President Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” failed to pass the House Budget Committee on Friday, in what appears to be a massive blow to House GOP leaders’ plans to hold a House-wide vote next week.
Reps. Chip Roy, R-Texas, Josh Brecheen, R-Okla., Andrew Clyde, R-Ga., and Ralph Norman, R-S.C., and Lloyd Smucker, R-Pa., all voted against the legislation. Smucker’s vote was a procedural maneuver that allows him to bring the legislation up again, rather than opposition to the legislation.
House Budget Committee Chairman Jodey Arrington, R-Texas, said the panel would likely not meet again on Friday, and could reconvene on Monday.
The committee met to mark up and debate the bill, a massive piece of legislation that’s a product of 11 different House committees’ individual efforts to craft policy under their jurisdictions. The result is a wide-ranging bill that advances Trump’s priorities on the border, immigration, taxes, energy, defense and raising the debt limit.
Emotions ran high in the hallway outside the House Budget Committee’s meeting room from the outset, however, giving the media little indication of how events would transpire.
Rep. Brandon Gill, R-Texas, who had been at home with his wife and newborn baby, surprised reporters when he arrived at the Cannon House Office Building after he was initially expected to miss the committee meeting.
His appearance gave House GOP leaders some added wiggle room, allowing the committee to lose two Republican votes and still pass the bill, rather than just one.
But at least four House Republicans went into the meeting warning they were opposed to the bill.
Shortly before the meeting was expected to begin, Roy, Norman, Clyde and Brecheen abruptly left the room while saying little to reporters on the way out.
Each came back a short while later and criticized the legislation in their opening remarks.
The fiscal hawks are frustrated about provisions curbing Medicaid in the bill not going into effect until 2029, and had similar issues with the delay in phasing out green energy subsidies from former President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act..
“Only in Washington are we expected to bet on the come that in five years, then everything will work. Then we will solve the problem,” Roy said during debate. “We have got to change the direction of this town. And to my colleagues and other side of the aisle, yes, that means touching Medicaid.”
At one point, Norman came out of the room and called for the committee to recess in order to work through the fiscal hawks’ concerns.
“If they call for a vote now, it’s not going to end well,” he said, adding he was still waiting on commitments from House GOP leaders.
Minutes later, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., who is not a member of the committee but had been meeting with holdouts, told reporters he wanted the legislation to advance through the Budget panel “as soon as possible.”
When asked about Norman’s comments, he said, “I just walked out of the meeting with him a few minutes ago as well, we’re working on some questions that Ralph and others have, and we’re going to be getting them answers as soon as we get them back from the Trump administration. His questions were the same as Chips and a few others, and they’re very specific questions, valid questions we’re working on getting those answers right now.”
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