There is new doubt about the status and timeline of the Republican reconciliation bill after five Republicans on the House Budget Committee voted against advancing the legislation on Friday.
A vote on reporting the bill to the House floor failed, 16-21, with House Freedom Caucus Reps. Chip Roy, Ralph Norman, Andrew Clyde and Josh Brecheen joining Democrats in opposition. (The committee’s vice chair, Rep. Lloyd Smucker, also changed his vote to no, though he told reporters he supports the bill and his vote was for procedural purposes so the committee can easily call up the bill again.)
“Well, the noes have it,” Budget Chair Jodey Arrington said after the committee vote failed. “Godspeed and safe travels.”
Just two hours after the failed vote, the Budget Committee noticed that it plans to meet again to markup the legislation at 10 p.m. on Sunday, likely in the hopes of advancing the bill ahead of a Monday Rules Committee vote.
Conservative Republicans plan to work over the weekend to resolve their issues with the legislation. It’s clear leaders will have to make additional changes to win over holdouts, with those changes potentially affecting the votes from other factions.
After the failed vote, Roy posted on X that he planned to stay in Washington to continue working on the legislation. The post included a chart with data from the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget that he also showed during the markup.
“We were making progress, but the vote was called, and the problems were not resolved, so I voted no,” he wrote. “I am staying in Washington this weekend to deliver. Medicaid Work requirements must start NOW not 2029 & the Green New Scam must be fully repealed, as President Trump called for.”
Because the four who voted against the legislation were part of the House Freedom Caucus, the conservative group’s account on X wrote: “Reps. Roy, Norman, Brecheen, Clyde and others continue to work in good faith to enact the President’s ‘Big Beautiful Bil’ — we were making progress before the vote in the Budget Committee and will continue negotiations to further improve the reconciliation package. We are not going anywhere and we will continue to work through the weekend.”
Republicans appear to be throwing in the towel for the week after the committee vote. Unable to advance the legislation to the floor, and with leaders still negotiating with some Republicans on the state and local tax deduction, the House’s self-imposed Memorial Day timeline for passage is now in doubt. And it’s clear leaders will have to make additional changes to win over holdouts, with those changes potentially affecting the votes from other factions.
Conservatives have repeatedly cited concerns over the deficit and delayed start dates for policies like Medicaid work requirements. They want additional cuts and the implementation dates for some of the policies in the bill moved up.
The failure marks a major blow to the House GOP’s massive reconciliation bill and Speaker Mike Johnson’s whip operation, especially after getting a boost from President Donald Trump, who came out forcefully on Truth Social for the legislation.
Johnson has committed to meeting with GOP holdouts over the weekend. But with the narrow GOP majority, those five votes alone would be enough to tank the bill on the House floor.
Norman, in his opening comments at the markup on Friday, called on the Budget Committee to recess and for lawmakers to continue negotiating. If the committee voted on the bill now, Norman said, “it’s not going to end well.”
With 21 Republicans and 16 Democrats on the Budget Committee, Republicans could only afford to lose two Republicans. All Democrats on the committee voted against the measure. Rep. Brandon Gill returned to Washington for the markup Friday after a person close to him told NOTUS on Thursday he would miss the vote because of the birth of his son.
But conservatives had enough votes to hold up the reconciliation bill. Their central concern is that the legislation doesn’t go far enough to reduce the deficit, especially considering the tax cuts in the bill are projected to add $3.8 trillion to the deficit over nine years.
“We are writing checks we cannot cash, and our children are going to pay the price,” Roy said Friday. “So I am a no on this bill, unless serious reforms are made today, tomorrow, Sunday. We’re having conversations as we speak, but something needs to change, or you’re not going to get my support.”
“I’m not gonna sit here and say everything’s hunky-dory when this is the Budget Committee,” he said. “This is the Budget Committee. We’re supposed to do something to actually result in balanced budgets, but we’re not doing it.”
Conservatives like Roy want deeper cuts to Medicaid, insisting that the current system prioritizes able-bodied adults over low-income children and the disabled. Work requirements for Medicaid and the repeal of Inflation Reduction Act energy provisions don’t go into effect until 2029, after the next presidential election.
Now it appears that unless leadership moves those dates up, the bill is at an impasse.
Brecheen said his main reservation is around the 2029 date for repealing Inflation Reduction Act tax credits.
Leadership did win over some holdouts. Rep. Glenn Grothman wouldn’t commit on Thursday to voting for the bill, citing the 2029 start date for Medicaid work requirements. But ultimately, he did back the bill despite his frustrations.
“I will be voting for this bill today. In order to be placed on this committee, you’re supposed to say that you’re going to vote for the bill that’s presented,” Grothman said.
Republican leaders are now eagerly awaiting Trump’s return to Washington from his Middle East tour. The president has been the key to Johnson winning over holdouts all along, and Trump made it clear Friday in his post that he believes “Republicans MUST UNITE behind, ‘THE ONE, BIG BEAUTIFUL BILL!’”
“We don’t need ‘GRANDSTANDERS’ in the Republican Party,” Trump wrote, en route back from his Middle East trip. “STOP TALKING, AND GET IT DONE! It is time to fix the MESS that Biden and the Democrats gave us. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”
Still, the failed committee vote is far from the end of the reconciliation bill. But it is an embarrassing blow for Johnson, Trump and Republicans.
Johnson has said he wants to pass the reconciliation bill before the House leaves for Memorial Day. Dragging a committee vote into next week would make it difficult for the Rules Committee to set up floor consideration before Wednesday at the earliest. And that’s with all the outstanding issues somehow getting resolved over the weekend.
If talks continue into next week, the Memorial Day deadline could be shot.
While a few legislative days may not seem like a big deal at the moment, Johnson has tried to speed through this process to give the Senate plenty of time to work on changes. The government will run out of debt authority sometime this summer, and lawmakers have been counting on a debt ceiling increase in the reconciliation bill to take care of that deadline.
Holding up the bill even a couple of weeks could throw the whole delicate compromise into doubt, and if Congress isn’t able to solve the reconciliation bill before the government hits the debt ceiling, lawmakers would have to figure out some other patch.
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Katherine Swartz is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow. Daniella Diaz and Riley Rogerson are reporters at NOTUS.