{"id":9371,"date":"2025-05-19T12:01:45","date_gmt":"2025-05-19T12:01:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/capitol-agenda-megabill-hardball-isnt-over-yet\/"},"modified":"2025-05-19T12:01:45","modified_gmt":"2025-05-19T12:01:45","slug":"capitol-agenda-megabill-hardball-isnt-over-yet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/capitol-agenda-megabill-hardball-isnt-over-yet\/","title":{"rendered":"Capitol agenda: Megabill hardball isn\u2019t over yet"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

GOP fiscal hawks let their party\u2019s tax and spending package advance toward a floor vote. But they\u2019re threatening to tank President Donald Trump\u2019s \u201cbig, beautiful bill\u201d if they don\u2019t see even more spending cuts and conservative policy changes.<\/p>\n

Catch up: Republican hard-liners who sank the Budget Committee\u2019s initial vote<\/a> on the vehicle for Trump\u2019s domestic agenda last Friday allowed the measure to proceed late Sunday after securing promises from GOP leaders<\/a> that changes would be made before the legislation hits the House floor. According to Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.), those changes could include speeding up enforcement of Medicaid work requirements, nixing green-energy tax perks enacted during the Biden administration and revoking Medicaid benefits from undocumented immigrants.<\/p>\n

Speaker Mike Johnson huddled privately with the holdouts \u2014 Norman and Reps. Chip Roy of Texas, Josh Brecheen of Oklahoma and Andrew Clyde of Georgia \u2014 just before the Budget panel reconvened Sunday night. Emerging from the confab, he described agreed-upon changes to reporters as \u201cminor modifications.\u201d The four conservatives went on to vote \u201cpresent\u201d rather than \u201cno,\u201d allowing the package to move forward. But the eleventh-hour tweaks are likely to have massive implications for already-wary moderates (more on that below).<\/p>\n

The hard-liner headache isn\u2019t going away. Roy and Norman also are on Rules, which represents the last hurdle the bill needs to clear to get a floor vote (a notice that went out after midnight says the panel will meet on the measure at 1 a.m. Wednesday). Norman on Sunday night said GOP leaders put their latest concessions in writing. Yet negotiations are ongoing \u2014 Budget Chair Jodey Arrington (R-Texas) predicted Sunday that talks \u201cwill continue on into the week and I suspect right up until we put this big, beautiful bill on the floor of the House\u201d \u2014 and conservatives are far from fully satisfied.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe bill does not yet meet the moment,\u201d Roy said in a post on X<\/a>, asking for a complete repeal of Biden-era clean-energy subsidies and deeper federal spending cuts to Medicaid. The House Freedom Caucus released a similar statement drawing its red lines.<\/p>\n

Those are going to be tough concessions to make without backlash from the moderate Republicans in the conference, some of whom are pushing to protect more<\/i> of the clean-energy tax provisions currently benefiting their districts and states.<\/p>\n

Norman, Roy, Brecheen and Clyde were enraged when GOP leaders told them the conference did not have the votes for a full repeal of the Democrats\u2019 2022 climate law. One option GOP leaders and White House officials are discussing with the hard-liners is moving up the sunset date for certain green credits beyond what is now included in the megabill. <\/p>\n

The Medicaid issue is even trickier. Hard-liners appear to be close to notching one big win with moving up the work requirements from 2029 to 2027. Yet as hard-liners make their push for more Medicaid changes, moderates are warning leaders to apply a lighter touch. Johnson is meeting with the Main Street Caucus Monday night, including with a group of moderates who requested to meet with the speaker over Medicaid, food aid and pension concerns in the bill. <\/p>\n

Trump has been reluctant to make any moves that could be seen as cutting Medicaid benefits. But as talks lingered through the weekend, one thing became clear: \u201cIn the end, the president is gonna have to weigh in on where he stands\u201d on the matter, according to one person involved in negotiations.<\/p>\n

Speaking of the president: Keep an eye out for any White House meetings this week. Johnson\u2019s leadership circle has debated at what point to ask the White House to invite the various factions of the conference to the Oval Office and get Trump involved.<\/p>\n

What else we’re watching: <\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

\u2014 Crypto vote:<\/b> For the second time in less than two weeks, Senate Majority Leader John Thune is preparing to advance landmark cryptocurrency legislation \u2014 starting with a procedural vote this evening. Senators struck a tentative deal last week and circulated revised text over the weekend. The latest legislative language<\/a> largely mirrors the previous draft, with some small tweaks that would affect data sharing and the treatment of foreign crypto firms.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Trump admin on Blue Light News: <\/b>A slew of top Trump administration officials will hit Capitol Hill this week to defend their agencies\u2019 budget proposals, including HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Secretary of State Marco Rubio and DHS Secretary Kristi Noem. The Trump administration\u2019s proposed deep budget cuts across agencies have drawn scrutiny even from some Republican lawmakers, and this week\u2019s hearings will be the latest test of how much slashing they can stomach.<\/p>\n

Jasper Goodman, Meredith Lee Hill and Jennifer Scholtes contributed to this report.<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

GOP fiscal hawks let their party\u2019s tax and spending package advance toward a floor vote. But they\u2019re threatening to tank President Donald Trump\u2019s \u201cbig, beautiful bill\u201d if they don\u2019t see even more spending cuts and conservative policy changes. Catch up: Republican hard-liners who sank the Budget Committee\u2019s initial vote on the vehicle for Trump\u2019s domestic […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9371","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-congress"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9371","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9371"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9371\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9371"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9371"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9371"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}