By LISA MASCARO, KEVIN FREKING and MATT BROWN, Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — With a push from President Donald Trump, House Republicans sent a GOP budget blueprint to passage Tuesday, a step toward delivering his “big, beautiful bill” with $4.5 trillion in tax breaks and $2 trillion in spending cuts despite a wall of opposition from Democrats and discomfort among Republicans.
House Speaker Mike Johnson had almost no votes to spare in his bare-bones GOP majority and was fighting on all fronts — against Democrats, uneasy rank-and-file Republicans and skeptical GOP senators — to advance the party’s signature legislative package. Trump was making calls to wayward GOP lawmakers and had invited Republicans to the White House.
The vote was 217-215, with all Democrats opposed, and the outcome was in jeopardy until the gavel.
“On a vote like this, you’re always going to have people you’re talking to all the way through the close of the vote,” Majority Leader Steve Scalise said before the roll call. “It’s that tight.”
Passage of the package is crucial to kickstarting the process. Trump wants the Republicans who control Congress to approve a massive bill that would extend tax breaks, which he secured during his first term but are expiring later this year, while also cutting spending across federal programs and services.
Next steps are long and cumbersome before anything can become law — weeks of committee hearings to draft the details and send the House version to the Senate, where Republicans passed their own scaled-back version. And more big votes are ahead, including an unrelated deal to prevent a government shutdown when federal funding expires March 14. Those talks are also underway.
It’s all unfolding amid emerging backlash to what’s happening elsewhere as billionaire Trump adviser Elon Musk is tearing through federal agencies with his Department of Government Efficiency firing thousands of workers nationwide, and angry voters are starting to confront lawmakers at town hall meetings back home.
Democrats during an afternoon debate decried the package as a “betrayal” to Americans, a “blueprint for American decline” and simply a “Republican rip-off.”
“Our very way of life as a country is under assault,” House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries said on the steps of the Capitol.
Flanked by Americans who said they would be hurt by cuts to Medicaid and other social programs, the Democrats booed the GOP budget blueprint. But as the minority party, they don’t have the votes to stop it.
Slashing government is not always popular at home
Even as they press ahead, Republicans are running into a familiar problem: Slashing federal spending is typically easier said than done. With cuts to the Pentagon and other programs largely off limits, much of the other government outlays go for health care, food stamps, student loans and programs relied on by their constituents.
Several Republican lawmakers worry that scope of the cuts being eyed — particularly some $880 billion to the committee that handles health care spending, including Medicaid, for example, or $230 billion to the agriculture committee that funds food stamps — will be too harmful to their constituents back home.
GOP leaders insist Medicaid is not specifically listed in the initial 60-page budget framework, which is true. Johnson and his leadership team also told lawmakers they would have plenty of time to debate the details as they shape the final package.
But lawmakers wanted assurances the health care program and others will be protected as the plans are developed and merged with the Senate in the weeks to come.
Rep. Mike Lawler, R-N.Y., said Trump has promised he would not allow Medicaid to be cut.
“The president was clear about that. I was clear about that,” Lawler said. “We will work through this, but the objective today is to begin the process.”
At the same time, GOP deficit hawks are withholding support until they are convinced it won’t add to the nation’s $36 trillion debt load. They warn it will pile onto debt because the cost of the tax breaks — at least $4.5 trillion over the decade outweighs the $2 trillion in spending cuts to government programs.
Trump was set to met with several Republicans Tuesday at the White House, including Rep. Juan Ciscomani, R-Ariz. who joined a group of GOP lawmakers from the Congressional Hispanic Conference raising concerns about protecting Medicaid, food stamps and Pell grants for college.
“While we fully support efforts to rein in wasteful spending and deliver on President Trump’s agenda, it is imperative that we do not slash programs that support American communities across our nation,” wrote Rep. Tony Gonzales, R-Texas, and several others GOP lawmakers from the Hispanic Conference.
Democrats protest tax cuts for wealthy
Democrats in the House and the Senate vow to keep fighting the whole process. “This is not what people want,” said Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., during a rules debate ahead of planned votes.
“We all know that trickle-down economics,” he said about the 2017 tax breaks that flowed mainly to the wealthy, “don’t work.”
Trump has signaled a preference for “big” bill but also appears to enjoy a competition between the House and the Senate, lawmakers said, as he pits the Republicans against each other to see which version will emerge.
Senate Republicans, wary that Johnson can lift his bill over the finish line, launched their own $340 billion package last week. It’s focused on sending Trump money his administration needs for its deportation and border security agenda now, with plans to tackle the tax cuts separately later this year.
“I’m holding my breath. I’m crossing my fingers,” said Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, who said he is rooting for the House’s approach as the better option. “I think a one-shot is their best opportunity.”
The House GOP faces pitfalls ahead
Johnson, whose party lost seats in last November’s election, commands one of the thinnest majorities in modern history, which means he must keep almost every Republican in line or risk losing the vote.
The budget is being compiled during a lengthy process that first sends instructions to the various House and Senate committees, which will then have several weeks to devise more detailed plans for additional debate and votes.
Rep. Jodey Arrington, the Republican chairman of the House Budget Committee, said with economic growth assumptions, from 1.8% as projected by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office to 2.6% as projected by House Republicans, the package would generate about $2.6 trillion in savings over 10 years and would ensure the plan helps reduce the deficit.
Some fiscal advocacy groups view the GOP’s economic projections as overly optimistic.
Associated Press writers Leah Askarinam and Stephen Groves contributed reporting.
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