Senate Passes BBB. Will House Go Along?
They're talking a big game now, but they'll likely bend a knee. Again.
WSJ (“House Republicans Threaten to Sink Trump’s Megabill“):
House Republicans are already lining up to oppose President Trump’s “big, beautiful bill,” with conservatives and centrists blasting the legislation just hours after Vice President JD Vance cast his tiebreaking vote on the Senate version.
The number of House Republicans vowing to oppose the Senate version is enough to block the bill’s passage, failing a last-minute scramble to negotiate with holdouts and a successful pressure campaign by the president. Only three House Republicans need to join Democrats in opposing the bill to sink it.
Rep. Ralph Norman (R., S.C.), a member of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, told reporters about an hour after the Senate bill’s passage Tuesday that he wouldn’t vote to move the president’s tax bill out of the House Rules Committee. The panel is debating whether to advance the bill to a vote in the full House. If it does ultimately make it to the floor, Norman would oppose the bill there as well.
“Our bill has been completely changed—from the IRA credits to the deficit,” said Norman, referring to the Biden administration’s Inflation Reduction Act. “This bill’s a nonstarter. We want to do this, but this bill doesn’t do what the president wants it to do.”
Norman said he believes there are enough “no” votes in the House to sink the bill. If House Speaker Mike Johnson fails to get enough members to back it, the House and Senate must work to reconcile the differences. That would likely blow through Trump’s self-imposed deadline of July 4 to pass the bill.
A crescendo of complaints began building across the disparate wings of the House Republican conference days before the Senate passed the bill, following an exhaustive 27-hour marathon of amendment votes. The legislation would broadly fund Trump’s biggest priorities including the extension of his 2017 tax cuts; no tax on tips and overtime; and a large funding boost to the president’s immigration and border policies.
Now, the fate of Trump’s bill looks rocky as the House GOP prepares to digest a series of changes that were made to a version of the bill that passed the lower chamber weeks earlier by one vote. Conservatives and centrists said they were disappointed with the latest iteration of the bill, despite some being told the Senate would improve it.
It is too early to write the bill’s obituary. Trump and Johnson have previously persuaded shaky Republicans to support the president’s agenda.
Johnson repeatedly warned the Senate against changing the bill after successfully wrangling conservatives who were pushing for spending cuts and centrists who were warning against steep changes to programs such as Medicaid and food stamps. The speaker also repeatedly told House members that they would have a chance to make changes to the bill when it came back from the Senate.
“I’m not happy with what the Senate did to our product, but we understand this is the process,” Johnson told reporters Tuesday. “It goes back and forth, and we will be working to get all our members to ‘yes.’”
“The bill passed, and I think it’s going to do very well in the House. We’ll see how that works out, but it looks like it’s ahead of schedule,” Trump said aboard Air Force One on Tuesday. When asked whether he expects to have to twist arms to get it through the House, Trump replied: “We thought the Senate was going to be tougher than the House. We got there, and we got pretty much what we wanted.”
There are likely hours of closed-door negotiations ahead. Fiscal hawks argue that the bill irresponsibly expands the national debt, and the Senate bill breaches the redlines they laid out months ago and reiterated in June. Centrists warn that they could risk losing their seats if they agree to the Senate’s more-drastic changes.
The Senate version’s deeper policy shifts on Medicaid would leave 12 million people without insurance by 2034, according to the Congressional Budget Office, compared with 11 million people in the House version.
While both bills aim to phase out quickly clean-energy tax credits for solar and wind companies, the Senate version would have slightly more lax requirements as to when a company can claim the tax credit. The Senate bill would raise the debt ceiling by a trillion more dollars than the House’s proposed $4 trillion.
The Senate version would have a more substantial impact on the U.S. deficit, according to the CBO. It would add $3.3 trillion to the nation’s debt over a decade, compared with the House bill, which would add $2.4 trillion, the nonpartisan budget scorekeeper found before the final changes were made to the Senate bill.
Tyler Pager, NYT (“Trump Faces the Biggest Test Yet of His Second-Term Political Power“):
President Trump has gotten almost everything he has wanted from the Republican-controlled Congress since he took office in January.
G.O.P. lawmakers approved his nominees, sometimes despite their doubts. They ceded their power over how federal dollars are distributed, impinging on constitutional authority. And they have cheered his overhaul of the federal bureaucracy, even as he has bypassed the legislative body’s oversight of federal agencies.
But now, Mr. Trump is pressuring Republicans to fall in line behind his sprawling domestic policy bill, even though it has elements that could put their party’s hold on Congress in greater peril in next year’s midterm elections. Fiscal hawks are appalled by estimates that the bill would add at least $3.3 trillion to the country’s ballooning debt, while moderate Republicans are concerned about the steep cuts to the safety net.
