In setback for GOP, House budget panel sinks reconciliation bill

WASHINGTON (CN) — The smell of jet fumes is in the air once more in Washington, as House Republicans on Friday failed to advance President Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful” budget reconciliation package out of the lower chamber’s budget committee thanks to a few key GOP holdouts.

It’s a setback for Trump and Republican leaders who have forcefully advocated for the bill, but it’s not an abject failure — lawmakers have forecast that they could reach a deal to push the sweeping legislation forward as soon as early next week.

For now, the measure, which bundles an expansion on Trump’s first-term tax cuts with additional border security measures, a debt limit hike and a bevy of spending cuts on programs such as Medicaid and student loans, remains in a holding pattern in the House Budget Committee. Lawmakers on the panel refused to advance the bill on a 16-21 vote, with five Republicans voting alongside all Democrats to scuttle it.

The budget panel’s GOP leadership did not appear keen on keeping members of Congress in Washington for a sequel vote, with Texas Representative Jodey Arrington, the committee chairman, telling his colleagues that he did “not anticipate us coming back today.”

Arrington’s fellow Texas Representative Chip Roy came out as a vocal opponent of the budget reconciliation in its current form, saying during the panel meeting that he would not support the measure without “serious reforms.”

Roy, who has emerged as one of the House’s most vocal spending hawks, argued that the proposed bill did not adequately address the federal deficit and that the savings outlined in the legislation would take too long to balance out tax cuts.

“We are writing checks we cannot cash, and our children are going to pay the price,” he told his colleagues.

Alongside Roy, South Carolina Representative Ralph Norman, Oklahoma Representative Josh Brecheen and Georgia Representative Andrew Clyde all voted down the reconciliation bill. Budget committee vice chair and Pennsylvania Representative Lloyd Smucker also voted against the measure, changing his vote from a “yes” to ensure that he could move that the panel reconsider the bill next week.

The failed vote comes after Trump himself heaped pressure on Republicans to pass budget reconciliation, slamming GOP opponents who he referred to as “grandstanders.”

“Republicans MUST UNITE behind ‘THE ONE, BIG BEAUTIFUL BILL!’” the president wrote Friday morning in a post on his social media platform Truth Social. “We don’t need ‘GRANDSTANDERS’ in the Republican Party. STOP TALKING, AND GET IT DONE!”

In a statement posted to X Friday afternoon, Clyde explained his “no” vote, writing that while he supports Trump’s agenda, Congress must “seize this rare opportunity” to deliver conservative priorities, such as slashing what Republicans have framed as waste and fraud in Medicaid as well as increasing work requirements for people on government assistance.

Clyde, who owns two gun stores in his home state of Georgia, has also pushed hard to do away with what he calls “unconstitutional” taxes on short-barreled rifles and shotguns as well as firearm suppressors and other guns classified under the National Firearms Act.

“It’s time for change,” the congressman wrote. “This is our only opportunity. We MUST act now!”

Lawmakers, meanwhile, have signaled that a deal to shore up Republican support for the budget reconciliation bill could not be too far off.

In a statement Friday afternoon, the House Freedom Caucus — the lower chamber’s conservative voting bloc — said that the GOP holdouts are working “in good faith” to pass the measure and added that lawmakers were making progress before the Budget Committee vote.

“We are not going anywhere, and we will continue to work through the weekend,” they said.

If Republicans reach a consensus on the reconciliation bill this weekend, the Budget Committee could theoretically vote on the measure as soon as Monday, putting it one step closer toward a final vote on the House floor.

Passing a budget reconciliation package has long been a top priority for Republican leadership under the second Trump administration as they seek to enact parts of the president’s ambitious agenda. Lawmakers are also beginning to consider full-year spending bills for 2026, another process that could prove highly contentious.

A budget blueprint passed by both chambers earlier this year instructs Congress to find $4 billion in government spending to cut. But that’s a goal set by the Senate — the House’s more aggressive plan prescribed as much as $1.2 trillion in cuts.

It’s yet unclear how that conflict could come into shape as Congress looks to pass budget legislation before a stopgap spending bill, which is currently keeping government programs afloat, lapses in September.

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