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House Rules Committee advances Trump megabill as potential GOP revolt looms
House Rules Committee advances Trump megabill as potential GOP revolt looms

Yahoo

time8 hours ago

  • Business
  • Yahoo

House Rules Committee advances Trump megabill as potential GOP revolt looms

The House Rules Committee advanced the GOP's sweeping tax and spending bill early Wednesday morning after an hours-long meeting, sending the legislation to the floor for consideration as its fate in the chamber remains unclear. The panel adopted the procedural rule in a 7-6 vote, with two Republicans — Reps. Chip Roy (R-Texas) and Ralph Norman (R-S.C.) — siding with Democrats against the measure, showcasing their opposition to the underlying legislation over deficit concerns. The hearing ran for nearly 12 hours, with Democrats needling Republicans about the bill, GOP lawmakers largely praising the measure and some hard-line conservatives criticizing its contents. The panel convened at 1:30 p.m. EDT on Tuesday and gaveled out just after 1 a.m. EDT on Wednesday. Despite the successful vote, the legislation is far from being out of the woods. The full chamber must now debate and vote to adopt the procedural rule, which could get dicey as a handful of hard-line conservatives vow to oppose the effort. If the rule fails, legislative business in the House would be brought to a standstill, threatening to thwart leadership's goal of sending President Trump the package by Friday. Republicans can afford to lose three votes and still clear the procedural hurdle, assuming full attendance and united Democratic opposition. The House is scheduled to convene on Wednesday at 9 a.m. EDT, with debate first, then a vote. Two of those defectors, however, are already called for: Norman and Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.), the chair of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, say they will vote against the rule on the floor — and Harris said others will join them. 'That's exactly why a group of us are not going to vote to advance the bill until we iron out some of the deficit problems with the bills,' Harris said on Fox News when asked about Elon Musk's criticism of the bill. 'Look, Mr. Musk is right, we cannot sustain these deficits, he understands finances, he understands debts and deficits, and we have to make further progress. And I believe the Freedom Caucus will take the lead in making that further progress.' 'I don't think the votes are there, just like they weren't for the Senate initially until some concessions were made,' he added. 'I believe that the rule vote will not pass tomorrow morning, and then the Speaker's going to have to decide how he gets this back into the House framework.' Rule votes have historically been routine, mundane occurrences, with the majority party voting in favor of the effort and the minority party voting against it. In recent years, however, those on the right-flank have used the procedure to express displeasure with specific legislation or leadership. Despite those threats, attendance issues may scuttle the right-flank's plans. A number of members from both parties are having trouble returning to Washington amid inclement weather in the D.C.-Maryland-Virginia area. Several lawmakers have said their flights back to the city were canceled. Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) on Tuesday night said those conditions could influence when the bill comes up for a vote. 'We're having weather delays getting everybody back right now, but assuming we have a full House, we'll get it through the Rules Committee in the morning, we'll move that forward to the floor and hopefully we're voting on this by tomorrow or Thursday at latest, depending on the weather and delays and all the rest; that's the wildfire that we can't control,' Johnson said on Fox News's 'Hannity' when asked about timing for the legislation. Regardless, the megabill's future in the House is on thin ice as a number of Republicans — from hard-line conservatives to moderates — stake opposition to the legislation, threatening leadership's goal of enacting the bill by Friday. Conservatives are upset with the amount of money the bill would add to the deficit, while moderates are concerned about Medicaid cuts and the rollback of green-energy tax credits. The lawmakers prefer the original House bill, which they passed in May, over the Senate bill, which included a number of changes to their initial legislation. Despite the lingering qualms, Johnson is showing no interest in changing the bill — which would require it to head back to the Senate for a final stamp of approval, a reality that most members have little appetite for. 'We knew we would come to this moment. We knew the Senate would amend the House product. I encouraged them to amend it as lightly as possible. They went a little further than many of us would have preferred, but we have the product now,' Johnson told reporters in the Capitol. 'As the President said, it's his bill. It's not a House bill, it's not a Senate bill, it's the American people's bill. And my objective and my responsibility is to get that bill over the line. So we will do everything possible to do that, and I will work with all of our colleagues.' Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

House Republican Hardliners Warn of a Delay to Tax Vote
House Republican Hardliners Warn of a Delay to Tax Vote