Yet Mr. Trump is still getting his way — at least so far. The Senate narrowly passed the bill Tuesday, with Vice President JD Vance breaking the tie. The bill now heads back to the House, where the president can only lose three votes, and where anger among both moderates and conservatives about changes made by the Senate is running high.
Getting the bill through the House may be the biggest test yet of Mr. Trump’s second-term political power. If he gets the bill over the finish line, it will be another legislative victory and a vivid demonstration of his continuing hold over the party.
The process of driving the legislation forward has exposed deep divisions among congressional Republicans, as well as concern about the huge political risks of supporting the bill. In the end, fear of crossing Mr. Trump kept defections in the Senate to a barely manageable level.
Other presidents have asked sacrifices of their own parties while seeking to take advantage of congressional majorities. President Bill Clinton’s tax increase and spending reduction budget in 1993 helped lead to Democrats losing control of the House the following year. Passage of President Barack Obama’s health care bill in 2010 contributed to a Republican wave in elections that fall, with Democrats losing control of the House and losing six seats in the Senate.
Current elected Republicans were no doubt aware of the history, but still stuck by Mr. Trump.
Mr. Trump has always prioritized his agenda and legacy over the broader Republican Party, and he is deploying his usual playbook of public bullying and political threats to keep lawmakers in line. He has repeatedly promised to back primary challengers against lawmakers who vote against the legislation.
Jack Blanchard POLITICO (“Playbook: Riders on the storm“):
Numbers game: Johnson can only afford a small handful of rebel votes — and there are certainly enough ominous noises coming out of GOP circles to suggest he may have a problem. In particular, deficit hawks are unhappy at the way the price tag for this already-expensive bill ballooned even higher in the Senate. But will there be enough actual GOP holdouts to stop it sailing through?
Yeah nah: Given the way this Congress has behaved since Jan. 20, it seems far-fetched to imagine the Republican Party actually going ahead and blocking Trump’s flagship piece of legislation — especially when the president seems relatively uninterested in the actual detailed content of the bill. But if you do fancy whiling away the day playing will-they-won’t-they games, then it’s the GOP deficit hawks you’ll want to be monitoring — people like Reps. Ralph Norman (S.C.), Chip Roy (Texas), Andy Harris (Md.), Marlin Stutzman (Ind.) and Andy Ogles (Tenn.), who have all been mouthing off about the Senate’s tweaks.
In theory, there are also plenty of “Medicaid moderates” — like California Rep. David Valadao — who could take a stand against the deeper cuts pushed through by the Senate, although frankly, I wouldn’t hold my breath. SALT caucus holdout Rep. Nick LaLota (R-N.Y.) already sounds like he’s coming around.
Ultimately, I suspect Blanchard is correct. No Republican Speaker has been able to get his caucus in line in recent years, riven as it is with deep factions. But Trump has shown an ability that we haven’t seen in my lifetime to strongarm his copartisans in Congress.
In traditional circumstances, it would be absolutely insane for Members to vote for wildly unpopular provisions that would rile their constituents. But, in the Trump era, the bigger danger is losing his support—or, worse, having him actively support a primary opponent. I suspect that, at the end of the day, enough of the complainers will get on board.
This is nothing more than kabuki negotiations. As the old saw goes:” we already know what you are. We ‘re just haggling over the price.”
Of course they’ll cave. They’re invertebrates.
Spineless incompetent f’ers.
That’s my well thought out analysis.
The clown who represents my district worked in the Trump 1 White House, and his very first communication to his new constituents was a post card that began, “As your Republican representative in Congress….” I suppose it it somewhat to his credit that he immediately abandoned any pretense of being anything but a rubber stamp for all things MAGA. There are far too many of his mindset in Congress, and so of course they will pass whatever slop Trump puts in front of them.
For emphasis, let me agree with and amplify this:
I am going to bang this drum probably for the rest of my life: the feedback loop in American politics serves the primary voter, not the broader constituency. This is especially a problem in legislative bodies whose definitional job is to represent the district.
The best way to fix this is multi-seat districts elected via PR, BTW.
(He said, shouting either at the choir or to the ether, or maybe both.)
@Grumpy realist:
It’s not even a price at this point. Trump wants the bill by Friday for a Fourth of July signing. He can’t get that if the House alters the bill and has to send it back to the Senate.
So, the pressure is going to be on to vote for it as it currently stands.
Exception to the rule when the headline asks a question the answer is “no.”
The required process probably has an effect. The House will have an up-or-down vote on whether to accept the Senate changes. If they don’t accept the changes, the bill goes to a conference committee. Whatever comes out of that conference gets an up-or-down vote in each chamber, no debate or amendments allowed. If either chamber fails to pass that, the bill is dead and the chance to use reconciliation rules for that fiscal year is done. Back to needing 60 votes in the Senate for that year’s budget.
