Budget Committee Passes ‘Big, Beautiful Bill’ After Negotiations

The House Budget Committee advanced the Republican budget reconciliation bill Sunday night after three days of negotiations brought enough additional cost-saving proposals to convince four GOP budget hawks to reverse their initial opposition.

The bill passed by a 17-16 margin, with all Democrats on the committee voting against it. The bill, if it passes the full House and Senate would fulfill a number of President Donald Trump’s campaign promises, such as extending his 2017 tax cuts and funding border security.

The four Republican holdouts who previously voted down the bill had demanded it be amended to frontload savings in Medicaid and eliminate Biden-era green energy subsidies, are now allowing what Trump calls the “One Big, Beautiful Bill” to advance.

Three voted “present”: Ralph Norman of South Carolina, Josh Brecheen of Oklahoma and Chip Roy of Texas. Lloyd Smucker of Pennsylvania, who also voted against the bill on Friday, voted “yes.”

The results come after a weekend of negotiations, in which leadership worked to find a deal with fiscal hawks such as Roy, who demanded amendments to the bill such as implementing Medicaid work requirements earlier than the current target of 2029.

“We’ve been working through the entire day with my colleagues,” Roy said Friday after initially voting down the bill in committee. 

“We have to deliver on extending the tax cuts, but getting also the spending cuts necessary to get deficits down. Too much of the current bill has the spending savings in the out years. Those need to be moved forward.”

Ultimately, the fiscal hawks allowed the bill to pass, saying they had made progress in weekend negotiations.

“CONGRATULATIONS REPUBLICANS!!! MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!!!” wrote Trump in celebration of the vote.

The hawks who initially voted down the bill indicated that some of their demands had been satisfied, but that there was still work to be done.

“Importantly the bill now will move Medicaid work requirements forward and reduces the availability of future subsidies under the green new scam.”

However, Roy also said that” the bill does not yet meet the moment,” and that it leaves “almost half of the green new scam subsidies continuing.”

Roy also said that the bill does not address all of his criticisms of the federal government’s funding of state Medicaid programs—namely, that the federal government will continue to match state payments to Medicaid expansion enrollees at a higher rate than for Medicaid’s pre-Obamacare enrollees.

Roy added that he “joined with 3 of his colleagues to vote ‘present’ out of respect for the Republican Conference and the President to move the bill forward.”

The Freedom Caucus put out a similar statement, saying, “While progress has been made on advancing the ‘One Big Beautiful Bill’ out of the Budget Committee, it does not yet meet the moment,” reads the caucus’ statement.

“We are determined and committed to working through the remaining obstacles within this bill, and we stand with our colleagues Reps. Roy, Brecheen, Clyde and Norman in the Budget Committee who voted present to signal the need for further negotiations.”

Negotiations are likely far from over. Leadership still must negotiate with a group of four New York Republicans who are demanding a higher cap on state and local tax (SALT) deductions.

The bill is scheduled to go to the Rules Committee for a hearing on Wednesday at 1 p.m., a committee Roy and Norman sit on as well.

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