It’s crunch time for House Speaker Mike Johnson and the GOP’s ‘big, beautiful bill’

Republicans’ push to enact President Donald Trump’s tax, immigration, national defense and energy agenda is at risk of faltering, lawmakers say, as House Speaker Mike Johnson attempts to coax his slim majority into an agreement that still may be far away.

Johnson (R-Louisiana) is set to put a budget resolution up for a floor vote Tuesday, but is facing a potential revolt from swing-district Republicans wary of cuts to social safety net benefits and fiscal hawks who say the bill’s $2 trillion in spending cuts don’t reach far enough into federal coffers.

The legislation would start the reconciliation process, a legislative mechanism that would allow the GOP to head off a Democratic Senate filibuster, but the competing demands have boxed in the speaker - and could put the brakes on Trump’s legislative plans.

Tuesday’s planned vote tees up another high-stakes test for Republicans, who have openly feuded over spending issues for nearly two years. The GOP-controlled Senate is planning a two-step approach to passing Trump’s agenda with a pair of reconciliation bills, an approach Johnson sees as a backup plan.

The huge, Trump-endorsed legislative package that Republicans - and even some Democrats - have taken to calling the “big, beautiful bill,” is full of contradicting demands that have left some lawmakers uncertain how to proceed.

“All these conversations are helping us get to a place where we want to be,” said Rep. Juan Ciscomani (Arizona), a swing-district Republican who said he was undecided on how he would vote because his district relies heavily on Medicaid. “Obviously we’re supportive of what the president wants and what we as a conference ran on, and we won on, to make sure that we’re fiscally responsible, we do the appropriate things, root out the waste, the abuse and the fraud, in many cases, while protecting the most vulnerable.”

Major portions of Trump’s 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act expire at the end of 2025, meaning most taxpayers will see a rate hike if Congress does not act. Extending those provisions could add roughly $5 trillion to the national debt over 10 years, according to congressional bookkeepers. And Trump has ordered Republicans to include new, expensive tax policies in the bill, too, including ending taxes on tips, Social Security benefits and overtime wages, and raising the cap on state and local tax deductions.

Together, the package could add up to $11.25 trillion over 10 years to the United States’ existing $36.2 trillion in debt, according to the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.

To pay down the cost, Republican committee leaders have been on the hunt for spending cuts. The budget resolution issues instructions to committees to come up with new spending or cuts, but the actual policies are up to the committees themselves.

The House Energy and Commerce Committee, which controls the purse strings for Medicare and Medicaid, for instance, was issued instructions to cut at least $880 billion from the national debt over 10 years - an amount that can virtually only be accomplished with major overhauls, or benefit cuts, to public health insurance programs.

But there, too, Trump has complicated the GOP’s task. The president said in an interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity that Republicans would not cut benefits to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid - together, roughly $3.2 trillion of the country’s $6.75 trillion of total spending in the 2024 fiscal year. The GOP has also sworn off cutting the defense budget - $825 billion in fiscal 2024 - and its reconciliation plan would increase defense spending by $100 billion over 10 years.

With annual debt service payments factored in, there isn’t enough spending left over to satisfy hard-liners’ craving for spending cuts.

“This budget risks even greater deficits without proven follow-through - as it is hardly aggressive enough,” Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), a leading budget hawk, wrote on social media. He added that he was “open to supporting” Johnson’s bill to give the GOP an opening to search for more ways to slash spending.

But between eight and 10 House Republicans who could face tight reelection campaigns have signaled they would reject Johnson’s proposal, according to two lawmakers familiar with the talks, because of cuts to Medicaid, the federal health insurance program for low-income Americans.

Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-New Jersey), formerly a Democrat, said he called Trump on Monday to tell the president to reinforce his pledge not to cut Medicaid.

“Don’t touch seniors’ Medicare, and don’t cut Medicaid, because it isn’t just for lazy welfare people. It’s for real people,” Van Drew said. “That’s the new Republican Party, a populist party, a party of working people, a party of blue-collar people.”

Johnson early Monday afternoon acknowledged the opposition the budget resolution faced, saying “there may be more than one” GOP member planning to vote against it.

“But they’ll get there,” Johnson told a crowd of activists at an event sponsored by the right-wing policy group Americans for Prosperity. “We’re going to get everybody there. This is a prayer request. Just pray this through for us, because it is very high-stakes, and everybody knows that. … I don’t think anybody wants to be in front of this train. I think they want to be on it.”

In the Senate, Republicans appeared to be rooting on their House colleagues - while holding a net beneath them.

“I am hopeful and optimistic, and we’ll see if they can pull it off,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-South Dakota) said. “The margins are narrow, and there are a lot of moving parts to all of this stuff. All I know is, we want them to succeed.”