Yahoo

time11 hours ago

  • Business
  • Yahoo

House Republican Hardliners Warn of a Delay to Tax Vote

(Bloomberg) — The leader of a hardline conservative caucus in the House on Wednesday cast doubt on the prospect President Donald Trump's sprawling tax and spending legislation will be completed by July 4. Struggling Downtowns Are Looking to Lure New Crowds Sprawl Is Still Not the Answer California Exempts Building Projects From Environmental Law What Gothenburg Got Out of Congestion Pricing 'We could take another week to get this thing right,' said House Freedom Caucus Chairman Andy Harris, a Maryland Republican, during an appearance on CNBC. 'We're willing to stay until we resolve this.' 'I don't think it's going to be ready by July 4,' he added, saying that the Senate 'should not have left town' after passing their version of the measure on Tuesday. Harris's comments come as House leadership plans to hold a procedural vote to pass the bill on Wednesday, with the goal of sending it to the president by Friday. Yet that ambitious timeline is encountering considerable opposition as moderate and ultraconservative GOP lawmakers threaten to defy the president and perhaps frustrate his domestic agenda. House lawmakers are returning to Washington from a holiday week to vote Wednesday on the Senate version of the bill, which passed the upper chamber 51-50 on Tuesday with Vice President JD Vance's tie-breaking vote. Two key House lawmakers, Texas Representative Chip Roy and Representative Ralph Norman of South Carolina, on Wednesday predicted the first procedural vote will fail, meaning the House would likely not be able to move to a final vote on Wednesday. House Speaker Mike Johnson can afford to lose few Republican votes in the closely divided chamber. Earlier: What's in the Trump Tax Bill That Just Passed the Senate 'The House took a position, the Senate took a position, now it's time to get somewhere between those two positions and send something to the president's desk ,' Harris said. His complaint centers on how the Senate's version of the bill adds to the deficit. 'We're not talking about a revolt. We're talking about actually doing the legislative process the way it's supposed to be done.' Trump on Tuesday put public pressure on Republicans to quickly back the bill, posting on Truth Social the tax bill can pass 'but only if the House GOP UNITES, ignores its occasional 'GRANDSTANDERS' (You know who you are!)' —With assistance from Maeve Sheehey. SNAP Cuts in Big Tax Bill Will Hit a Lot of Trump Voters Too How to Steal a House China's Homegrown Jewelry Superstar America's Top Consumer-Sentiment Economist Is Worried Pistachios Are Everywhere Right Now, Not Just in Dubai Chocolate ©2025 Bloomberg L.P. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data

Trump Administration Live Updates: Divided G.O.P. to Decide Fate of President's Policy Bill
Trump Administration Live Updates: Divided G.O.P. to Decide Fate of President's Policy Bill

New York Times

time12 hours ago

  • Business
  • New York Times

Trump Administration Live Updates: Divided G.O.P. to Decide Fate of President's Policy Bill

