By Dave Goldiner
New York Daily News
(TNS)
Congressional Republicans Thursday agreed to move forward with President Trump’s sprawling budget plan a day after a mutiny by right-wing lawmakers threatened to derail it.
The House of Representatives voted 216-214 to approve the Trump budget framework, after House Speaker Mike Johnson worked through the night to satisfy holdouts who refused to advance trillions of dollars in tax breaks without deeper spending cuts.
Just two Republican fiscal hawks, Rep. Tom Massie and Rep. Victoria Spartz, joined all Democrats in voting against the measure.
“A big day for us,” Johnson said. “This really is a one-team approach by Republicans in the House and Senate.”
“President Trump’s promises will be fulfilled,” the GOP leader added.
The success came the morning after Johnson was forced to pull the same bill from a vote on the floor. Even a big push from Trump wasn’t initially enough to get hardliners to back a measure they say won’t reduce the deficit and relies on fuzzy math.
Trump is pushing for what he has branded as “one big, beautiful bill,” including all major planks of his agenda for tax cuts, mass deportations and a smaller federal government.
But the devil is in the details, with Republicans divided over how much spending to cut and how to pay for the tax reductions, including new cuts Trump promised.
Even after the narrow win, Republicans in both chambers of Congress still need to draw up a bill that both the Senate and House can support, a tough challenge given sharp disputes, especially over how deeply to cut spending.
Johnson’s win marks another big notch in his belt as he seeks to enact Trump’s agenda with only a slim seven-seat majority in the House.
Trump portrayed optimism about the plan.
“The Big, Beautiful Bill is coming along really well,” Trump wrote on his social media site before the vote. “Republicans are working together nicely.”
The win was a turnaround from Wednesday, at least a dozen conservative Republicans, if not more, stood firmly against the plan passed by the Senate, which includes just $4 billion in annual spending cuts, far less than the $1.5 trillion they want.
Democrats can do little to stop the plan, except by forcing Republicans to vote nearly in lockstep to pass it.
House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York said the Republicans’ budget plan is reckless and callous as it proposes slashing budgets to give tax breaks to the wealthy.
“We’re here to make it clear,” Jeffries said. “Hands off everyday Americans struggling to make ends meet.”
The budget framework doesn’t actually enact anything, but it’s a required step for both houses of Congress to move forward with identical bills that could then be passed by simple majority votes, avoiding a filibuster in the Senate.
If lawmakers can agree, those measures would allow Republicans to extend the 2017 Trump tax breaks, which would expire later this year without congressional action.
The president also wants lawmakers to enact an end to taxes on tips, Social Security income and more, goodies that could increase the price tag to some $7 trillion over a decade.
Trump also wants to boost the nation’s debt limit, a move that many fiscal conservatives are implacably opposed to. With debt now at $36 trillion and rising, the Treasury Department has said it will run out of funds by August.
Photo caption: Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) gives remarks to the media outside the House Chamber of the Capitol Building on Thursday April 10, 2025. (Aaron Schwartz/Sipa USA/Alamy Stock Photo)
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©2025 New York Daily News. Visit nydailynews.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency LLC.
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