House OKs blueprint for Trump agenda
Promise of cuts sways some GOP deficit hawks
By: Riley Beggin
USA Today
WASHINGTON - House Republicans narrowly approved a resolution April 10 [2025] with a 216-214 vote along party lines that will allow them to begin on President Donald Trump's legislative agenda.
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Two Republicans opted not to vote along with one Democrat. The vote came after a dramatic turn of events on April 9, 2[205] in which ultraconservative members of the Freedom Caucus and deficit hawks refused to vote for the existing plan over concerns that it would lead to a skyrocketing national debt.
..... The House Speaker Mike Jonson, R-Louisiana, and Senate Majority Leader John Thurne, R-South Dakota, announced April 10 [2025] that they would find $1.5 trillion in cuts as part of the package. Their joint statement indicates that Congress could make significant changes to Medicaid and other benefit programs.
..... "Our two chambers are directly aligned also on a very important principle - and that is the principle of fiscal responsibility," Johnson told reporters.
..... He added that Republicans aim to deliver on their campaign promises while achieving "the maximum amount of savings' all "while also preserving our essential programs." Republican leader have said it is possible to find deep cuts to Medicaid and other programs without affecting services by rooting out "Waste, fraud and abuse," through nonpartisan experts suggest that is not likely.
..... The resolution approved April 10 [2025] will be the blueprint for a massive bill that Republicans hope to pass through a process known as reconciliation, which avoids the end for a super-majority to overcome a filibuster in the senate. That would allow the measures to pass in both houses of Congress with only Republican votes.
..... The package will eventually include Trump's priorities for border security, domestic energy production and taxes. If it passes, it would be the marquee law of his second term in office.
..... The blueprint instructs the House and Senate to craft separate proposals that will eventually need to be reconciled - and the Senate's instructions, as written, require lawmakers to find very few spending cuts while implementing the president's expensive tax proposals.
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"I think that the Senate didn't do Trump any favors. I thing that they're setting him up. and us up, to screw us in the end and not cut any spending whatsoever," Representative Eric Burlson, R-Missouri, told USA Today on April 9 [2025] on his rationale for voting against the resolution. "We need to put guardrails in place to make sure there's at least a minimum level of spending cuts."
..... But Burlison and about a dozen other skeptical Republican House members changed their minds after Johnson and Thune assured them that the Senate would product enough spending reductions to offset a portion of the tax cuts and planned spending on border security and domestic energy policies - despite Thune being slightly less straightforward about the Senate's commitment to spending cuts.
..... He said he and his colleagues would "do everything we can" to find $1.5 trillion in cuts, which caused another last-minute scramble to convince ultraconservative House members to join them.
..... The flip came after days of intense pressure from Trump and his advisers. Trump told House Republicans at a fundraiser on April 8 [2025] night" "Cloe your eyes and get there."
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The skeleton plan both members have now agreed to lays out separate spending instructions for Trump's legislation that will ultimately be hammered put between the chambers and fleshed out with detailed policy.
..... The Senate's plan would allow them to lock in the tax cuts implemented during Trump's first term, which are set to expire this year, [2025] an incredibly expensive endeavor that would add an estimated $3.8 trillion to the deficit over the next 10 years.
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The Senate's plan would also allow or an additional $1.5 trillion in tax cuts, leaving room for Trump's plans to eliminate taxes on tips and overtime and other tax priorities. It requires virtually no spending cuts but has a non-binding target of eventually dignified $2 trillion in savings over 10 years.
..... The Senate plan would also raise the debt ceiling by $5 trillion, which would avoid a looming default on the federal debt and help Republicans avoid negotiating on the extension with Democrats.
..... The blueprint also instructs the House to follow separate rules, which required finding at least $1.5 trillion in spending cuts over the next 10 years.
..... The House's plan also allows for an extension of Trump's 2017 tax cuts and allocates $300 billion for spending on defense and border security.
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The two Republican lawmakers who voted against their party on the bill, Representatives Victoria Spartz of Indiana and Thomas Massie of Kentucky. argued that the assurances from the Senate the cuts were not enough for them.
..... "When are we going to get serious about spending?" Representative Chip Roy, R-Texas. asked on the House floor April 9. [2025]
..... "The Senate sent over a joke. ... We're going to be sitting there in a reconciliation debate and we're going to end up with the short end of the stick, but worse, the American people are going to end up with the short end of the stick. Because it absolutely increases deficits. No one can deny it."
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It's not just House members who have a problem with the Senate's instructions.
..... Several Republicans and Democrats in both chambers are concerned that the blueprint will lead to significant cuts to Medicaid, the health insurance program that provides coverage to 72 million low-income Americans.
..... The House's instructions include a directive to cut $800 billion from the jurisdiction of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which nonpartisan experts have said is not possible to meet without s;lashing Medicaid.
..... Several GOP lawmakers, including Senators Josh Hawley, R-Missouri, have said they cannot support the final package if it includes significant cuts to Medicaid.
.... But Hawley voted to approve the Senate's blueprint, saying that he;d spoke "for a good bit" with Trump, who "told me the House will NOT cut Medicaid benefits and the Senate will NOT cut Medicaid benefits and he won't sign any benefit cuts."