A budget resolution championed by President Donald Trump cleared a critical test vote Wednesday afternoon in the House despite several Republicans threatening to doom its final passage.
All but three Republicans voted for the procedural rule, with a final vote on the budget blueprint expected for 5:30 p.m. ET. The budget resolution is the first step in the reconciliation process, which allows Republicans to pass Trump’s domestic agenda with a simple majority vote on tax policy, the border, and national security.
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Reps. Thomas Massie (R-KY), Victoria Spartz (R-IN), and Mike Turner (R-OH) were the three GOP “no” votes on the rule. Massie and Spartz were dissenters in an earlier budget resolution vote, while Turner opposed language in the rule to prevent lawmakers from challenging Trump’s tariffs.
Concerns over whether the rule would pass carried right up until the vote, as some holdouts such as Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC), Kat Cammack (R-FL), and Lloyd Smucker (R-PA) were undecided. Norman voted for the procedural rule, but said he’d oppose the final bill, saying it “doesn’t make financial sense.”
The driving concern for Republican dissenters is the budget bill doesn’t go far enough in spending cuts to offset the expenses the resolution would unlock. The Senate used a budget gimmick to assume that the extension of Trump’s 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act would have no impact on the deficit, therefore blunting the need to find nearly $4 trillion in cuts elsewhere to pay for it.
The Senate-passed bill before the House calls for just $4 billion in spending cuts, a drastically lower number compared to the original resolution the House passed in February with up to $2 trillion in cuts.
“They’ve indicated they’re not willing to go above the $4 billion, which is 0.2% of the $2 trillion that we offer,” Norman told reporters Wednesday. “All we’re asking is, put it in writing. We’ve got to have — the math doesn’t add up to what they’re saying. And I don’t agree with that.”
The procedural hurdle, which is an easy party-line vote on paper, has been weaponized over the last few Congresses by hard-liners upset with legislation backed by leadership.
However, many Freedom Caucus members who have blasted the legislation for the inadequate spending cuts opted to vote for the rule. Chairman Andy Harris (R-MD) voted yes to the rule but is a no on the current budget resolution “without a Senate outline of spending reduction,” his office confirmed to the Washington Examiner.
Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX), the Freedom Caucus’s policy chairman who sits on the Rules Committee, said he is still a no on the bill despite voting for the rule.
“Stop making up math,” Roy shouted during an earlier committee hearing, directing his comments toward the White House and Senate and House Republicans. “It’s all a joke.”
Roy told reporters Tuesday that, like Harris, he wants to see concrete evidence that there will be significantly more spending cuts.
“All I see are promises,” Roy said. “I do not believe in promises in Washington. So, I want to see the bill. The Senate has now sent a bill to us that doesn’t add up.”
Norman and Reps. Eric Burlison (R-MO) told reporters that House and Senate Republicans are huddling to put together a list of spending cut assurances that will appease holdouts. Norman said he thinks that would push him to flip to a “yes” vote, noting that there’s been discussions to go higher than the $2 trillion in cuts the House first proposed.
Burlison, who said he’s still a no after the rule vote, isn’t as optimistic. He said he thinks the Senate has “no appetite” for spending cuts and will only “say it behind closed doors.”
“We just don’t trust the Senate,” Burlison told reporters. “I think the Senate is prone to, set up to, give us the shaft, like they’ve done for decades and decades. It’s like Lucy with the football.”
Eyes were also on centrist Republicans heading into the rule vote. Tucked into the rule is language that bans the House from voting to terminate Trump’s emergency declaration to impose tariffs until October. This is a blow to Reps. Don Bacon (R-NE) and Jeff Hurd (R-CO), who are cosponsoring bipartisan legislation to rein in Trump’s tariffs authority.
Turner, whose “no” vote was a surprise, said he opposed the tariff language included in the rule. He plans to support the budget resolution on final passage.
With at least 12 “no” Republicans and a handful of undecided lawmakers, it will be an uphill battle for Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) to pass Trump’s budget resolution. He can only afford to lose three votes to pass the bill along party lines, and he won’t get any help from Democrats who are unified against the legislation.
Trump has engaged in a pressure campaign through social media, in-person meetings with holdout Republicans, and during a speech in front of the National Republican Congressional Committee Tuesday evening.
At the dinner with House Republicans, Trump implored Congress to pass the budget legislation now, telling members to “Get the damn thing done and stop showboating.”
Influence from Trump may not be enough; many holdouts who were publicly against the resolution were not invited to the White House to meet with the president yesterday. Harris said, “Nothing that I can hear from the White House” would change his mind.
Roy, who did attend the White House meeting, said Tuesday that he didn’t think Johnson should put the bill on the floor. Roy and others have floated staying in Washington instead of going on the two-week Easter recess to find consensus.
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Johnson told reporters, “I think it is going to pass today,” and that he’d eventually have the votes, but he acknowledged there is still ground to cover.
“The president’s willing to help. He told me that this morning. But I think we get this job done,” Johnson said. “I understand the concerns of holdouts. Their concerns are real. They really want to have true budget cuts and to change the debt trajectory that the country is on. So do I. Sometimes there’s a lack of trust in these institutions between the two chambers, but I’m trying to assure my colleagues on good faith with the Senate that they’re committed to this.”
Hailey Bullis contributed to this report.