Representative Ralph Norman of South Carolina, left, chats with Representative Chip Roy of Texas at the Capitol on Tuesday. Moments after a divided Senate was able to overcome a small Republican rebellion and pass President Trump's marquee domestic policy bill, all eyes turned to the House, where Republican leaders must now contend with growing opposition within their ranks that could derail plans to deliver the legislation to Mr. Trump by Friday. Speaker Mike Johnson was able to win over reluctant Republicans in May by offering a range of concessions to bring House members in line to pass its version of the reconciliation package. But since the Senate made significant changes, he must again stamp out intraparty rebellion without making changes that would require it to go back to the Senate. The path is steep: Multiple members who voted to pass the House version criticized what emerged from the upper chamber, and Mr. Johnson can lose fewer than a handful if all members vote. When the House first voted on the measure in late May, two Republicans, Representatives Warren Davidson of Ohio and Thomas Massie of Kentucky — both anti-deficit conservatives — joined all Democrats in voting against it. 'The changes the Senate made to the House-passed Beautiful Bill, including unacceptable increases to the national debt and the deficit, are going to make passage in the House difficult,' Representative Marlin Stutzman, Republican of Indiana, wrote Tuesday in a social media post. He did not say whether the changes would affect his vote, but he did express a willingness to do away with the arbitrary July 4 deadline set by Mr. Trump to seek improvements to the bill. 'We cannot in good faith pass a bill through our chamber that hinges on cut corners and earmarks,' Mr. Stutzman wrote. 'The American people won't stand for it.' Image Speaker Mike Johnson has little wiggle room in getting the Senate-passed version of the policy bill through his caucus. Credit... Haiyun Jiang/The New York Times Other members of his party were less circumspect. 'No,' Representative Ralph Norman, Republican of South Carolina, repeated when reporters asked if he would vote for the bill as he did before. 'No,' he said again when asked if he would cast a procedural vote to allow the bill to make it to the floor. 'What we ought to do is take exactly the House bill that we sent over and go home and say 'when you're serious, come back,'' he added, before entering the committee room where House deliberations on the bill began shortly after it passed the Senate. There were other immediate signs the Senate-passed bill had a tough path ahead. Representative Andy Ogles of Tennessee called it a 'dud' that 'guts key Trump provisions.' Representative Chip Roy of Texas said the Senate's treatment of clean energy tax credits were not aggressive enough and called it 'a deal-killer of an already bad deal.' More moderate and politically vulnerable Republicans repeated their opposition to its cuts to Medicaid. 'I've been clear from the start that I will not support a final reconciliation bill that makes harmful cuts to Medicaid,' Representative David Valadao, Republican of California, said in a social media post over the weekend. He argued that the version passed by the House made 'reasonable' changes to the program but warned that his support would be lost if deeper cuts were made in the Senate. Senate Republicans did just that, planning to help offset tax cuts and new spending with steeper cuts to Medicaid, tens of billions of dollars more than the House plan. Representative Andy Harris, Republican of Maryland, predicted that there was enough opposition to delay passage by the end of the week and predicted that the two chambers would trade modifications before the bill would be ready for Mr. Trump's signature. 'The bottom line is this is not ready for prime time. We support the president's agenda. The president's agenda was not to raise the deficit by three-quarters of a trillion dollars over the next 10 years,' Mr. Harris, chair of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, said in an interview on Fox News. 'The bottom line is the House will have its say, and this will not sail through the House. We're going to have to negotiate with the Senate one more time.' The groundswell of opposition among House Republicans was familiar. When they first passed their version of the reconciliation package in late May, a number of Republicans publicly opposed the bill, but, after lengthy deal-making sessions and some concessions from party leaders, most critics caved. As was the case in the Senate, Republicans in the House can afford only three defections, if all members are voting and present. The immovable Representative Thomas Massie of Kentucky, has already vowed to vote against it again. Last time around, Mr. Trump was actively engaged to whip votes in favor, calling individual House members and traveling to Capitol Hill. On Tuesday, he renewed calls for his party to deliver results by his July 4 deadline. 'We can have all of this right now, but only if the House GOP UNITES, ignores its occasional 'GRANDSTANDERS' (You know who you are!), and does the right thing, which is sending this Bill to my desk,' Mr. Trump wrote on his social media account Tuesday afternoon. Representative Warren Davidson, the Ohio Republican who voted against the House version in May, signaled that his concerns over spending had not been soothed after seeing changes made to the bill in the Senate. 'Promising someone else will cut spending in the future does not cut spending,' Mr. Davidson said in a social media post on Tuesday. 'We will eventually arrive at the crash site, because it appears nothing will stop this runaway spending train. A fatal overdose of government.' Catie Edmondson contributed reporting.

Trump's 'big, beautiful bill' clears final hurdle before House-wide vote
Trump's 'big, beautiful bill' clears final hurdle before House-wide vote

