House GOP pushes ‘big’ budget resolution to passage, a crucial step toward delivering Trump’s agenda
With a push from Trump, House Republicans have sent a GOP budget blueprint to passage. It’s a step toward delivering his big bill with $4.5 trillion in tax breaks and $2 trillion in spending cuts.
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WASHINGTON (AP) — With a push from President Donald Trump, House Republicans sent a GOP budget blueprint to passage Tuesday, a step toward delivering his “big, beautiful bill” with $4.5 trillion in tax breaks and $2 trillion in spending cuts despite a wall of opposition from Democrats and discomfort among Republicans.
House Speaker Mike Johnson had almost no votes to spare in his bare-bones GOP majority and fought on all fronts — against Democrats, uneasy rank-and-file Republicans and skeptical GOP senators — to advance the party’s signature legislative package. Trump made calls to wayward GOP lawmakers and invited Republicans to the White House.
The vote was 217-215, with a single Republican and all Democrats opposed, and the outcome was in jeopardy until the gavel.
“On a vote like this, you’re always going to have people you’re talking to all the way through the close of the vote,” Majority Leader Steve Scalise said before the roll call.
“We got it done,” the speaker said afterward.
Passage of the package is crucial to kickstarting the process. Trump wants the Republicans who control Congress to approve a massive bill that would extend tax breaks, which he secured during his first term but are expiring later this year, while also cutting spending across federal programs and services.
Next steps are long and cumbersome before anything can become law — weeks of committee hearings to draft the details and send the House version to the Senate, where Republicans passed their own scaled-back version. And more big votes are ahead, including an unrelated deal to prevent a government shutdown when federal funding expires March 14. Those talks are also underway.
It’s all unfolding amid emerging backlash to what’s happening elsewhere as billionaire Trump adviser Elon Musk is tearing through federal agencies with his Department of Government Efficiency firing thousands of workers nationwide, and angry voters are starting to confront lawmakers at town hall meetings back home.
Democrats during an afternoon debate decried the package as a “betrayal” to Americans, a “blueprint for American decline” and simply a “Republican rip-off.”
“Our very way of life as a country is under assault,” House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries said on the steps of the Capitol.
Flanked by Americans who said they would be hurt by cuts to Medicaid and other social programs, the Democrats booed the GOP budget blueprint. But as the minority party, they don’t have the votes to stop it.
Even as they press ahead, Republicans are running into a familiar problem: Slashing federal spending is typically easier said than done. With cuts to the Pentagon and other programs largely off limits, much of the other government outlays go for health care, food stamps, student loans and programs relied on by their constituents.
Several Republican lawmakers worry that scope of the cuts being eyed — particularly some $880 billion over the decade to the committee that handles health care spending, including Medicaid, for example, or $230 billion to the agriculture committee that funds food stamps — will be too harmful to their constituents back home.
GOP leaders insist Medicaid is not specifically listed in the initial 60-page budget framework, which is true. Johnson and his leadership team also told lawmakers they would have plenty of time to debate the details as they shape the final package.
But lawmakers wanted assurances the health care program and others will be protected as the plans are developed and merged with the Senate in the weeks to come.
Rep. Mike Lawler, R-N.Y., said Trump has promised he would not allow Medicaid to be cut.
“The president was clear about that. I was clear about that,” Lawler said. “We will work through this, but the objective today is to begin the process.”
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., center, departs a news conference joined from left by Rep. Abraham Hamadeh, R-Ariz., and House Majority Whip Tom Emmer, R-Minn., after discussing work on a spending bill, at the Capitol in Washington, Tuesday, Feb. 11, 2025. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
At the same time, GOP deficit hawks were withholding support until they were convinced it wouldn’t add to the nation’s $36 trillion debt load. They warned it will pile onto debt because the cost of the tax breaks, with at least $4.5 trillion over the decade outweighing the $2 trillion in spending cuts to government programs.
One key conservative, Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., ended up the sole GOP vote against.
Trump had invited several dozen Republicans to the White House, including Rep. Juan Ciscomani, R-Ariz., who joined a group of GOP lawmakers from the Congressional Hispanic Conference raising concerns about protecting Medicaid, food stamps and Pell grants for college.
“While we fully support efforts to rein in wasteful spending and deliver on President Trump’s agenda, it is imperative that we do not slash programs that support American communities across our nation,” wrote Rep. Tony Gonzales, R-Texas, and several others GOP lawmakers from the Hispanic Conference.
Democrats in the House and the Senate vowed to keep fighting the whole process. “This is not what people want,” said Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., during a rules debate ahead of planned votes.
“We all know that trickle-down economics,” he said about the 2017 tax breaks that flowed mainly to the wealthy, “don’t work.”
Trump has signaled a preference for “big” bill but also appears to enjoy a competition between the House and the Senate, lawmakers said, as he pits the Republicans against each other to see which version will emerge.
