In a sharp blow to former President Donald Trump’s economic ambitions, five House Republicans broke ranks with party leadership on Friday, sinking a sweeping tax and spending bill in a high-stakes vote in the House Budget Committee.
The bill, a 1,116-page cornerstone of Trump’s domestic policy platform, failed to advance in a 16–21 vote, falling short of the narrow margin needed for passage. With only two Republican defections allowed, five conservative lawmakers—Representatives Chip Roy (TX), Ralph Norman (SC), Josh Brecheen (OK), Andrew Clyde (GA), and Lloyd Smucker (PA)—joined Democrats in opposition, citing concerns over insufficient spending cuts.
“This bill simply doesn’t do enough to rein in the runaway spending that has driven our national debt to dangerous levels,” said Rep. Chip Roy, a leading voice among fiscal conservatives. “We were promised serious cuts, and what we got instead was political window dressing.”
A Fractured GOP Agenda
The defeat underscores growing fractures within the Republican Party, as hardline fiscal conservatives and more moderate members clash over tax policy, entitlement reform, and regional priorities. Speaker Mike Johnson, who had hoped to pass the legislation by Memorial Day, now faces an uphill battle to unify his caucus ahead of any future votes.
The bill, spearheaded by the House Ways and Means Committee and unveiled earlier this week, aimed to extend Trump-era tax cuts, slash $1.5 trillion in federal spending over a decade, and eliminate certain Biden-era clean energy tax credits. Most controversially, it included sweeping changes to Medicaid eligibility and the State and Local Tax (SALT) deduction.
“This is a common-sense conservative package,” Johnson told reporters ahead of the vote. “It’s designed to protect taxpayers, safeguard Medicaid for the truly needy, and give working families long-overdue relief from Biden’s inflationary policies.”
But the proposal ran headlong into opposition from both ends of the GOP spectrum. Fiscal hawks slammed the bill as insufficiently austere, while moderate Republicans from high-tax states like New York and California objected to the limited expansion of the SALT deduction—from $10,000 to $30,000—which they argue doesn't go far enough to help their constituents.
Trump Weighs In — and Calls Out ‘Grandstanders’
Earlier Friday, Trump took to his Truth Social platform, rallying Republicans to support the measure. “Not only does it cut Taxes for ALL Americans,” Trump wrote, “but it will kick millions of Illegal Aliens off of Medicaid to PROTECT it for those who are the ones in real need.”
He warned that failure to pass the bill would bring economic pain. “The Country will suffer greatly without this Legislation, with their Taxes going up 65%. It will be blamed on the Democrats, but that doesn’t help our Voters.”
In a direct rebuke to GOP holdouts, Trump added: “We don’t need ‘GRANDSTANDERS’ in the Republican Party. STOP TALKING, AND GET IT DONE!”
Despite the former president’s public pressure, concerns around Medicaid and fiscal discipline proved too difficult for Republican leadership to overcome.
Medicaid, SALT, and Clean Energy at Center of Intraparty Disputes
Among the bill’s most divisive elements is its approach to Medicaid reform. Conservative lawmakers demanded deeper cuts, but a growing group of Republicans—echoing warnings from Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO), who labeled the plan “morally wrong and politically suicidal”—cautioned that the proposed changes could disproportionately impact working-class families and shutter rural hospitals.
To ease those concerns, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA) announced that the bill would move up the implementation of new Medicaid work requirements for able-bodied adults without children, pushing it earlier than the original 2029 deadline. However, no firm date was given.
Meanwhile, the SALT deduction remains a political landmine. Pro-SALT Republicans are lobbying for a much larger cap increase—up to $124,000 for joint filers—to protect their seats in competitive districts, arguing the bill’s current proposal isn’t enough to satisfy voters back home.
And while the bill seeks to repeal or sunset many of the clean-energy tax credits introduced under President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, some Senate Republicans have expressed caution about the speed and breadth of those rollbacks, suggesting further compromises may be necessary.
What's Next?
With the Budget Committee vote now in the rearview, House Republican leadership must go back to the drawing board. The bill cannot proceed to the Rules Committee or House floor without first passing the Budget panel, setting up what could be weeks of internal negotiations.
Even if the bill clears the House in its next iteration, it faces an uncertain future in the Democratic-controlled Senate, where it is likely to be heavily amended or blocked outright.
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