Despite ongoing challenges to the Republican budget reconciliation bill, House Speaker Mike Johnson expressed optimism Tuesday that the multi-trillion dollar legislation will pass the chamber this week.
The 1,116-page bill, compiled from eleven House committee prints fulfilling the Republican budget resolution’s spending and saving instructions, funds President Donald Trump’s tax, border, defense, and energy agenda. It also raises the debt ceiling by more than $4 trillion.
Following final edits from the House Rules Committee early Wednesday, the mammoth package will advance to the House floor for a vote. In a press conference Tuesday, Johnson called the bill a “nation-shaping piece of legislation” that he is “very confident” Republicans will pass.
“The one big, beautiful bill enshrines into law and funds President Trump’s promises. There’s a lot of them because we had to make them, because after the last four years everything was an absolute disaster,” Johnson said.
Outside budget organizations estimate the bill, as currently written, will cost anywhere from $3.3 trillion to $4.1 trillion over the next decade alone, even accounting for the over $1.5 trillion in savings House committees added.
More than $2 trillion of the lost revenue results from the bill’s permanent extension of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, including the boosted standard deduction, increased child tax credit, and Qualified Business Income deduction.
Among other tax changes, the reconciliation bill also temporarily nixes taxes on tips and overtime while raising the deduction for eligible seniors, fulfilling major Trump campaign promises.
The megabill also repeals or phases out more than $500 billion in energy and climate subsidies from the Inflation Reduction Act; cancels the Biden administration’s student loan forgiveness program; imposes work requirements on single, able-bodied adults without dependents on Medicaid and SNAP, and allocates $150 billion for border security, among other things.
“This is a whole-of-Congress response to a whole-of-government problem,” Johnson told reporters. “We never promised it’d be easy. We never thought this is going to be an effortless process, because when you’re doing this much in a bill this large and complicated and comprehensive, there’s a lot of opinions in the room.”
Multiple factions of Republicans take issue with the bill for competing reasons. Fiscal hawks have balked at the bill’s debt and deficit effects, New York Republicans are dissatisfied with state and local tax (SALT) deduction provisions, and GOP lawmakers in vulnerable seats are worried about the changes to Medicaid.
But Johnson remains confident that the bill will garner enough Republican votes to advance out of the House by Memorial Day.
“Failure is simply not an option,” Johnson said.