Senate Republicans launched their own $340 billion package last week. It’s focused on sending Trump money his administration needs for its deportation and border security agenda now, with plans to tackle the tax cuts separately later this year.
“I’m holding my breath. I’m crossing my fingers,” said Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, who said he was rooting for the House’s approach as the better option. “I think a one-shot is their best opportunity.”
Johnson, whose party lost seats in last November’s election, commands one of the thinnest majorities in modern history, which meant he had to keep almost every Republican in line or risk losing the vote.
The budget is being compiled during a lengthy process that first sends instructions to the various House and Senate committees, which will then have several weeks to devise more detailed plans for additional debate and votes.
Rep. Jodey Arrington, the Republican chairman of the House Budget Committee, said with economic growth assumptions, from 1.8% as projected by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office to 2.6% as projected by House Republicans, the package would generate about $2.6 trillion in savings over 10 years and would ensure the plan helps reduce the deficit.
Some fiscal advocacy groups view the GOP’s economic projections as overly optimistic.
Associated Press writers Leah Askarinam and Stephen Groves contributed reporting.
Follow the AP’s coverage of the U.S. House of Representatives at https://apnews.com/hub/united-states-house-of-representatives.
Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.
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The House of Representatives has adopted a resolution that will eventually become a massive multi-trillion-dollar bill full of President Donald Trump’s priorities on the border, defense, energy and taxes.
In a major victory for House GOP leaders, the resolution passed in a 217 to 215 vote.
All Democrats voted against the measure, along with lone Republican rebel Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., who was concerned about its effect on the national deficit.
The next step is now for the relevant House committees to meet and build their own proposals, which will eventually be returned into the framework and negotiated into a compromise deal with the Senate.
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Speaker Mike Johnson is advancing a reconciliation bill aimed at Trump’s priorities through the House of Representatives. (Getty Images)
It was a dramatic scene in the House chamber on Monday night as Republican leaders delayed formally ending a vote for roughly 45 minutes as they worked to convince conservative fiscal hawks to support the legislation.
Impatient Democrats called out loud for the vote to be closed as Republicans huddled in varied groups.
Two people on the House floor told Fox News Digital that President Donald Trump got involved at one point, speaking to one of the holdouts, Rep. Victoria Spartz, R-Ind., by phone.
Reps. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., and Warren Davidson, R-Ohio, could be seen on the phone at other points on the House floor as well, but it’s not clear if they were speaking with Trump.
At one point, House GOP leaders appeared to lose confidence that they had enough support and abruptly canceled the planned vote.
Moments later, however, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle were rushing back to the House floor and Fox News Digital was told the vote would be held.
Meanwhile, three House Democrats who had been absent early in the day returned for the Tuesday evening vote in dramatic fashion.
Rep. Brittany Pettersen, D-Colo., who had a baby roughly a month ago, returned to the House floor with her infant to oppose the bill. And Rep. Kevin Mullin, R-Calif., who was recently hospitalized for an infection, appeared in the chamber aided by a walker.
House and Senate Republicans are aiming to use their majorities to advance Trump’s agenda via the budget reconciliation process.
It’s a Senate maneuver that lowers the threshold for passage from two-thirds to a simple majority, but it’s used when a party controls both houses of Congress and the White House because it allows that party to pass its policy goals even under the slimmest margins.
And Republicans are dealing with slim margins indeed; with current numbers, the House GOP can afford no more than one defection to pass anything without Democratic votes if all liberals are voting.
On the Senate side, Republicans can lose no more than two of their own in the reconciliation process.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune is waiting in the wings with a Plan B. (Getty Images)
The House resolution aimed to increase spending on border security, the judiciary and defense by roughly $300 billion, while seeking at least $1.5 trillion to $2 trillion in spending cuts elsewhere.
As written, the House bill also provided $4.5 trillion to extend President Donald Trump’s 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act provisions, which expire at the end of this year.
An amendment negotiated by House Budget Committee Chairman Jodey Arrington, R-Texas, and conservatives on his panel would also force lawmakers to make $2 trillion in cuts, or else risk the $4.5 trillion for Trump’s tax cuts getting reduced by the difference.
The resolution also fulfilled Trump’s directive to act on the debt limit, raising it by $4 trillion or roughly two years.
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A bipartisan deal struck in 2023 saw the debt limit suspended until January 2025. Now, projections show the U.S. could run out of cash to pay its debts by spring if Congress does not act.
The resolution’s odds were touch and go for much of the week so far, since House lawmakers returned from a week-long recess period Monday.
Several fiscal conservatives had demanded more assurances from House GOP leadership that Republicans would seek deep spending cuts to offset the cost of Trump’s priorities.
Republican lawmakers in more competitive districts are concerned some cuts may go too far, however.
