HOUSE REPUBLICANS WILL REGROUP over the weekend, as they search of a way forward on President Trump’s agenda bill after suffering a stunning setback Friday.
Conservative fiscal hawks, insisting the bill doesn’t do enough to address the federal deficit or Medicaid work requirements, prevented the bill from advancing out of the House Budget Committee.
Five Republicans on the committee voted not to advance the "One Big Beautiful Bill" (OBBB) — Reps. Chip Roy (Texas), Ralph Norman (S.C.), Josh Brecheen (Okla.) and Andrew Clyde (Ga.). Rep. Lloyd Smucker (Pa.) at first voted yes, but changed his vote to no in a procedural move.
“To be clear—I fully support the One Big Beautiful Bill (OBBB)," Smucker posted on X. "My vote today in the Budget Committee is a procedural requirement to preserve the committee’s opportunity to reconsider the motion to advance OBBB.”
It’s an embarrassing defeat for GOP leadership, who insisted the legislation would make it out of committee despite repeated warnings from fiscal hawks that they’d kill it if changes weren’t made.
House GOP leaders will spend the weekend strategizing and huddling with the dissenters. The Budget Committee will reconvene on Sunday evening.
House Budget Committee Chair Jodey Arrington (R-Texas) hopes the next vote will happen on Monday.
“We’re working through some remaining issues here,” Smucker added. “There are just a few outstanding issues I think everyone will get to yes, and we’re going to l resolve this as quick as we can and hopefully have a vote, ideally on Monday, and we can advance this bill."
Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has little room for error, with a self-imposed deadline of passing the full bill by Memorial Day.
“This bill falls profoundly short," Roy said. "It does not do what we say it does with respect to deficits.”
Fiscal conservatives also want an earlier deadline to enforce Medicaid work requirements, which are currently scheduled to take affect in 2029.
“Sadly, I’m a hard no until we get this ironed out," said Norman.
The House Freedom Caucus posted on X:
“Reps. Roy, Norman, Brecheen, Clyde and others continue to work in good faith to enact the President’s 'Big Beautiful Bill'— we were making progress before the vote in the Budget Committee and will continue negotiations to further improve the reconciliation package. We are not going anywhere and we will continue to work through the weekend.”
There’s also the matter of the state and local tax (SALT) deduction. Republicans from blue states say they’ll withhold their support from the final bill unless the SALT cap is raised dramatically, which many conservative Republicans oppose.
Trump is not happy about the discord, posting on Truth Social before the vote:
“Republicans MUST UNITE behind, ‘THE ONE, BIG BEAUTIFUL BILL!’ … We don’t need ‘GRANDSTANDERS’ in the Republican Party. STOP TALKING, AND GET IT DONE!”
If Republicans are able to unite and pass the final bill, it will still face a tough pass through the Senate.
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) told Fox News’s Ainsley Earhardt that the bill is a “slap in the face” to fiscal conservatives because it raises the debt ceiling by $5 trillion.
“We’ll make changes,” Sen. John Hoeven (R-S.D.) told NBC News.