Mike Johnson will be twisting arms using the argument, “If you don’t accept the Senate bill, the next version may be worse for what you want.” The House Republicans who claim to oppose the trillion-dollar Medicaid cut, but passed the bill before, were clearly hoping the Senate would take the cut out. Since that didn’t happen, we’ll see if it was all just an act.
I’m probably overthinking this but if I was elected to Congress to cut deficits and instead you pass a bill that substantially increases deficits while taking healthcare away from many of my constituents, well let’s just say I would have a big problem with that.
Is Chip “I’m completely against this bill until I fold next week” Roy the single most useless human being on the planet?
Trick question! It’s really Lisa Murkowski, who desperately hopes that the House will substantially change the bill she knows is fundamentally wrong but provided the one vote needed to pass it anyway when she could have killed it.
@Steven L. Taylor: If the feedback loop serves the primary voter, isn’t at least part of the solution for the broader constituency to elect to participate (pun intended) in the primary election rather than to defer to the will of the minority?
FTR, I do get that this solution is destined to the same fate as multi-seat districts elected by PR. (That’s why I mostly stay out of this conversation except for trolling purposes, like today.)
@Steven L. Taylor: I’ll go ahead and put my money on the House missing the Friday deadline and Speaker Johnson blaming Democratic intransigence. Trump will agree.
@Michael Cain:
Narrator: It was all just an act.
@Raoul: It’s a good thing that hypothetical you isn’t being elected to Congress to cut deficits, then. I base my statement on about 50 years of watching this process closely. The electorate is in on the con. Bipartisanship for the win!
@Michael Cain: They could just add another carve out to the fillibuster, or modify the rules for reconciliation to allow the bill to go back and forth between houses of Congress forever. These things aren’t cast in stone.
The longer it takes to pass, however, the more likely it is that someone will get cold feet after pressure from their constituents — this is not a popular bill.
(Any Republican holdout would get death threats, along with primary threats, so I would only hold out even slight hope for people who are considering retiring.
I think I now support term-limits — the big fear is that this would empower the permanent lobbyist class to write bills as no one else would have the experience, but I think we’re kind of there anyway, and removing the “must get re-elected” motivation for 20% of Congress might have massive effects)
@Raoul: “I’m probably overthinking this but if I was elected to Congress to cut deficits and instead you pass a bill that substantially increases deficits while taking healthcare away from many of my constituents, well let’s just say I would have a big problem with that.”
I think that you are overthinking this 🙂
Remember, blowing up the deficit by cutting taxes on the rich but subsidizing them lavishly while cutting services on the rest of us is what the GOP does.
By now that’s an almost 50 year track record.
The whole thing is a mess, and people will suffer. My concern at this point is when the changes take effect. It’s probably too much to hope that it all goes into effect ASAP. Nope, the horrible sh!t will probably kick in right around late 2026/early 2027, so Republicans can somehow manage to blame everything on Democrats, and people will believe them.
Side note: I still read “BBB” and think “Better Business Bureau” rather than the horrific bill in question.
I’m going to go out on a limb here, there will be no significant opposition.
The House will Anschluss-up faster than Austria did in 1938.
@Gustopher:
Some parts of the reconciliation process are statutory, but I forget which ones. I admit that I’m puzzled the Republicans haven’t done away with the filibuster by now.
@al Ameda: If the bill is as different as Representatives are saying, I don’t think 2 days is enough time to circle the wagons. Thus, “if the opposition hadn’t fought us so much…”
@Michael Cain:
I suppose they don’t have to so long as El Taco can Dictate as he pleases.
BTW, I think Murkowski will be pissed when El Taco decides not to honor or enforce some of the carve outs the great state of Alaska got in the Senate bill.
Come. Of course he can’t do that. Like he can’t do about 75% of the things he’s already done.
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It’s fascinating (and a bit exhausting) to watch this legislative tug-of-war unfold. The BBB may be “big and beautiful” to some, but the Senate’s version is clearly too bloated for fiscal conservatives—and that $3.3 trillion addition to the deficit isn’t winning over centrists either.
Honestly, trying to follow this kind of policy shift reminds me of struggling through a last-minute data visualization project. It’s like watching messy Tableau dashboards come to life—full of charts but no clear direction. Speaking of which, I could really use Tableau homework help right now while trying to make sense of this!
Jokes aside, this bill is turning into a political litmus test. Between appeasing the Freedom Caucus and keeping moderates from jumping ship before the midterms, Trump and Johnson have a real fight ahead. Meanwhile, many of us are just trying to finish our semester and wondering if we can find someone to do my assignment while we follow this circus.
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