The resolution directs the House Energy & Commerce Committee to find at least $880 billion in spending cuts – which those lawmakers fear will mean severe cuts for federal programs like Medicaid.
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Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., pushed back against fears of such cuts during his weekly press conference on Tuesday.
“Medicaid is hugely problematic because it has a lot of fraud, waste and abuse. Everybody knows that. We all know it intuitively. No one in here would disagree,” Johnson said. “What we’re talking about is rooting out the fraud, waste, and abuse. It doesn’t matter what party you’re in, you should be for that because it saves your money, and it preserves the programs so that it is available for the people who desperately need it.”
It was also supported by a wide swath of Republicans, including conservative Rep. Brandon Gill, R-Texas, a member of the House Budget Committee that approved the bill earlier this month.
“It’s the best bill we’re going to get,” Gill said while praising Committee Chairman Jodey Arrington, R-Texas, for his efforts. “If I were writing it then I’d write it differently, but this is the best we’re gonna get it.”
Rep. Randy Feenstra, R-Iowa, said he was eager to begin working on “cutting taxes for Iowans, securing our border, unleashing American energy production, and eliminating waste and fraud in our government.”
Elizabeth Elkind is a politics reporter for Fox News Digital leading coverage of the House of Representatives. Previous digital bylines seen at Daily Mail and CBS News.
Follow on Twitter at @liz_elkind and send tips to elizabeth.elkind@fox.com
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The massive GOP bill would also direct $4 trillion toward raising the debt limit
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House Republicans pass budget resolution, clearing a key early test for Trump agenda
By
Claudia Grisales
,
Elena Moore
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., (right) departs a news conference alongside House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., at the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday.
The future of President Trump’s domestic agenda cleared a decisive test in the House on Tuesday, as Republicans overcame internal divides over spending to pass a framework for a sweeping multitrillion dollar plan to address defense, energy, immigration and tax policy.
Tuesday’s vote was a critical step forward for House Republicans, as passage allows them to unlock a complicated legislative tool known as reconciliation. It’s a process that Republicans can use to avoid a filibuster from Democrats in the Senate, but in order to use it they had to first agree on a budget blueprint.
“We got it done,” Johnson told reporters following the vote. “This is the first important step in opening up the reconciliation process. We have a lot of hard work ahead of us, but we are going to deliver the America First agenda.”
House Republicans have a razor-thin majority, and needed virtually the entire conference to vote yes. Ultimately, the measure passed 217 to 215, with just one Republican voting against the budget resolution.
Tuesday’s vote marks an early step forward in what promises to be a lengthy and difficult path in passing the party’s policy priorities. The Republican-led Senate, impatient with delays on the House side, has already moved their own budget reconciliation plan forward. Now, the two chambers need to pass the same bill in order to move ahead.
At the start of the day, GOP leaders were still working to wrangle support. Johnson and his deputies spent weeks in painstaking negotiations, but struggled to balance competing demands from within a fractious GOP caucus.
While fiscal hawks were demanding steep spending cuts, other members voiced concern about those cuts having to come from Medicaid, the government insurance program that provides health coverage for millions of low-income and disabled Americans.
The House plan calls for an increase in funding to secure the southern border, a boost for military spending and raising the nation’s debt limit by $4 trillion.
The plan also calls for $4.5 trillion in tax cuts over the next decade. Those cuts include renewing the 2017 Trump tax cuts, which are set to expire at the end of the year, as well as other proposals that the president campaigned on, like no taxes on tips, overtime or Social Security.
In order to get the budget plan just to this stage, Johnson was forced to concede to a demand from some conservative holdouts for $2 trillion in spending cuts. Under the budget framework, the exact details of those cuts will be sorted out later, by individual committees in the House.
The House Energy and Commerce Committee, for example, would be responsible for coming up with $880 billion in savings. But because the committee has say over spending for programs like Medicare and Medicaid, more moderate Republicans are worried about cuts coming from the social safety net.
Democrats also seized on the potential for cuts to the popular Medicaid program for low-income, elderly and disabled Americans.
“The House Republican budget resolution will set in motion the largest Medicaid cut in American history,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., told reporters after the vote.
Ahead of Tuesday’s vote, several members signaled opposition — but in the end just one Republican, Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, voted against it.
In a post on social media Monday, Massie wrote, “If the Republican budget passes, the deficit gets worse, not better.” Elon Musk responded to the post by saying, “That sounds bad.”
The chair of the House Budget Committee, Rep. Jodey Arrington, R-Texas, credited Johnson for the outcome. There were multiple holdouts before the vote, Arrington acknowledged, but the speaker he said, was “the difference maker.”
“I think that small margin forces you to work together,” Arrington said. “This was an historic election. We know this is a monumental opportunity for us to course correct, for us to reverse course on the last four years, to be frank, and nobody wants to miss that. And everybody had to make some sacrifice or some pain involved.”
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