(AFP) – A top US Republican said Sunday that a mega-bill meant to advance President Donald Trump’s domestic agenda remains “on track” despite a recent failure to advance in committee. Trump has been pressing the Republican-controlled Congress to move quickly on the “big, beautiful bill,” which — among many other provisions — extends tax cuts passed in his first term while imposing new restrictions on welfare programs.
House Speaker Mike Johnson told “Fox News Sunday” that he plans for a floor vote on the package by the end of the week, despite its failure to advance in the Budget Committee on Thursday. Independent congressional analysts calculate that the mega-bill’s tax provisions would add more than $4.8 trillion to the federal deficit over the coming decade. To partially offset that, Republicans plan significant cuts in spending — notably by adding new restrictions on the Medicaid program that helps provide health insurance for more than 70 million lower-income Americans.
The policy change would result in over 10 million people losing coverage under the program, according to estimates by the independent Congressional Budget Office. But sharp divisions within the party threaten at least to slow the legislative process. Moderate Republicans fear overly large cuts in the popular program could upset the party’s prospects in the midterm elections of November 2026. But deficit hawks on the party’s far right insist the projected cuts don’t go far enough. A handful of Republican legislators on Friday voted against the bill’s passage out of the Budget Committee, derailing its progress at least temporarily.
“We don’t like smoke and mirrors,” one of those legislators, Ralph Norman of South Carolina, told reporters. “We want real cuts.” Speaker Johnson has been spending the weekend working to persuade the holdouts. Republicans have a very slim majority in the House, meaning the bill needs almost unanimous support to pass. “This is the largest spending reduction in at least three decades, probably longer,” he told the Fox program. “It’s historic.”
The Budget Committee is set to continue debating the bill into late Sunday, in hopes this time of securing passage. But even if it passes in the House, it will face challenges in the Senate. Republicans in the upper chamber, who have a similarly narrow majority, are demanding major changes in the sweeping bill — which Trump is eager to present as a signal accomplishment early in his second term.
© 2024 AFP
