House Republican leaders scrapped plans to vote on the Senate’s budget blueprint Wednesday in a setback to President Trump’s legislative agenda — a day after the commander in chief urged lawmakers to “close your eyes and get there.”
Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) huddled with hardliners for about an hour before deciding that the GOP would have to punt the vote by at least one day so lawmakers could iron out their differences.
“We’re going to try to move this tomorrow. This has been a very constructive process,” Johnson, 53, told reporters after yanking the vote. “We’re going to talk about maybe going to conference with the Senate or adding an amendment.”
Trump, 78, had personally pleaded with GOP hardliners Tuesday to bite the bullet and let the blueprint go through so that leadership could get the ball rolling and address their concerns later.
Johnson said he consulted Trump before pulling the vote.
For weeks, House Republicans have been at loggerheads with Senate Republicans over how deep to slash spending in the sweeping Trump agenda package, which includes tax cuts, energy supply reform, border security and more.
Ultimately, the two chambers stalled on sorting out their differences, so the Senate decided to adopt a blueprint last week that included two different sets of instructions to appease both factions.
In order to get the budget resolution approved, both chambers need to adopt it.
Adopting the budget resolution is crucial for Republicans because it unlocks the Senate reconciliation process — which they need to pass the final Trump agenda bill by bypassing the 60-vote threshold needed to break a Democratic filibuster.
Trump and House GOP leadership tried to assure hardliners that if they backed the blueprint and unlocked the reconciliation process, they would ultimately get the spending cuts they want.
“I had a very good meeting today with the Speaker of the House and some of our more Conservative Members, all great people,” Trump recapped on Truth Social Tuesday.
“I let them know that, I AM FOR MAJOR SPENDING CUTS! WE ARE GOING TO DO REDUCTIONS, hopefully in excess of $1 Trillion Dollars, all of which will go into ‘The One, Big, Beautiful Bill,’” he added. “But we must get the Bill approved NOW.”
But GOP hardliners seemed unconvinced. They wanted to get their spending differences resolved first.
“Markets are rebounding in response to @realDonaldTrump isolation of China, so the political pressure to just get ‘any’ tax and spend bill passed has lessened,” Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) argued. “There is time to get a much more beautiful deal done in line with what our voters expect!”
The original House blueprint — which the lower chamber adopted in February — laid out $1.5 trillion in assigned cuts for committees, with a goal of shooting for at least $2 trillion.
The Senate’s version featured the House’s instructions and a separate set of directions for the upper chamber to cut just $4 billion. Moderate Senate Republicans were wary of even including the House instructions in the blueprint due to the deep cuts.
There are other big differences, too.
Senate instructions set the stage for making the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act permanent and creating enough space to fully realize Trump’s goal of no tax on tips, Social Security and overtime pay, as well as jacking up the state and local tax deduction (SALT). Some estimates peg that at a $5.3 trillion price tag.
But the House’s instructions only allow up to $4.5 trillion of a deficit increase for tax cuts, meaning that Trump’s full tax agenda may not be able to be realized. The House blueprint didn’t say which tax cuts wouldn’t make it.
Another key difference is that the Senate provides $175 billion in new funding for border security, compared to the House’s $200 billion. Technically, the Senate’s version allots $350 billion in new border security funds, but aides have told The Post that lawmakers only plan to use $175 billion of that.
Additionally, the Senate’s version increased defense spending by $150 billion, while the House upped it by $100 billion.
Johnson is keen on getting the budget resolution over the finish line before the House breaks for its two-week Easter recess.
He is hoping to get the final agenda package through to Trump’s desk by Memorial Day.