On Thursday, the House adopted a revised budget blueprint for President Trump’s agenda after Republican leaders and Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., muscled conservative holdouts who had threatened to sink the measure. Johnson told reporters after the vote: “It’s a good day in the House. I told you not to doubt us. We’re really grateful to have had the big victory on the floor just now. It was a big one, a very important one.”
The resolution passed in a slim 216-214 vote, with just two Republicans — Reps. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., and Victoria Spartz, R-Ind. — joining all Democrats in opposition. Trump had endorsed the budget plan, which the Senate adopted last weekend on a narrow 51-48 vote.
Shortly before the vote, Johnson appeared alongside Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., at a joint news conference. Johnson said “our two chambers are directly aligned and committed to finding at least $1.5 trillion in savings for the American people. Our first big, beautiful reconciliation package here involves a number of commitments, and one of those is that we are committed to finding at least $1.5 trillion in savings for the American people while also preserving our essential programs.”
Thune added that the Senate is “aligned with the House in terms of what their budget resolution outlined in terms of savings. We have got to do something to get the country on a more sustainable fiscal path, and that entails us taking a hard scrub of our government figuring out where we can find those savings. The speaker’s talked about one and a half trillion dollars. We have a lot of United States senators who believe that is a minimum, and we’re certainly going to do everything we can to be as aggressive as possible to see that we are serious about the matter.”
Approving the budget plan in both chambers allows Congress to bypass the 60-vote threshold required to advance most legislation in the Senate and pass Mr. Trump’s agenda (that would open the door to implementing his border security, defense, energy priorities and extending expiring tax cuts) with a simple majority. Republican leaders in the House worked to unite their divided party behind the budget plan this week before Congress leaves town for a two-week recess.
Editorial credit: Maxim Elramsisy / Shutterstock.com