Fox News

time19 hours ago

  • Business
  • Fox News

Trump's 'big, beautiful bill' clears final hurdle before House-wide vote

The House Rules Committee has teed up President Donald Trump's "big, beautiful bill" for a chamber-wide vote Wednesday after a nearly 12-hour-long session debating the massive piece of legislation. It now heads to the entire chamber for consideration, where several Republicans have already signaled they're concerned with various aspects of the measure. Just two Republicans voted against reporting the bill out of committee – Reps. Ralph Norman, R-S.C., and Chip Roy, R-Texas, conservatives who had expressed reservations with the bill earlier on Tuesday. No Democrats voted to advance it, while the remaining seven Republicans did. The majority of Republican lawmakers appear poised to advance the bill, however, believing it's the best possible compromise vehicle to make Trump's campaign promises a reality. "This bill is President Trump's agenda, and we are making it law. House Republicans are ready to finish the job and put the One Big Beautiful Bill on President Trump's desk in time for Independence Day," House GOP leaders said in a joint statement after the Senate passed the bill on Tuesday. The House Rules Committee acts as the final gatekeeper before most pieces of legislation get a chamber-wide vote. Democrats attempted to delay the panel's hours-long hearing by offering multiple amendments that were shot down along party lines. They criticized the bill as a bloated tax cut giveaway to wealthy Americans, at the expense of Medicaid coverage for lower-income people. Democrats have also accused Republicans of adding billions of dollars to the national debt, chiefly by extending Trump's 2017 tax cuts. "I don't know what it means to be a fiscal hawk, because if you vote for this bill, you're adding $4 trillion to the debt," Rep. Gwen Moore, D-Calif., said during debate on the measure. "Republicans have gone on TV for months and months and months solemnly insisting to the American people that this bill is going to cut the debt, that this will not hurt anybody on Medicaid, just those lazy bums and, you know, unworthy people." But Republicans have said the bill is targeted relief for middle and working-class Americans, citing provisions temporarily allowing people to deduct taxes from tipped and overtime wages, among others. "If you vote against this bill, you're voting against the child tax credit being at $2,200 per child. At the end of this year, it will drop to $1,000. That makes a huge impact to 40 million hardworking Americans. And it's simply, when they vote no, they're voting against a $2,200 child tax credit, and they're okay with $1,000," House Ways & Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith, R-Mo., said. "If you listen to the Democrats here, they say this is all about billionaires and millionaires. No tax on tips, no tax on overtime work. How many millionaires and billionaires, Madam Chair, work by the hour?" The bill numbers more than 900 pages and includes Trump's priorities on taxes, the border, defense, energy and the national debt. An initial version passed the House in May by just one vote, but the Senate has since made multiple key modifications to Medicaid, tax cuts and the debt limit. Moderates are wary of the Senate measures that would shift more Medicaid costs to states that expanded their programs under ObamaCare, while conservatives have said those cuts are not enough to offset the additional spending in other parts of the bill. Several key measures were also removed during the "Byrd Bath," a process in the Senate where legislation is reviewed so that it can be fast-tracked under the budget reconciliation process – which must adhere to a strict set of fiscal rules. Among those conservative critics, Reps. Scott Perry, R-Pa., and Andy Ogles, R-Tenn., introduced resolutions to change the Senate version to varying degrees. Ogles' amendment would have most dramatically changed the bill. If passed, it would have reverted the legislation back to the House version. Perry's amendments were aimed at tightening the rollback of green energy tax credits created by the former Biden administration's Inflation Reduction Act. Another amendment by Rep. Andrew Clyde, R-Ga., would have restored certain Second Amendment-related provisions stripped out by the Byrd Bath. Any changes to the legislation would have forced it back into the Senate, likely delaying Republicans' self-imposed Fourth of July deadline to get the bill onto Trump's desk. The full House is expected to begin considering the bill at 9 a.m. ET Wednesday. Sometime that morning, House lawmakers will vote on whether to begin debating the bill, a procedural measure known as a "rule vote." If that's cleared, a final vote on the bill itself is expected sometime later Wednesday.

Harris rips GOP megabill after Senate passage: ‘There is still time to stop this'
Harris rips GOP megabill after Senate passage: ‘There is still time to stop this'

The Hill

timea day ago

  • Health
  • The Hill

Harris rips GOP megabill after Senate passage: ‘There is still time to stop this'

Former Vice President Harris slammed the 'big, beautiful bill' and highlighted its cuts to several welfare programs on Tuesday, hours after the GOP megabill narrowly cleared the Senate. 'Thanks to Senate Republicans, 17 million people will lose their health care,' Harris wrote on the social media platform X, citing an estimate from The Washington Post that combines several projections from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO). 'Thanks to Senate Republicans, rural hospitals will close. Thanks to Senate Republicans, three million Americans, including veterans and seniors, will lose food assistance. Thanks to Senate Republicans, families will see their energy bills go up by $400 a year,' she added. These appear to be Harris's first public comments about the bill. The former vice president has kept a low profile since the November election, although rumors have swirled that she is interested in a run for California governor. Harris joins a chorus of Democrats furious over the bill's passage that are vowing to continue fighting as it heads back to the House. A number of House Republicans have expressed serious concerns about the bill's Senate version, particularly over changes to Medicaid and the state and local tax (SALT) deduction cap. The House Rules Committee met this afternoon to discuss the measure. Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.), a member of the Rules Committee, called the Senate's version a 'nonstarter' in the hours after it passed and said he would vote 'no' on any procedural measure. In her Tuesday post, Harris urged people to call their representatives and tell them to vote 'no' on the bill, writing 'There is still time to stop this bill.' President Trump has maintained that he wants the bill on his desk by July 4, a line that GOP congressional leadership reiterated after the Senate version passed Tuesday.

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