Washington — The House convened Wednesday to take up President Trump’s Senate-passed massive domestic policy bill, with Republicans aiming to approve the final version of the legislation ahead of a July 4 deadline to get the bill to the president’s desk.
The House Rules Committee advanced the Senate’s changes to the bill overnight, setting up a possible dramatic floor vote in the coming hours. Debate and a key procedural vote were expected in the lower chamber Wednesday.
House Republicans are forging ahead quickly on the signature legislation of Mr. Trump’s second-term agenda, which includes ramped-up spending for border security, defense and energy production and extends trillions of dollars in tax cuts, partially offset by substantial cuts to health care and nutrition programs. The House passed an earlier version of the bill in May.
House Democrats dragged out the process on the Rules Committee overnight and early into the morning by submitting hundreds of amendments to be debated in the committee, similar to the way Senate Democrats delayed final passage by forcing the entire bill to be read on the floor and insisting on votes on dozens of amendments.
“All legislative tools and options are on the table,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, a New York Democrat, said after the Senate vote Tuesday.
Democratic Rep. Maxwell Frost of Florida said of their strategy that “the longer this bill in the ether, the more unpopular it becomes.”
Democrats weren’t alone in their resistance to the revised bill. GOP Reps. Ralph Norman of South Carolina and Chip Roy of Texas joined Democrats on the panel to oppose the rule, as a handful of hardline conservatives said they’d reject the Senate’s changes.
“What the Senate did is unconscionable,” Norman said. “I’ll vote against it here and I’ll vote against it on the floor until we get it right.”
As Friday’s self-imposed deadline quickly approaches, it’s still unclear if House Republicans have enough support to get it over the finish line. Members have continued to voice their discontent with pieces of the tax and spending package that squeaked through the Senate. Possible holdouts, including moderates and members of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, were meeting with Mr. Trump at the White House Wednesday.
Several members on both sides of the aisle had their flights canceled or delayed by bad weather as they raced back to Washington for the vote, adding another layer of doubt around the bill’s passage.
Republicans can only afford three defections, if all members are present and voting.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, has spent weeks pleading with his Senate counterparts not to make any major changes to the version of the bill that passed the lower chamber by a single vote in May. He said the Senate bill’s changes “went a little further than many of us would’ve preferred.”
The Senate-passed bill includes steeper Medicaid cuts, a higher increase in the debt limit and changes to the House bill’s green energy policies and the state and local tax deduction.
Other controversial provisions that faced pushback in both chambers, including the sale of public lands in nearly a dozen states, a 10-year moratorium on states regulating artificial intelligence and an excise tax on the renewable energy industry, were stripped from the Senate bill before heading back to the House.
Johnson said Tuesday night that he was having “lots of discussion with lots of members about lots of ideas” as several potential holdouts called for the bill to be reverted to the House-passed version. GOP leaders, however, said the House would vote on the Senate bill “as-is.”
“It’s important to recognize that much of what the House included in H.R. 1 when we initially passed it is still included,” said Republican Rep. Virginia Foxx of North Carolina, who chairs the Rules Committee.
Should the House make changes to the bill, the revisions would require the Senate’s approval, or force the two chambers to go to conference committee to iron out a final product that the two bodies could agree on, jeopardizing the bill’s timely passage.
Meanwhile, the White House was expected to continue to pressure House Republicans to get the bill across the finish line. In a Truth Social post Wednesday morning, Mr. Trump urged the GOP to get the bill done, saying to his party, “don’t let the Radical Left Democrats push you around.”
“We’ve got all the cards, and we are going to use them,” he said.
With few levers to combat the bill’s passage, House Democrats spoke out forcefully against the legislation.
“We will not stand by and watch Trump and his billionaire friends destroy this country without putting up one hell of a fight,” Democratic Rep. Jim McGovern of Massachusetts said, calling the bill a “massive betrayal of the American people.”
Jeffries said that “every single House Democrat will vote ‘hell no’ against this one, big ugly bill,” while adding that “all we need are four House Republicans to join us in defense of their constituents who will suffer mightily from this bill.” Democratic leaders called out some Republicans by name, including Reps. Rob Bresnahan and Scott Perry of Pennsylvania and Reps. David Valadao and Young Kim of California.
“It’s unconscionable, it’s unacceptable, it’s un-American, and House Democrats are committing to you that we’re going to do everything in our power to stop it,” Jeffries said. “All we need are four Republicans, just four.”