House Republicans narrowly approve blueprint to start work on Donald Trump's agenda
WASHINGTON – House Republicans narrowly approved a resolution April 10 that will allow them to begin work on President Donald Trump's legislative agenda with a 216-214 vote along party lines.
Two Republicans joined with Democrats in voting against it. The vote came after a dramatic turn of events the night before in which members of the Freedom Caucus and deficit hawks refused to vote for the existing plan over concerns that it would lead to a skyrocketing national debt.
Then House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune announced in the morning that they would find $1.5 trillion in cuts as part of the package, indicating that significant changes to Medicaid and other benefit programs is still on the table.
"Our two chambers are directly aligned also on a very important principle – and that is the principle of fiscal responsibility," Johnson told reporters.
He added that Republicans aimed to deliver on their campaign promises while achieving "the maximum amount of savings" all "while also preserving our essential programs." Republican leaders have said it is possible to find deep cuts to Medicaid and other programs without impacting services by rooting out "waste, fraud and abuse," though nonpartisan experts suggest that is not likely.
The resolution approved April 10 will be the blueprint for a massive bill that Republicans hope to pass through a process known as "reconciliation," which avoids the need for a supermajority to overcome a filibuster in the Senate. That would allow the measure to pass in both houses of Congress with only Republican votes.
The package will eventually include Trump's priorities for border security, domestic energy production and taxes. If it passes, it would be the marquee law of his second term in office.
The blueprint instructs the House and Senate to craft separate proposals that will eventually need to be reconciled – and the Senate's instructions, as written, require lawmakers to find very few spending cuts while implementing the president's expensive tax proposals.
"I think that the Senate didn't do Trump any favors. I think that they're setting him up, and us up, to screw us in the end and not cut any spending whatsoever," Rep. Eric Burlison, R-Missouri, told Paste BN on April 9 regarding his rationale for voting against the resolution. "We need to put guardrails in place to make sure there's at least a minimum level of spending cuts."
But Burlison and about a dozen other skeptical Republican House members changed their minds after Johnson and Thune assured them that the Senate would produce enough spending reductions to offset the cost of Trump's priorities.
"This is just the beginning. We have to now go draft the reconciliation package," said Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas. The final bill "will not actually increase deficits. That is our key driving factor. We got a commitment on that and that's why we're here."
The flip came after days of intense pressure from Trump and his advisers. Trump told House Republicans at a fundraiser April 8: "Close your eyes and get there."
What is in the blueprint?
The skeleton plan both chambers have now agreed to lays out separate spending instructions for Trump's legislation that will ultimately be hammered out between the chambers and fleshed out with detailed policy.
The Senate's plan would allow them to lock in the tax cuts implemented during Trump's first term, which are set to expire this year, an incredibly expensive endeavor that would add an estimated $3.8 trillion to the deficit over the next 10 years.
The Senate's plan would also allow for an additional $1.5 trillion in tax cuts, leaving room for Trump's plans to eliminate taxes on tips and overtime and other tax priorities. It requires virtually no spending cuts but has a non-binding target of eventually finding $2 trillion in savings over 10 years.
The Senate plan would also raise the debt ceiling by $5 trillion, which would avoid a looming default on the federal debt and help Republicans avoid negotiating on the extension with Democrats.
The blueprint also instructs the House to follow separate rules, which required finding at least $1.5 trillion in spending cuts over the next 10 years.
The House's plan also allows for an extension of Trump's 2017 tax cuts and allocates $300 billion for spending on defense and border security.
The two Republican lawmakers who voted against their party on the bill, Reps. Victoria Spartz, R-Indiana, and Thomas Massie, R-Kentucky, argued the resolution does not go far enough to reduce the deficit.
"You watch: Next year, we'll spend more money than we did this year, and the year after that we will too," Massie said after the vote. "This budget will add at least $30 trillion to the debt over the next 10 years and it's a Republican budget."
Potential cuts to Medicaid
It's not just House members that have a problem with the Senate's instructions.
Several Republicans in both chambers – and all Democrats – are concerned that the blueprint will lead to significant cuts to Medicaid, the health insurance program that provides coverage to 72 million low-income Americans.
The House's instructions include a directive to cut $880 billion from programs under the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which nonpartisan experts have said is not possible to meet without slashing Medicaid.
House Budget Chairman Rep. Jodey Arrington, R-Texas, said there's plenty of opportunity to save money without cutting benefits. The federal government loses between $233 billion and $521 billion annually to fraud, according to the Government Accountability Office, though it's unclear how Congress will seek to reduce that.
"It's pervasive," Arrington said. "You check the Medicaid rolls twice instead of once, like President Biden, and you save $160 billion."
Several GOP lawmakers, including Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Missouri, have said they cannot support the final package if it includes significant cuts to Medicaid,
But Hawley voted to approve the Senate's blueprint, saying that he'd spoken with Trump "for a good bit," who "told me the House will NOT cut Medicaid benefits and the Senate will NOT cut Medicaid benefits and he won’t sign any benefit cuts."