Inside the Republican Factions Dueling Over Trump’s Tax Bill

Speaker Mike Johnson, short of the votes for a megabill to deliver President Trump’s agenda, looked around the conference table in his ornate office in the Capitol on a recent morning and faced a pack of disgruntled Republicans — each demanding something different.

There was Representative Chip Roy, the Texas congressman who was insisting the bill include steep cuts to Medicaid. And there was Representative Andrew Garbarino, the New Yorker who has pledged to tank any bill that would reduce Medicaid coverage for his constituents.

Representative Nick LaLota of New York, who has said the legislation’s rollback of Biden-era clean energy tax credits goes too far, was also on hand. So was Representative Andy Harris of Maryland, who is urging Republican leaders to repeal those tax breaks completely.

The tableau of attendees, summoned by Mr. Johnson late last week as he sought to gather support for what Mr. Trump has called the “big, beautiful bill,” encapsulated the precarious seesaw the speaker faces as he labors to shepherd the sprawling tax and budget legislation through the House. The factions hold vastly different, competing priorities for major pieces of the domestic policy package, and encompass the divergent ideological, political and regional interests at play inside the G.O.P.

For every bloc with one demand that must be met before its members agree to support the measure, there is another demanding the opposite.

And with his tiny margin of control, Mr. Johnson can afford to lose only three Republicans on the bill, which is expected to be uniformly opposed by Democrats, if all members are present and voting. The predicament helps explain why the legislation faltered in a key committee last week, how difficult it will be for Republicans to push it through the House in time to meet a self-imposed Memorial Day deadline and why — even if they can — it faces an uncertain fate in the Senate.