The House Budget Committee voted Thursday night to advance a Republican budget blueprint needed to enact much of President Donald Trump’s border, energy and tax agenda in one “big, beautiful bill.”
The committee vote, 21-16 along party lines, came after hours of intense debate at the markup session.
The package allows the House Ways and Means Committee to come up with tax plans that would increase deficits by $4.5 trillion over a decade, providing room for an extension of expiring 2017 tax cuts. Under an agreement struck by House leaders and fiscal conservatives, the size of the tax cuts and increased deficit will be linked to the level of spending cuts achieved by other committees as part of the plan. House Freedom Caucus members had pressed for at least $2 trillion in spending cuts, and if spending cuts fall below that level or exceed it, the $4.5 trillion allotted for tax cuts would be adjusted by an equal amount.
The resolution also would raise the federal borrowing limit by $4 trillion.
A win for House GOP leaders: After weeks of uncertainty, House Republican leaders celebrated clearing “a critical hurdle” toward delivering on Trump’s priorities. Budget Committee Chair Jodey Arrington said in a statement that the resolution “is a blueprint to right-size the bloated federal bureaucracy, rein-in the reckless spending that spurred record inflation, and roll back the barrage of burdensome regulations that are crushing our small businesses.”
He also called it the “the only comprehensive deal Congress has on the table to get the job done” — but the Senate does have a less comprehensive plan of its own, a $345 billion reconciliation blueprint that includes energy and defense policies but would leave tax cuts for a second bill later in the year. The Senate could consider that resolution as soon as next week. Both chambers have to adopt the same budget framework, and Republicans have been divided over whether it would be better to pursue one reconciliation bill or two as they look to pass their plan on a partisan basis that avoids the threat of a Senate filibuster.
More hurdles ahead: The House plan could still face significant challenges, as some conservatives may balk at voting to raise the debt limit and moderates are likely to have concerns about the spending reductions being proposed, including cuts to Medicaid and food stamps.
“The emerging fault lines are many: GOP members in high-tax blue states are concerned that the plan doesn’t leave enough room to expand the state and local tax deduction. And Senate Republicans and some House hard-liners aren’t ready to give up on a competing two-bill plan,” Politico’s Meredith Lee Hill reports. “But Johnson’s most immediate problem comes from swing-district Republicans who believe that the steep spending cuts Johnson wants across Medicaid, food assistance and other safety-net programs for low-income Americans could cost them their seats — and Johnson his razor-thin GOP majority.”
Democrats decry a ‘reverse Robin Hood’ plan: Democrats overwhelmingly oppose the GOP plan, arguing that it recklessly slashes programs that help the middle class and low-income families in order to deliver tax cuts for the wealthy.
“This budget rips healthcare away from millions while handing out $4.5 trillion in tax breaks, the overwhelming majority of which go to billionaires and wealthy corporations,” said Rep. Brendan F. Boyle, the top Democrat on the budget panel. “It slashes at least $230 billion from food assistance programs, at a time when grocery prices remain at record highs. And it proposes, and I hope every American listens to this, it proposes at least $880 billion in cuts to Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act.”
Boyle noted that about 20 million Americans rely on the Affordable Care Act and more than 72 million people rely on Medicaid.
He also charged Republicans with hypocrisy on the national debt. “I can’t tell you how many times over my adult life, I have heard any time there’s a Democrat in the White House my friends on the other side of the aisle bemoaning the size of the national debt,” he said. “Republicans control the House, the Senate and the White House. Where’s their debt reduction plan? It’s not here.”
The bottom line: House Republicans took a big step, but they have massive challenges ahead of them and differences to iron out with their Senate counterparts.