The ambitious deadline set by House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) to pass the “one big beautiful” reconciliation bill by Memorial Day is up against the reality that House Republicans haven’t locked in the votes.
President Donald Trump, who has already bashed “grandstanders” holding up the bill, will head to Capitol Hill on Tuesday morning to speak at the House Republicans’ weekly conference meeting, a sign that leadership is putting pressure on holdouts. After meeting with the whole conference, the White House staff is reportedly holding meetings with holdouts on Capitol Hill.
The tax cut legislation hinges on votes from fiscal hawks and the SALT Caucus, who want changes on key provisions before backing the marquee GOP legislation.
With just three votes to spare in his slim Republican majority, Johnson has little time to get the reconciliation legislation on the floor for a House-wide vote by Thursday or Wednesday at the earliest. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act calls for $1.5 trillion in spending cuts to offset extending Trump’s 2017 tax breaks.
Though 95% of the bill is done and ready for a full House vote, Republican leadership staff told reporters on Monday morning that there are still “ongoing conversations” about the remaining 5%, which includes raising the state and local tax (SALT) cap, Medicaid work requirements, and repealing portions of the Inflation Reduction Act.
The Rules Committee is scheduled to meet at 1 a.m. on Wednesday to discuss alterations to the legislation, the product of a handshake agreement between leadership and fiscal hawks to pass the bill of the Budget Committee on Sunday.
“We’re almost there, and I’m very optimistic that we will find the right equilibrium point to get this bill delivered,” Johnson said on Monday afternoon. “It’s going to be a big thing for the country.”
Reconciliation comes down to Medicaid and SALT
GOP leadership aides did not provide any specific details as to what was in the handshake agreement, but Reps. Chip Roy (R-TX) and Ralph Norman (R-SC) said on Sunday night that they had made progress with moving up both the effective date of the Medicaid work requirements and the date of repeal of several IRA clean energy tax credits.
Originally, the work requirements were set to kick in 2029, though Johnson said there is broad support from most of the GOP to move up the start date; it’s just a matter of feasibility. Aides characterized the fight over Medicaid as “push and pull conversations.”
In the manager’s amendment, which allows for alterations to the reconciliation bill, the new effective date for Medicaid work requirements is December 2026.
“I think it’s the desire of every Republican, always has been, to make work requirements real and actionable as soon as possible,” the speaker said Sunday. “We learned in the process that some of the states needed a longer lag time to add in the implementation of the new policy. So we’re going to … make it happen sooner, as soon as possible. And I think that’s a good change in the policy.”
SALT Republicans are also holding up the process, as they want to see the cap raised from the proposed increase to $30,000. Johnson was optimistic last week that they would be able to reach an agreement on SALT over the weekend, but GOP leadership aides said Monday that there are still “unsolved issues” to iron out.
The SALT caucus met with leadership at 9 p.m. on Monday, with Rep. Nick LaLota (R-NY) telling reporters he was hoping to be presented with a deal he could accept. The proposed $40,000/$80,000 caps for single and married filers were a nonstarter, as LaLota called the sunset in a few years to the current $10,000 cap a “poison pill.”
The New York Republican expressed disappointment with the close crunch time.
“I would’ve preferred that we’d handled this two months ago … This was on everyone’s radar for a couple of years now,” LaLota said. “That it’s coming down to the last minute is unfortunate, but I think we’ll get through it.”
Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY), another SALT Republican, agreed that the debate over SALT should have “been dealt with months ago.” He said it “certainly appears” that leadership took the SALT Republicans for granted and “that they felt they could just jam us.”
Lawler also scoffed at Freedom Caucus members who have said the SALT caucus is asking for too much, stating, “Good luck getting what they want.”
“We wouldn’t even be in this position right now if you didn’t have members in seats like mine, who won,” Lawler said. “And so if they think we’re going to throw our constituents under the bus to appease them, it’s not happening.”
