House Republicans narrowly passed the budget blueprint for this year's reconciliation legislation in a 216 to 214 vote, staving off a rebellion from fiscal hawks who had threatened to torpedo the legislation over the frustrations with the Senate GOP's spending-cut targets.
Thursday's budget vote means Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John can move forward on President Donald Trump's "one big, beautiful bill" which lawmakers plan to pass through budget reconciliation, a process that allows them to skirt the Senate's 60-vote threshold for passing legislation.
Congressional GOP leaders' success in passing identical budget blueprints marks a major success for Speaker Mike Johnson (R., La.), who successfully wrangled his fractious and narrow majority to get in line or risk further delaying progress on the president's legislative agenda.
And Thursday's vote came after more than a dozen fiscal hawks had dragged out their opposition until the very last moment. Uncertainty about the budget framework's fate required House GOP leaders to cancel a scheduled budget vote Wednesday evening, and multiple closed-door huddles with holdouts up until the last moment.
"It is time for us to act so that we can get on with the real work," Representative Kevin Hern (R., Okla.) said on the House floor. "In passing this budget framework, we are unlocking the process to deliver on unleashing American energy production, permanently securing our southern and northern borders, and making tax cuts permanent for small businesses and working families.”
Speaking with reporters on Thursday, holdouts said they voted for the budget blueprint only after getting reassurances from congressional GOP leaders that the final bill will include higher spending cuts than those outlined in the resolution. Representatives Victoria Spartz (R., Ind.) and Thomas Massie (R., Ky.) were the only Republicans to vote against the bill, joining a united Democratic caucus in opposition.
Republicans are broadly in agreement to focus this year's legislative package around four main brackets: tax cuts, border security, defense, and energy.
Now comes the hard part: Getting various factions of the Republican Party to unite behind spending cuts while extending and perhaps expanding the expiring provisions of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. On spending cuts, Republican Senators Josh Hawley of Missouri, Susan Collins of Maine, and Lisa Murkowski are pushing back against targeting programs like Medicaid.
And on taxes, competing priorities are expected to emerge over how to address the state and local tax deduction, and how Republicans should follow through on the president's campaign pledges to exempt overtime, Social Security, and tips from taxes. Some debt hawks in Congress are floating the possibility of raising taxes on the highest earners to pay for this year's bill, though that proposal is already facing pushback from Speaker Mike Johnson (R., La.), who said earlier this week "generally we're trying to reduce taxes here."
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