House Republicans approved a budget framework for President Donald Trump’s sweeping domestic policy agenda Tuesday — a major victory for Speaker Mike Johnson who worked with Trump and fellow leaders in a chaotic last-ditch effort to win over naysayers within the GOP ranks.
The vote went almost entirely along party lines, 217-213, with every Democrat voting against the measure and only GOP Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky joining them. Adopting the budget measure is a key step toward passing the “big, beautiful bill” that Trump and Johnson have called for — one that includes border security, tax and energy provisions that the president campaigned on.
The Senate passed a competing plan last week, and the Republicans in the two chambers must now reconcile the significant differences between the two fiscal blueprints.
Tuesday night’s vote came after a wild scene on the House floor that played out over the course of hours. Around 6:30 p.m. members were called to the floor to begin voting on an unrelated measure, with the budget plan to follow. But that unrelated vote was held open for more than an hour as the GOP whip team worked to win over the holdouts.
Democrats screamed “regular order” as the planned 15-minute vote stretched on and on. Shortly after 7:30 p.m., the vote was closed and members were informed the budget vote was canceled. Minutes later, leaders sent out another alert saying the vote was back on.
The holdouts included Reps. Tim Burchett of Tennessee, Warren Davidson of Ohio, and Victoria Spartz of Indiana, as well as Massie. All four voiced public opposition to the budget plan Tuesday and could be seen on the House floor during the evening vote series speaking to various Republican leaders.
Given the House GOP’s tiny majority, and the united opposition of Democrats, those four hard-right holdouts could together block action.
But Johnson deployed a highly targeted whip operation to court the hard-liners. He facilitated a call between Trump and Burchett and held an extended conversation with Davidson and Massie.
“I told him that I would talk about it, think about it, pray about it. And that’s what I’m doing,” Burchett said about his call with Trump on Tuesday afternoon, saying he would decide “right before I walk up” for the vote.
The fiscal hawks all raised objections about inadequate spending cuts in the measure; Davidson also aired concerns about how Republican leaders plan to handle the impending March 14 government funding deadline.
Leadership had been hoping that members would fall in line behind the budget plan as the only way to deliver the vast agenda Trump is seeking. Other hard-liners agreed to back the plan last month in the House Budget Committee after securing an additional $500 billion in spending cuts over 10 years.
But the four final holdouts wanted more. Meanwhile, a different faction of the GOP conference — moderate Republicans, many representing swing districts — had qualms about the scale of the Medicaid cuts implied by the budget plan.
That group, however, quickly softened: On Monday night, some said that a presentation from House leaders had moved them closer to supporting the budget plan, and by midday Tuesday, House leaders were confident enough to move toward a final vote.
“There may be a vote tonight, there may not be. Stay tuned,” Johnson told reporters in the late morning.
Tuesday’s vote sets up a harsh reality check between House and Senate Republicans, who all want to push the president’s agenda forward but still have profoundly different approaches to key issues.
The Senate, for instance, is looking to avoid the deep cuts to Medicaid that the House is leaning on for significant cost cutting. Senate Republicans are also insisting that they won’t support a final measure that only extends Trump’s 2017 tax cuts temporarily. That could require making significant changes to the House blueprint, putting the fragile GOP support for the measure in jeopardy.
The House and Senate must adopt identical budget resolutions to unlock the power of reconciliation — which allows parties with control of the House, Senate and White House to pass massive policy bills along party lines, sidestepping the Senate filibuster.
