The GOP’s ambitious plan to quickly advance President Trump’s legislative agenda is hitting an early speed bump, with Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) being forced to punt an initial vote on the legislation.
Johnson and House GOP leaders repeatedly said that they wanted to start the legislative process on the measure encompassing much of Trump’s agenda by advancing a budget resolution out of committee this week. But a source told The Hill on Monday that the vote will not take place this week amid jockeying among Republicans over how deep the spending cuts should ultimately be.
“There will not be a budget resolution markup this week,” the source said. “Leadership provided an ambitious timeline and the House is doing the best it can to meet that.”
The decision to delay the markup comes after leadership presented lawmakers with a framework that proposed $500 billion in spending cuts, Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.), a member of the House Budget Committee, told The Hill. The blueprint came after Johnson last week said he wanted that number to be a “floor” and not a “ceiling” to give committees flexibility when crafting the ultimate bill, which is subject to strict budget reconciliation rules.
But Norman — who is also a member of the conservative House Freedom Caucus — called that figure a “nonstarter,” and he said he is pushing for a bottom-line figure between $2 trillion and $5 trillion.
“I’d like it higher because I just don’t have any confidence that if we set a floor of X billion, which doesn’t begin to solve our math problem,” Norman said. “I know $500 billion is a nonstarter, but whether we can get what amount as a level is, in my world it’s just got to be there.”
“It’s about the numbers now,” he later added. “And it’s about not having expectations so low that it doesn’t give incentive to really make a difference now that we’ve got a chance.”
The early obstacle for the GOP’s sweeping legislation — which Republicans say will include an extension of tax cuts, border enforcement funding and energy priorities — is a concerning sign for Johnson as he looks to send the bill to Trump’s desk by Easter or Memorial Day, a timeline some Republicans admit will be difficult to achieve.
One source blamed House GOP leadership for the hang-up, faulting top lawmakers for proposing a small figure when it came to spending cuts.
“It is very clear that a single, big-bill budget resolution is not going to move this week,” the source said before news broke of the markup delay. “That is a direct consequence of the leadership putting forward literally deficit increases on the floor last week, and then bumping that number up to something south of $600 billion, which is demonstrably short of the cuts necessary to achieve at least deficit neutrality.”
Republicans are looking to pass the Trump agenda measure through a process known as budget reconciliation, which will allow the GOP to circumvent Democratic opposition in the Senate.
Before crafting the actual bill, however, lawmakers must advance a budget resolution — which lays out the parameters of the legislation — through the Budget Committee, on which a host of hard-line conservatives sit and have the power to thwart any effort. Legislation needs majority support in the committee before heading to the House floor for a vote of the entire chamber.
A number of Freedom Caucus members sit on the Budget Committee, including Norman and Reps. Ben Cline (R-Va.), Chip Roy (R-Texas), Andrew Clyde (R-Ga.) and Josh Brecheen (R-Okla.).
Cline told The Hill on Monday lawmakers are working to move the budget resolution “as soon as possible” but are acutely aware of the little room for error they have amid a razor-thin majority.
The bloc of hard-liners on the Budget Committee has enough power in numbers to block the resolution from advancing. And if the resolution does eventually hit the House floor, Republicans will have little — maybe even zero — room for error. When Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) departs the House to serve as the Trump administration’s ambassador to the U.N., which is expected to happen soon, Republicans will not be able to afford any defections on party-line measures.
“We want to ensure that we’re all united behind the product,” Cline told The Hill, “and with our margin as thin as we have, we gotta measure twice and cut once, as we say.”
The debate about how much to slash federal spending to offset Trump’s priorities on border, tax and other ideas is partly why the Freedom Caucus has been calling to split the reconciliation bill into two parts. That strategy would allow Republicans to quickly deliver on some of Trump’s border priorities while they figure out the trickier tax portion later in the year. But those who favor the one-bill track see risks in isolating the tax portion of the agenda and leaving it until later.
Johnson, for his part, acknowledged concerns about the cost of Trump’s legislative priorities on “Fox & Friends” on Monday morning, saying that Republicans are searching for savings to offset the price tag on the cuts.
“We don’t want to blow a hole in the deficit by extending the Trump-era tax cuts, for example,” Johnson said. “But we’re definitely going to get that extended. So we’ve got to find those savings.”
Jonson talked about actions outside the bill that could count as “savings” — such as income from new tariffs implemented by Trump and savings that result from changes made at the direction of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), the Elon Musk-headed commission within the White House.
“The tariffs are going to bring in revenue. We’re going to have massive savings by making government more efficient and effective,” Johnson said.
But those kinds of external actions would not be counted as part of a traditional assessment of the budget resolution’s fiscal impact in a Congressional Budget Office score of the bill — and attempts by GOP leaders to count those extraneous moves as “savings” against the costly items in the budget resolution risk infuriating fiscal hawks who are looking for substantial cuts as part of the Trump agenda.
Still, Johnson said during a fireside chat with The Hill at the GOP retreat last week that he would like the reconciliation package to be deficit-neutral, and that he would prefer it to be deficit reducing.
“That is a commitment we have. Why?” Johnson said. “Because the number one threat to our nation right now is our debt. It’s not China, Russia, Iran, or North Korea, it’s the debt, and we take that very seriously.”