There are also mixed discussions on adjustments to the federal-state cost-sharing of Medicaid, or FMAP, with lawmakers going back and forth about whether it’s on the table. Norman said he’s been discussing potential changes to FMAP with Johnson, an issue the speaker had said was off the table.
But LaLota told reporters that centrist Republicans in the Problem Solvers Caucus expressed to Johnson during a Monday meeting that fiscal hawks’ push to limit federal dollars to state-run Medicaid programs is “a difficult pill for us all to swallow.”
“We want to know what’s truly on the table, what’s not, because that affects us in our district,” LaLota said. “It sounds like it’s off the table, but yet I hear a couple of my colleagues still talking as if it’s on the table. We’d prefer it to be off the table.”
Is the Rules Committee vote moving forward?
Roy said he thinks the Rules Committee should delay the 1 a.m. Wednesday vote and he’s “skeptical” of pushing the legislation through, especially without a “more thorough process.” He said he’s been told numerous times that there will be “plenty of time to negotiate.”
“We made enough progress that we thought in good faith, we should move it forward,” Roy said of the legislation advancing out of the Budget Committee on Sunday. “But let’s be clear, there are still very strong outstanding questions, and I think there are people across the entire conference who recognize that, and it is a mistake for this important of a policy to jam it through.”
Rep. Andy Harris (R-MD), Freedom Caucus chairman, said, “I think it’s pretty obvious that we think we need more time,” calling the discussions “complicated.”
When asked if leadership should delay the Rules vote, Lawler said they had “better have a good number tonight.”
Norman told reporters he’d vote for the bill out of the Rules Committee regardless of whether he personally likes the bill.
“The body has a right to vote on it,” Norman added.
Meanwhile, Johnson is moving full speed ahead. In an unrelated Rules Committee meeting on Monday night, the House approved a same-day authority that allows the reconciliation package to hit the floor as soon as Wednesday. A whip notice to lawmakers, obtained by the Washington Examiner, notes that an additional vote session could be added on Wednesday should Johnson call for a vote on the budget legislation.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Monday that “it’s essential that every Republican in the House and the Senate unite behind President Trump and pass this popular and essential legislative package.”
“It represents a once-in-a-generation opportunity to deliver on the Make America Great Again agenda responsible for President Trump’s landslide victory on Nov. 5,” she said. “The America First policies in this bill are the reason why Republicans currently have the majority in Congress right now.”
Not all Republicans’ votes are dependent on Trump’s remarks at the conference meeting. Harris told reporters that he’s “just not sure there’s anything the president can tell me tomorrow that would change my mind at this point. I’m a hard no on it.”
When asked what he would say if Trump called him and asked him to vote yes, Harris said he would convince the president that “this moment in history is when he reverses the spending trajectory of the country, which he has run on.”
“He said he wants to solve the budget deficit,” Harris said. “I would make the case that this big, beautiful bill could get more beautiful with a little more work.”
The math is tough for Johnson. Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), who frequently detracts from his party over spending, is likely to be one of the three “no” votes Johnson can afford. Eyes will be on Roy and Norman, as well as Freedom Caucus members and like-minded lawmakers such as Reps. Victoria Spartz (R-IN) and Tim Burchett (R-TN), to see whether they will be swayed to vote in favor of the bill.
The speaker will not receive any help from Democrats. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) blasted the GOP for holding a 1 a.m. hearing on the reconciliation bill, accusing Republicans of wanting to “hide what’s in it.”
REPUBLICANS MUSCLE THE ‘BIG, BEAUTIFUL BILL’ OUT OF THE BUDGET COMMITTEE
“If this legislation is designed to make life better for the American people, can someone explain to me why they would hold a hearing to advance the bill at 1 a.m. in the morning?” Jeffries asked.
“House Republicans, in particular, are once again shamefully bending the knee and serving as nothing more than a rubber stamp for Donald Trump’s extreme agenda,” he added. “That’s why he’s coming up to the Hill tomorrow, to give them their marching orders.”