{"id":9468,"date":"2025-05-21T09:02:23","date_gmt":"2025-05-21T09:02:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/capitol-agenda-sprinting-toward-a-megabill-vote\/"},"modified":"2025-05-21T09:02:23","modified_gmt":"2025-05-21T09:02:23","slug":"capitol-agenda-sprinting-toward-a-megabill-vote","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/capitol-agenda-sprinting-toward-a-megabill-vote\/","title":{"rendered":"Capitol agenda: Sprinting toward a megabill vote"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

The pieces could finally be falling into place for Speaker Mike Johnson to pass his \u201cbig, beautiful bill\u201d as soon as Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Johnson and a group of blue-state Republicans struck a tentative deal late Tuesday to boost the cap on state-and-local-tax deductions<\/a> to $40,000, according to three Republicans with direct knowledge \u2014 a huge breakthrough in the negotiations.<\/p>\n

House Freedom Caucus members appear willing to swallow that offer, and it\u2019s a positive sign they aren\u2019t saying \u201cno\u201d off the bat. Rep. Scott Perry (Pa.) left the speaker\u2019s office Tuesday night saying he\u2019s \u201cfor zero SALT, personally\u201d but wants to see \u201cwhat\u2019s the give and take\u201d from the final negotiations.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s one sweetener leadership has presented the hard-liners: Johnson\u2019s team is working to accelerate the phase-out<\/a> of clean energy tax credits created by the Democrats\u2019 2022 climate law. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise told reporters Tuesday night the bill would \u201climit dramatically any new projects from starting\u201d using Inflation Reduction Act incentives.<\/p>\n

Privately, some of the conservative holdouts are looking for just such an offramp, eager to find a \u201cyes\u201d while also proclaiming victory on their issues. Rep. Glenn Grothman (Wis.) left the speaker\u2019s office Tuesday saying it would \u201ctake guts\u201d for Republicans to sink President Donald Trump\u2019s bill on the House floor.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019re in Mike Johnson\u2019s office, it’s easy to say, I\u2019m going to vote no,\u201d Grothman said, adding it’s a lot harder to actually do it.<\/p>\n

What Johnson needs to resolve before a floor vote: Fiscal hawks also want deeper cuts to Medicaid, which would be a red line for moderates \u2014 and probably even for Trump, who yesterday morning told House Republicans not to \u201cfuck with\u201d the safety-net program<\/a>. It\u2019s unclear if the rest of the conference will accept the current SALT agreement.<\/p>\n

And we\u2019re still waiting on final bill text to reflect any of these changes, which will be bundled into a \u201cmanager\u2019s amendment\u201d to be taken up by the House Rules Committee. The GOP-led panel convened at 1 a.m. to begin debate on the massive tax and spending package in hopes of being able to pave the way for a floor vote in the coming hours.<\/p>\n

Other required reading:<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

\u2014 The megabill got a preliminary Congressional Budget Office report amid Tuesday night negotiations that predicted the legislation would lead to increased assets for the richest Americans<\/a>, while reducing them for the lowest-income households through cuts to federal spending on Medicaid and food aid. That\u2019s sure to fuel attacks from Democrats.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Even if Johnson can pull off passing the megabill through the House, he\u2019s about to face plenty of headaches in the Senate<\/a>.<\/p>\n

What else we\u2019re watching:\u00a0<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

\u2014 DC voting bill:<\/b> The House Oversight Committee will vote on a bill at 10 a.m. that would prohibit noncitizens from voting in the District of Columbia. The bill has significant bipartisan appeal: It passed the House last year with the support of 52 Democrats.<\/p>\n

\u2014 EPA waiver repeal: <\/b>Republicans are poised to vote Wednesday to overturn the three EPA waivers that the GAO found don\u2019t qualify as a rule that can be reversed with a Congressional Review Act resolution. Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso privately made the case to Republicans that the fight over whether to nix California\u2019s emission standards was really about the Senate making a decision about how to wield its own power.<\/p>\n

Rachael Bade, Jordain Carney, Meredith Lee Hill and Ben Leonard contributed to this report.<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The pieces could finally be falling into place for Speaker Mike Johnson to pass his \u201cbig, beautiful bill\u201d as soon as Wednesday. Johnson and a group of blue-state Republicans struck a tentative deal late Tuesday to boost the cap on state-and-local-tax deductions to $40,000, according to three Republicans with direct knowledge \u2014 a huge breakthrough […]<\/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-9468","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\/9468","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=9468"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9468\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9468"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9468"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9468"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}