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The Republican hard-liners who had blocked their party’s bill to deliver President Trump’s agenda allowed it to advance after saying they had won some changes. But they still refused to support it.
Published May 18, 2025Updated May 19, 2025, 12:26 a.m. ET
The House Budget Committee late Sunday night revived President Trump’s stalled bill to cut taxes and spending, after a handful of fiscally conservative Republicans relented and allowed it to advance even as they continued to press for deeper reductions to health and environmental programs.
The vote signaled a temporary resolution to a remarkable revolt from a group of hard-liners on the panel, who on Friday joined Democrats in opposing the bill in committee, tanking it over concerns that it did not do enough to rein in the nation’s ballooning debt.
On Sunday, after a weekend of intensive negotiations with House Republican leaders and White House officials, they switched their votes to “present,” allowing the measure to move forward without lending their support. It sent the bill past a crucial procedural hurdle but indicated that there was still major trouble ahead for the package, which Speaker Mike Johnson has said he wants the full House to consider before Memorial Day.
“Deliberations continue to this very moment,” Representative Jodey C. Arrington of Texas, the chairman of the panel, said as he opened the session late Sunday night. “They will continue on into the week and, I suspect, right up until the time we put this big, beautiful bill on the floor of the House.”
The vote was 17 to 16, with all four Republicans who initially voted to defeat the legislation — Representatives Chip Roy of Texas, Josh Brecheen of Oklahoma, Ralph Norman of South Carolina and Andrew Clyde of Georgia — voting “present.”
In a lengthy statement on social media minutes after the vote, Mr. Roy said he and the three other conservatives had secured commitments for changes to the bill that include speeding implementation of new work requirements for Medicaid and further curtailing clean energy tax credits created by the Inflation Reduction Act. He did not offer more details about either proposal, and Republican leaders provided no information on what concessions they had promised.
