democrats have called this out as “hypocrisy” from the party that champions fiscal responsibility.
“Republicans are always telling us how much they care about the deficit,” Massachusetts congressman Jim McGovern said earlier this week. “But when it comes to giving their beloved tax cuts to their billionaire friends, they suddenly develop a convenient case of amnesia.”
Nevertheless, House leadership said they were pleased to move onto tax reform.
“Put simply, we have the opportunity to make history by reforming our tax system for the first time in nearly three decades,” House Budget Committee chairwoman Diane Black said. “President Trump is with us on this, and I agree that we must move quickly.”
