Key House committee advances Trump agenda bill after appeasing conservatives

WASHINGTON — The House Budget Committee advanced President Donald Trump’s multitrillion-dollar domestic policy package Sunday night, two days after a group of conservatives voted to reject it.

The vote was 17-16 along party lines, with the four Republicans who opposed the bill in committee Friday voting “present.”

The outcome is a positive sign for the massive party-line bill after a significant setback Friday, but it will still need changes before it secures the votes to pass the full House. And if it does, it will face plenty of challenges in the Senate, where Republicans have made it clear it won’t pass without major changes.

The package includes a major spending increase for immigration enforcement and the military, and it would extend Trump’s 2017 tax cuts, which are scheduled to expire at the end of this year. It includes a series of cuts to Medicaid, food assistance and clean energy funding to pay for the trillions of dollars in tax cuts and new red ink.

The successful vote was a product of Republican leaders’ making inroads over the weekend with conservative hard-liners who said the bill failed to achieve meaningful spending cuts and would increase the U.S. deficit. Those conservatives have insisted that Medicaid work requirements take effect immediately and that the clean energy tax credits be eliminated sooner.

“I’m excited about the changes we made, and I will vote present,” one of the conservative hard-liners, Rep. Ralph Norman, R-S.C., said before the vote. He ignored questions from committee members about what changes he was referring to.

Norman, along with Reps. Chip Roy of Texas, Andrew Clyde of Georgia and Josh Brecheen of Oklahoma, all voted “present.” They voted against the bill Friday, preventing it from advancing.

The committee’s top Democrat, Brendan Boyle of Pennsylvania, began by asking Chairman Jodey Arrington, R-Texas, to be transparent with the committee about what “side deals” were struck to flip votes.

“Deliberations continue at this very moment. They will continue on into the week and I suspect right up until we put this big, beautiful bill on the floor of the House,” Arrington said. “We’re not going to disclose the deliberations. I’m not sure I could disclose all the deliberations.”

“I don’t know anything about the side deals or any deal,” he said, adding that there is no score on deficits and impact from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

Arrington added in response to inquiries about what changed in the bill, “There are no formal or final changes.”

Roy said on X that the changes included making the Medicaid work requirements — currently scheduled to take effect in 2029 — kick in sooner and reducing “the availability of future subsidies” for clean energy.

“But the bill does not yet meet the moment,” Roy said, adding, “We can and must do better before we pass the final product.”

The bill now moves to the House Rules Committee,  where changes can be offered as amendments. The panel is scheduled to take up the legislation starting at 1 a.m. ET on Wednesday.

Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said late Sunday night that he wants to “get this vote done by Thursday” on the full bill on the House floor. He has set a deadline of passing the bill through the chamber by Memorial Day.