Republican hard-liners threaten to derail GOP bill encompassing Trump's agenda
A mega-bill encompassing President Donald Trump's legislative agenda appears to be in jeopardy as several Republican hard-liners on Thursday signaled their opposition to advancing the package out of the House Budget Committee later this week.
"I am voting no," Republican Rep. Ralph Norman said Thursday afternoon, citing concerns about the bill adding to a bloated national debt.
With Republican Rep. Brandon Gill expected to be absent, the GOP can only afford to lose one vote in the House Budget Committee to advance the bill. The committee is slated to convene Friday morning.
Norman, who has had his arm twisted to fall in line on more than one occasion, said fellow Republican Rep. Chip Roy plans to vote no and "thinks" Republican Rep. Andrew Clyde of Georgia will vote against advancing the bill as well. Oklahoma Republican Rep. Josh Brecheen, a member of the House Budget Committee, appeared skeptical about the bill moving forward.
"We have a duty to know the true cost of this legislation before advancing it. If we are to operate in truth, we must have true numbers -- even if that means taking some more time to obtain that truth," he said on X, echoing similar concerns raised by Roy.
Republicans will "go back to work" if the bill fails out of committee Friday, Norman said.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said the House budget negotiations are progressing after emerging from a conversation on the House floor later Thursday afternoon with some holdouts.
"We're going to look at some numbers tonight," he said. "Keep this thing moving forward."
Should the bill make it out of committee, Johnson still faces a tough road ahead as the Republican majority can withstand three no votes from within their ranks before losing sufficient support for passage. The effort to pass the Trump-backed bill is another crucial test of Johnson's speakership as he works to unify his divided conference.
"We're having a budget committee meeting tomorrow," Johnson said, adding that he has not asked Trump for assistance in getting some of the hard-liners to support the legislation. "That's the plan."
House Budget Committee Chairman Jodey Arrington, R-Texas, expressed confidence that his committee will advance the "One Big Beautiful Bill Act" on Friday.
"We did the hard work of setting real targets to restore fiscal sanity, and I'm confident we will have the votes in the Budget Committee tomorrow. The Republican conference is working in good faith through a few scoring and policy clarifications. With something this big and beautiful, you've got to get it right," Arrington said in a post on X Thursday.
Earlier Thursday, Johnson held a high-stakes meeting to hash out the remaining sticking points related to Medicaid and tax reform -- key components of the "One Big Beautiful Bill Act" -- that have so far prevented leadership from locking down sufficient support for the bill's passage.
Johnson told reporters after the meeting that Republicans had "a very thoughtful discussion," adding that he plans to work through the weekend to come to what's been an elusive consensus on the SALT caps -- the amount of state and local taxes that can be written off on federal tax returns -- as moderates draw a red line opposing the proposed $30,000 cap on those deductions.
"I think everyone would agree that it was productive and that we are moving the ball forward," Johnson said, adding he is striving "to meet the equilibrium point that everyone can be satisfied with."
On Thursday morning, House Republicans formally unveiled the text of the "One Big Beautiful Bill Act" -- a 1,116-page mega-bill.
Johnson said earlier that he's not budging on the Memorial Day target to dispatch the mega-bill from the House.
Johnson claimed Republicans are aiming to pass the package in a "deficit-neutral way" when pressed if the package will add trillions of dollars to the deficit.
"If you do more on SALT, you have to find more in savings," he said.
