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House republicans threaten to sink Trump’s megabill

The number of House Republicans vowing to oppose the Senate version is enough to block the bill’s passage.

Speaker Mike Johnson is trying to persuade House Republicans to pass the Senate version of the tax-and-spending bill. Picture: AP /J. Scott Applewhite
Speaker Mike Johnson is trying to persuade House Republicans to pass the Senate version of the tax-and-spending bill. Picture: AP /J. Scott Applewhite

House Republican leaders worked to win over GOP critics of President Donald Trump’s sprawling tax-and-spending bill ahead of votes as soon as late Wednesday, with the party’s thin majority again creating last-minute drama on Capitol Hill.

Dozens of politicians had raised complaints about the revised “big, beautiful bill”, which passed the Senate a day earlier, with fiscal hawks wanting deeper spending reductions and moderates worried about cuts to the social safety net.

“I feel very positive about the progress,” said House Speaker Mike Johnson (Republican, Louisiana), who has been meeting with politicians all day. “I feel good about where we are and where we’re headed,” he said. But GOP attendance issues and continued talks stalled action late into Wednesday.

The number of House Republicans who have said they would oppose the Senate version of the legislation has been seen as enough to block the bill’s passage, though past stand-offs have been resolved after pressure campaigns by the President and party leaders. Given Republicans’ thin 220-212 majority, no more than three House Republicans can join Democrats in opposing the bill.

Party leaders were planning to hold a crucial “rule” vote, with full passage possible as soon as later Wednesday or Thursday. Mr Trump wants the bill on his desk this week to meet his self-imposed July 4 deadline, though there are no practical consequences from waiting.

Mr Trump met separately on Wednesday with members of the conservative House Freedom Caucus and moderate Republicans, and urged both groups to get on board, according to White House officials. He emphasised the tax cuts in the legislation and sought to play down concerns about Medicaid cuts, saying they would target waste and fraud.

Kentucky Republican representative Thomas Massie, a deficit hawk who has clashed publicly with Mr Trump, remained a firm no.

But signs were emerging that some critics were starting to come around, signalling they were ready to support the measure.

“Big day, we hope this all works out,” said Tennessee Republican representative Tim Burchett as he left the White House after what he called a “very good conversation” with Mr Trump and Vice-President JD Vance. Mr Burchett has sought deeper deficit reductions.

Virginia Republican Morgan Griffith, a member of the Freedom Caucus who said he would support the bill, says members received assurances from the White House on various issues – and the President’s approach involved more of a soft touch rather than arm twisting.

“I’m not there yet,” said Texas Republican Chip Roy, another member of the Freedom Caucus. “We got to understand what the steps are to deal with how the Senate bill came up short.” He declined to comment on whether such steps could include executive orders from the President.

Nebraska representative Don Bacon, a retiring politician who is one of three House Republicans from districts Mr Trump lost, said he would vote for the bill because of the tax cuts and military spending included in it, even though there are portions he doesn’t like.

If the House altered or failed to approve the Senate measure, Mr Trump’s July 4 deadline probably would not be met, as senators have left town.

Members of the House Rules Committee at a hearing on the tax-and-spending legislation Tuesday. Picture: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
Members of the House Rules Committee at a hearing on the tax-and-spending legislation Tuesday. Picture: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

South Carolina Republican Ralph Norman, a member of the House Freedom Caucus, voted early Wednesday morning against moving the bill out of the House Rules Committee, joined by Mr Roy. The panel debated, then narrowly advanced the bill to the house floor.

“Our bill has been completely changed,” Mr Norman said. “This bill’s a nonstarter. We want to do this, but this bill doesn’t do what the President wants it to do.”

Democrats have stayed united in opposition, saying the bill cuts Medicaid and other programs for lower-income people to pay for tax cuts for the wealthy.

“That so many of you are blindly going along with this just to please the guy in the White House is shameful,” Massachusetts representative Jim McGovern, the top Democrat on the Rules Committee, told his GOP colleagues.

The Senate passed the bill on Tuesday, following a 27-hour marathon of amendment votes. The legislation would broadly fund Mr Trump’s biggest priorities, including the extension of his 2017 tax cuts; no tax on tips and overtime, and; a large funding boost to the President’s immigration and border policies.

The house GOP is being asked to digest a series of changes made to a version of the bill that passed the lower chamber, by one vote, weeks earlier.

The House Freedom Caucus released a three-page list of what it called “failures” in the Senate bill on Wednesday. Those include a 12-month runway for wind and solar projects to start construction and still get tax credits, and its violation of the house framework that limited tax cuts unless Republicans also approved spending cuts.

Chip Roy has warned that changes to the Senate bill are needed before passage in the House. Picture: AP /J. Scott Applewhite
Chip Roy has warned that changes to the Senate bill are needed before passage in the House. Picture: AP /J. Scott Applewhite

The Freedom Caucus also criticised what it described as “pork”, including a provision that helped swing the vote of Alaska Republican senator Lisa Murkowski by giving states with high error rates more time before being affected by new limits on nutrition assistance programs.

Conservatives including Mr Roy, House Freedom Caucus chair Andy Harris, from Maryland, and Eric Burlison (Missouri) have warned they will block the bill if changes aren’t made.

Given the tough math, Mr Johnson repeatedly warned the Senate against altering the house bill. In passing the measure in May, Mr Johnson had wrangled conservatives who were pushing for spending cuts and centrists who were warning against steep changes to programs such as food stamps and Medicaid, the federal-state healthcare program for low-income and disabled people. He told house members they would have a chance to make changes to the bill when it came back from the Senate.

Fiscal hawks argue that the bill irresponsibly expands the national debt, and the Senate bill breaches the red lines they laid out months ago and reiterated in June. Centrists warn that they could risk losing their seats if they agree to the Senate’s more drastic changes.

The Senate version’s deeper policy shifts on Medicaid would leave 12 million people without insurance by 2034, according to the Congressional Budget Office, compared with 11 million people in the house version.

While both bills aim to phase out quickly clean-energy tax credits for solar and wind companies, the Senate version would have slightly more lax requirements as to when a company can claim the tax credit. The Senate bill would raise the debt ceiling by a trillion more dollars than the house’s proposed $4 trillion.

The Senate version would have a more substantial impact on the US deficit, according to the CBO. It would add $3.4 trillion to the nation’s debt over a decade, compared with the house bill, which would add $2.4 trillion, the nonpartisan budget scorekeeper found in an updated score.

Still, they will have to decide if the bill is unpalatable enough to risk crossing Mr Trump, who has already threatened to find primary challengers to those who block it. Sceptics on Capitol Hill said they had seen this film before: Fiscal conservatives and other Republican holdouts say they can’t support a bill, only for most of them to fall in line when Mr Trump gets directly involved.

Wall Street Journal

Read related topics:Donald Trump

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Original URL: https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/the-wall-street-journal/house-republicans-threaten-to-sink-trumps-megabill/news-story/d8b451b5acb463828a18a29ca8b97917