Update: The House Republicans appear to have the votes to pass the BBB. Mid-afternoon, House Republicans just scraped by with a 214-212 vote to move forward on Trump’s major bill.
The Big Beautiful Bill is currently in the House waiting for a vote. Unfortunately, some Republican leaders are holding it up ahead of the July 4th deadline. It only squeaked through the Senate yesterday. It’s not clear that the House Republicans have enough support to get it over the finish line.
The bill includes ramped up spending for border security, defense and energy production, and extends trillions of dollars in tax cuts. It is partially offset by substantial cuts to healthcare and nutrition programs.
Some in the House don’t like the Senate changes. Some moderates and conservative House Freedom Caucus members are meeting with Mr. Trump today. The White House is trying to pressure them to bring the bill across the finish line.
GOP Rep Andy Harris of Maryland, the chair of the conservative freedom caucus told reporters that he expected today’s key procedural vote to fail. Maybe beatings with bats would work.
The House Rules Committee had advanced the bill overnight, setting it up for a procedural vote. GOP Reps Ralph Norman of South Carolina and Chip Roy of Texas joined Democrats on the panel to oppose the rule and are among the group who will probably oppose the procedural vote.
They say what the Senate did is unconscionable. Norman’s going to vote against it until they get it right.
Additionally, the weather hasn’t been very good and several members on both sides had their flights cancelled or delayed.
Republicans can only afford three defections.
Pleading the Case
House Speaker Mike Johnson has spent weeks pleading with his counterparts not to make major changes to the bill. The Senate went a little further than many of them preferred.
The Senate bill includes steeper Medicaid cuts and a higher increase in the debt limit and changes the House bill’s green energy policies and the state and local tax deduction.
Another controversy revolves around the sale of public lands in nearly a dozen states, the 10 year moratorium on states’ regulating artificial intelligence, and an excise tax on the renewable energy industry. They were all stripped from the bill.
Johnson is trying to convince them that this is the best they can do. If they don’t agree to the changes, it goes back to the Senate or they’d have to have a conference committee.
In a TruthSocial post today, Mr. Trump told the GOP to get the bill done. He said, “Don’t let the Radical Left Democrats push you around.”
It looks bad when they can’t even agree on this which is critical to Trump’s agenda. We voted for Trump and we have to give him the tools. Do I love the deficit in the bill? No, but enough. What say you?
Why would anyone expect the House conservatives to support this bill, after the senate added $1T to the deficit in it? The guilty party here is the senate, no one else. I will go to Gaetz 9 PM tonight to get the best story. You folks are so easily led into the Faux News RINO paradigm. The bill passed the… Read more »
I don’t want it to pass until the Hearing protection Act and SHORT Act are included in full. The rest can wait.