A mammoth bill advancing a broad range of President Donald Trump’s policy goals survived a key hurdle on Thursday, putting Republicans closer to their goal of passing a bill by sometime in May.
The legislation passed the House Budget Committee on a party-line 21 to 16 vote and is expected to be taken up by the entire chamber for a floor vote later this month.
It comes despite eleventh-hour negotiations that had the bill’s eventual passage in question even as the committee met to discuss the text on Thursday morning.
The 45-page resolution directs various House committees to find a sum of at least $1.5 trillion in spending cuts, with $300 billion in new spending allocated toward the border, national defense and the judiciary.
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Speaker Mike Johnson wants the House to advance a Trump budget bill by the end of the month. (Getty Images)
It also directs $4 trillion toward raising the debt limit, and it includes $4.5 trillion to extend Trump’s 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) and other tax provisions pushed by the president for the next 10 years.
House and Senate Republicans are aiming to use the budget reconciliation process to pass a broad range of Trump policy goals, from border security to eliminating taxes on tipped and overtime wages.
By lowering the threshold for passage in the Senate from two-thirds to a simple majority, it will allow the GOP to use their razor-thin majorities to get legislation signed into law with zero Democratic support, provided the measures included relate to the budget and other fiscal matters.
Conservative spending hawks on the House Budget Committee had demanded assurances that Republicans would seek to cut spending as deeply as possible in the reconciliation process, particularly to offset new spending on Trump’s tax priorities.
House Budget Chairman Jodey Arrington, R-Texas, told reporters early Thursday afternoon that committee Republicans came to an…
