Trump’s ‘Big, Beautiful Bill’ Narrowly Passes in House, Heads to Senate
The Republican-led House narrowly passed President Donald Trump’s sweeping tax and spending bill late early Thursday morning, sending the package to the Senate where it is likely to be revised.
The vote was 215-214, and came after a key House committee voted late Wednesday evening to advance the bill, clearing a major hurdle after days of internal Republican infighting and setting the stage for the floor vote.
That breakthrough was the product of frenzied, late-night negotiations that yielded just enough concessions to bring key GOP holdouts on the House Rules Committee back on board, despite deep divisions over the bill’s cost and proposed changes to Medicaid. In the end, all but one Republican voted the bill out of committee—Rep. Chip Roy of Texas, who skipped the vote—ending the committee’s debate that began about 22 hours earlier.
“I’m convinced we’re going to pass this bill tonight,” House Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters after the committee vote, signaling that he plans to quickly bring it to the floor. “It may have one or two nos, you never can be certain,” he said, but added: “I think we’re going to get this job done, and we’re going to do it by Memorial Day.”
Around 2:30 a.m. early Thursday, the Speaker moved one step closer to that goal when the House passed a procedural resolution by 217-212 to set up the floor vote on the reconciliation bill. In a sign of likely eventual passage of the bill, only one Republican—Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, who has vocally opposed Trump’s megabill—joined Democrats in opposing the resolution, while two Republicans, Rep. David Schweikert of Arizona and Rep. Neal Dunn of Florida, did not vote.
“We’re not rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic tonight—we’re putting coal in the boiler and setting a course for the iceberg,” Massie addressed the floor during debate on the procedural resolution. “If something is beautiful, you don’t do it after midnight.”
Passing the bill out of the House marked a major win for Trump, who has been lobbying aggressively for the Congress to pass his “One Big, Beautiful Bill” to cement a host of conservative priorities central to his second-term agenda. Trump had grown increasingly impatient with Republican holdouts, labeling some of them as "grandstanders" who should leave the party.
The White House and Republican leaders ultimately decided to revise the bill late Wednesday to address concerns from members of the House Freedom Caucus, who were demanding faster, larger spending cuts and energy tax-credit phaseouts. Trump had invited Speaker Johnson and key holdouts to meet at the White House to bridge their differences. Several of those holdouts emerged from that meeting saying it helped them get on the same page as Trump.
A review of the amendments shows that the revised bill would accelerate new Medicaid work requirements to December 2026; end many tax credits for wind energy, solar energy, and battery storage by 2028; nix a tax on gun silencers; formally lock in a $40,000 cap on the state and local tax (SALT) deduction; and provide $12 billion in funding to reimburse states for assisting with border security since January 2021.
The bill's narrow passage was expected, as Speaker Johnson is operating under very tight margins: House Republicans have one of the thinnest majorities in history at 220-212, meaning Johnson can only afford to lose three members of his caucus if all Democrats are opposed.
Trump and congressional leaders have set July 4 as the deadline for final approval of the legislation, with the Speaker insisting the House must pass the bill before Memorial Day, which is Monday. Some of the holdouts had taken issue with the timeline, saying they won’t be rushed into a deal without concessions.
Trump’s legislation, at more than 1,100 pages, would permanently extend his 2017 tax cuts set to expire at the end of this year while introducing new policies like tax exemptions for tips and overtime wages. It also boosts spending on defense and border security, while reducing spending on Medicaid and food stamps. The measure would also roll back green energy tax credits from the Biden Administration, including the $7,500 electric vehicle tax credit incentive.
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https://time.com/7287722/trump-big-beautiful-bill-house-rules-committee-floor-vote-republicans/