WASHINGTON — House Republicans were straining late Wednesday to advance President Donald Trump’s tax and spending cuts package despite GOP leaders having spent the afternoon and evening working furiously to convince skeptical holdouts to send it to his desk by the Fourth of July deadline.
The roll call vote was being held open for more than an hour as several Republicans refused to give their votes. With few to spare from their slim majority, the outcome was in jeopardy. House Speaker Mike Johnson had recalled lawmakers to Washington, eager to seize on the momentum of the bill’s passage the day before in the Senate and vowed to press ahead.
“Everybody wants to get to yes,” Johnson said during an interview on Fox News as the voting was underway.
Quickly convening for the vote on the more than 800-page bill was risky gambit, one designed to meet Trump’s demand for a holiday finish. Republicans have struggled mightily with the bill nearly every step of the way this year, often succeeding by the narrowest of margins, only one vote. Their slim 220-212 majority, leaving little room for defections.
Several Republicans are balking at being asked to rubber-stamp the Senate version less than 24 hours after passage. A number of moderate Republicans from competitive districts have objected to the Senate bill’s cuts to Medicaid, while conservatives have lambasted the legislation as straying from their fiscal goals.
It falls to Johnson and his team to convince them that the time for negotiations is over. They will need assistance from Trump to close the deal, and lawmakers headed to the White House for a two-hour session to talk to the president about their concerns. “The president’s message was ‘We’re on a roll,’” said Rep. Ralph Norman, R-S.C. “He wants to see this.”
Republicans are relying on their majority hold of Congress to push the package over a wall of unified Democratic opposition. No Democrats voted for bill in the Senate and none were expected to do so in the House.
“Hell no!” said House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, flanked by fellow Democrats outside the Capitol.
But in an early warning sign of House Republican resistance, a resolution setting up terms for debating Trump’s bill barely cleared the House Rules Committee on Wednesday morning. As soon as it came to the full House, it stalled out as GOP leadership waited for lawmakers who were delayed coming back to Washington and to conduct closed-door negotiations with holdouts.
By nightfall, as pizzas and other dinners were arriving at the Capitol, the next steps were uncertain.
Trump pushes Republicans to do ‘the right thing’
The bill would extend and make permanent various individual and business tax breaks from Trump’s first term, plus temporarily add new ones he promised during the 2024 campaign. This includes allowing workers to deduct tips and overtime pay, and a $6,000 deduction for most older adults earning less than $75,000 a year. In all, the legislation contains about $4.5 trillion in tax cuts over 10 years.
The bill also provides about $350 billion for defense and Trump’s immigration crackdown. Republicans partially pay for it all through less spending on Medicaid and food assistance. The Congressional Budget Office projects the bill will add about $3.3 trillion to the federal debt over the coming decade.
The House passed its version of the bill in May by a single vote, despite worries about spending cuts and the overall price tag. Now, it’s being asked to give final passage to a version that, in many respects, exacerbates those concerns. The Senate bill’s projected impact on the nation’s debt, for example, is significantly higher.
