House Republicans adopted their budget blueprint on Tuesday despite public opposition among their ranks.
The budget resolution’s survival is a key first step in the GOP’s quest to pass President Trump’s agenda, and gives House Speaker Mike Johnson a major political victory in the process.
The plan by House Budget Committee Chairman Jodey Arrington also puts the House on the path of unlocking the filibuster-proof budget reconciliation process where lawmakers in the lower chamber hope to cram sweeping tax, energy, border and defense policy into one colossal, forthcoming package.
The plan was adopted on a 217 to 215 vote.
Ultimately, only one Republican lawmaker, Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, actually voted against the bill, a much smaller number than the more than half dozen who remained uncommitted to supporting the plan earlier in the day.
Mr. Johnson said after the vote that the House’s plan would soon head to the Senate, with both chambers eventually needing to agree on one product.
“This is the first important step in opening up the reconciliation process,” he said. “We have a lot of hard work ahead of us. We are going to deliver the America First agenda. We’re going to deliver all of it, not just parts of it, and this is the first step of that process.”
Senate Republicans passed their own budget blueprint last week that calls for splitting Mr. Trump’s agenda into two bills, with a first focused on border and defense funding and a second on the tax cuts. Senate GOP leaders have referred to their budget as “Plan B” in case the House couldn’t advance its own plan.
Closed-door conversations with Mr. Johnson, Louisiana Republican, coupled with calls with the president, who endorsed the House’s plan last week, appeared to convince some, but not all, of the holdouts to support the measure.
Whether the plan would actually make its way through the House was up in the air until the last minute, despite Republican leaders’ efforts. Still, they were optimistic that Democratic absences would give them enough cushion to adopt the resolution even with some in their own ranks voting against it.
But two Democrats who had missed an earlier test vote, Reps. Brittany Pettersen of Colorado and Kevin Mullin of California, showed up and evaporated that safety net.
Mr. Johnson kept the House floor open for an hour, then opted to punt the blueprint when it appeared the opposition wouldn’t budge. But within minutes, the vote was reopened, and the many lawmakers who had already left the chamber slowly filed back in.
Republican Reps. Tim Burchett of Tennessee and Victoria Spartz of Indiana, who were still publicly uncommitted to supporting the House’s plan before the vote, both flipped.
Mr. Massie, who remained steadfast in his opposition, said the budget plan would add to the nation’s already staggering $36 trillion debt.
The House’s plan includes instructions for House committees that will craft policy for the massive reconciliation package to add up to $300 billion in new spending over the next decade for border security, immigration enforcement and national defense, to find at least $1.5 trillion in spending cuts, and to raise the debt limit by $4 trillion.
Their budget also calls for sweeping tax cuts with a maximum net cost of $4.5 trillion, although that ceiling would be lowered if Republicans don’t achieve $2 trillion in spending cuts or raised if they exceed that goal.
Holdouts took issue with the tax and spending plans in the budget blueprint, arguing that the instructions would add to the deficit when lawmakers should be reducing it, or at the very least not adding to it.
“We’re increasing the deficit this year by over $300 billion and next year as well,” Mr. Massie said. “The only way this is better than the baseline is if you wait 10 years and imagine we don’t increase discretionary spending by more than the rate of inflation, and that we have 2.8% growth every year. It’s like magic fairy dust.”
Mr. Johnson rejected the deficit hawks’ criticisms, saying Republicans “can’t do it all at once” when it comes to cutting into the nation’s $36 trillion debt, but his objective “has always been deficit neutrality.”
GOP leaders are assuming economic growth from taxes they cut and government regulations they repeal will ultimately make up for any differences between their tax and spending cuts.
“We’re going to take a big bite out of that,” Mr. Johnson said of the deficit. “We’re going to make a big course correction in this process.”
Another sticking point for some Republicans was proposed cuts to Medicaid — the plan instructs the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which oversees the program, to find at least $880 billion in savings.
Mr. Johnson and his leadership team reiterated that their budget blueprint would not cut Medicaid, but rather seek to reform it.
Still, House Democrats railed against the proposed cuts ahead of the vote with a small-scale rally on the front steps of the Capitol and roughly 200 supporters and advocates loudly cheering them on.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, New York Democrat, vowed that Democrats would never support the GOP’s budget blueprint, and accused Republicans of seeking the “largest Medicaid cut in American history.”
“We will push back against the reckless Republican budget until it’s buried deep in the ground, never to rise again,” Mr. Jeffries said.
People who would be negatively affected by the resolution’s instructions to trim at least $1.5 trillion in spending also spoke, and warned that proposed cuts to Medicaid, SNAP and educational programs would upend their lives while offering “tax handouts” to billionaires.
“I don’t understand why any lawmaker would threaten programs that enable families to survive,” said Mary Beth Cochran, a resident of North Carolina GOP Rep. Chuck Edwards’ district. “But it’s appalling to know that Republicans want to slash these programs so they can cut taxes for billionaires and corporations.”
• Lindsey McPherson can be reached at lmcpherson@washingtontimes.com.
• Alex Miller can be reached at amiller@washingtontimes.com.