Republicans‘ ambitious time frame to pass President Donald Trump‘s major tax and domestic policy bill by Memorial Day has been extended to July 4 after meetings on Monday.
Senate leaders and White House officials are aiming for a summer vote on a massive bill codifying much of President Donald Trump’s agenda. House Republicans, originally promising the reconciliation megabill to be on Trump’s desk by Memorial Day, are now aiming to have it pass out of their chamber by the end of May and then head to the Senate.
Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) told reporters Monday that he thinks a reconciliation bill can be voted on by Memorial Day after Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) eyed the summer timeline. Both Johnson and House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA) told reporters the bill will be done before July 4, a date floated by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.
“The Treasury Secretary gave us a nod of accolade for having been so aggressive and keeping this moving,” Johnson told reporters about a “Big Six” meeting held on Monday with Senate and administrative officials. “It’s important for the country. We need to get this bill done for all the reasons we’ve discussed. So we’re still on our schedule.”
“I believe we pass it by Memorial Day,” Johnson continued, noting that it will “be up to the Senate at that point” and he thinks they can work “expeditiously” to get it passed through the upper chamber.
Conversations over relaxing the timeline to the Independence Day holiday came after Bessent told reporters that the tax portion, which is one of the “three legs” of the reconciliation bill, can be done by the Fourth of July.
“He says July 4 because that’s a big, big birthday for us, and everybody knows that,” Johnson quipped.
Thune said the Senate process would be more extensive, given that the chamber must follow the Byrd rule. Under the rule, the information in the package is required to focus solely on fiscal issues, and a senator can raise a point of order if he or she believes there is “extraneous matter” in the bill.
The Senate majority leader said senators need to have time to work through the bill and have “all the necessary opportunities” for them to hear what’s on the table so they can get to a “comfortable place” with the legislation.
“My expectation is, yeah, we want to get this done as soon as possible, but we want to get it done right and make sure we get the votes to pass it in that we have dealt with all the the Byrd issues that we’re going to have to, you know, handle over here in the Senate,” Thune said.
Johnson said earlier in April he’d like to get the legislation, dubbed by Trump the “One Big Beautiful Bill,” through both the House and Senate by Memorial Day.
Rep. Jason Smith (R-MO) said the timeline is adjusted because of how long it took for the Senate to pass a budget resolution to kick-start the process.
“We can have this on the President’s desk by July 4,” Smith, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, told the Washington Examiner of the goal.
His committee has not yet announced a hearing date to mark up the tax provisions of the bill that Trump wants, such as no tax on tips and no taxes on Social Security. But it must come soon to meet Johnson’s desired timeline to have individual committees finish their markups by the end of next week. The legislation would then head to the Budget Committee, a necessary stop before a floor vote on one megabill of Trump’s priorities, including the renewal of his 2017 tax law.
“We have to deliver on no tax on tips. We have to deliver on no tax on overtime. We have to deliver on tax relief for seniors. These are things that the president campaigned on. We’ll deliver on it,” Smith said.
Other committees are already holding markup hearings this week on their portions of the bill, with the House Energy and Commerce markup expected to draw heated debate over Medicaid. House Republicans are promising welfare benefits will not be cut as part of $1.5 trillion in spending offsets demanded by fiscal hawks, but some changes could prove controversial with GOP centrists.
House Republicans have mixed feelings on the timeline of this process.
“There’s obviously a lot of rush and pressure being put on the timeline,” Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) told the Washington Examiner last week. “I think that’s a mistake.”
“I would rather not be rushing it for sort of arbitrary timelines,” he continued. “I think we ought to come back, have some good conversations next week, and then go to committees the following week. But you know, they’re trying to move it quickly, so we’ll see what we do.”
Other members want to get Trump’s agenda across the finish line as fast as possible.
“It just needs to be done as quickly as possible,” Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-GA) told the Washington Examiner. “And you know, I think that the House can encourage the Senate a little bit. We’ve done that before.”
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Another member, Rep. Mary Miller (R-IL), told the Washington Examiner that the House should not recess again until the bill is done.
“I would not let Congress go home until it was done,” Miller said. “I’m a homebody, I love to go home, but I think we should stay here and get it done because that’s important.”
Marisa Schultz and David Sivak contributed to this report.