The House of Representatives has passed a budget resolution that lays the foundation for sweeping policy changes under the Republican-controlled chamber.
The measure, approved by a slim 217-215 margin, paves the way for significant spending cuts while extending the 2017 tax cuts from the Trump administration.
Why It Matters
The budget resolution allows Republicans to use the reconciliation process, a legislative tool that prevents Senate filibusters and enables passage with a simple majority. Given their majority in the upper chamber, this could help enact key elements of President Donald Trump’s agenda, including tax cuts, increased defense spending, and stricter immigration measures. However, critics warn that the plan could lead to deep cuts in Medicaid and other safety-net programs, affecting millions of Americans.
What to Know
Medicaid Cuts and Healthcare Implications
Although it does not explicitly reference Medicaid, the resolution instructs the Energy and Commerce Committee—which legislates on the program—to identify at least $880 billion worth of cuts. This could lead to stricter eligibility requirements, benefit reductions, or coverage losses, and may significantly impact the over 72 million Americans who rely on Medicaid. The House bill also seeks $2 trillion in across-the-board cuts to federal spending over 10 years to fund other aspects of Trump’s agenda, such as tax cuts.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries criticized the resolution, saying: “The House Republican budget resolution will set in motion the largest Medicaid cut in American history.”
Extension of Trump-Era Tax Cuts
The resolution includes around $4.5 trillion in tax cuts over the next decade, extending the 2017 cuts set to expire at the end of the year, while also including the president’s campaign proposals such as eliminating taxes on tips, overtime and Social Security. These measures would extend lower corporate tax rates and provide additional breaks for high-income earners.
Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call via AP Images
Republicans plan for this to be offset by locating the $2 trillion worth of spending reductions, while also calling for the nation’s debt ceiling to be raised by $4 trillion.
Defense and Border Security Spending Increases
The budget framework also calls for a $300 billion increase in funding for national defense and border security.
“While there is still much more to do, we are determined to send a bill to President Trump’s desk that secures our border, keeps taxes low for families and job creators, restores American energy dominance, strengthens America’s standing on the world stage, and makes government work more effectively for all Americans,” House Republican leaders said in a joint statement following the passage of the resolution.
Projected Impact on the Federal Deficit
Despite the calls for spending cuts, the budget could still increase the federal deficit due to the high cost of extended tax cuts. This was a key point of contention for the handful of Republicans skeptical of the bill.
Sharon Parrott, president of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, said: “While raising costs for families and increasing both poverty and the number of people without health coverage, the budget would swell deficits—all to further Republicans’ expensive and skewed tax agenda.”
Divisions Within the Republican Party
The measure passed by the slimmest of margins amid internal GOP disagreements. Some fiscal conservatives pushed for deeper spending cuts, while more moderate members of the party expressed concerns about reductions in social programs.
Speaker Johnson and House Majority Leader Steve Scalise spent hours trying to convince representatives, including Victoria Spartz, Warren Davidson and Tim Burchett, to back the bill despite their reservations, and were aided by an 11th-hour intervention by President Trump himself.
According to The Hill, Representative Burchett was seen on the phone with the president earlier on Tuesday, later telling reporters that Trump listened to his concerns about the deficit, and vowed to “go after the spending.” Representative Spartz, meanwhile, said she had received personal promises from Trump to “save healthcare,” which swayed her vote.
Johnson told The Hill that the President was “a big help” in getting the bill passed.
What People Are Saying
Following the vote, the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB), a nonprofit advocating federal fiscal discipline, said: “The House of Representatives just voted to approve its Fiscal Year 2025 budget resolution, a vehicle to allow for budget reconciliation legislation that could pave the way for $2.8 trillion of deficit increases.”
CRFB President Maya MacGuineas added: “It’s truly unfathomable that when confronted with multi-trillion-dollar deficits and debt climbing towards record highs, lawmakers’ response is to pass a budget allowing themselves to add trillions more in debt over the next decade. There’s no excuse for that notion to even be entertained, let alone passed on the floor of the House.”
House Majority Leader Steve Scalise said: “I’m going through the budget. This is the House Republican budget that was passed unanimously by Republicans. Every Democrat voted no. Go through this entire bill. Do you know that for every Democrat talking point where they talk about the horrible things that this budget’s going to do—they talk about Medicaid cuts. Everybody’s going to be thrown, according to Democrats, into all these horrible situations. There’s only one problem. The word Medicaid is not even in this bill. This bill doesn’t even mention the word Medicaid a single time. And yet all Democrats are doing is lying about what’s in the budget because they don’t want to talk about the truth of what we’re voting to start.”
Sharon Parrott, President of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, said: “The House Republican budget passed today calls for massive cuts in health coverage, food assistance, and help paying for college, among some other areas, to pay for huge tax giveaways for wealthy households and businesses. This betrays President Trump’s campaign promises to protect families who struggle financially, as well as his specific pledge to not cut Medicaid, which provides health coverage for 72 million people.”
“The Senate should reject the House cuts both now and if Congress ultimately moves ahead with a second budget plan and reconciliation bill this year,” she added.
Republican Representative Thomas Massie, the only member of his party to oppose the resolution, told reporters prior to the vote: “If the Republican plan passes—under the rosiest assumptions which aren’t even true—we’re going to add 328 billion dollars to the deficit this year, we’re going to add 295 billion dollars to the deficit the year after that, 242 billion dollars to the deficit after that, under the rosiest assumptions. Why would I vote for that?”
Jacquelyn Martin/AP Photo
Democratic Representative Maxine Waters, speaking on the House floor on Tuesday evening: “Democrats are no on this budget. It is outrageous that you all have the audacity to come here with this budget that harms so many Americans and ask us to support billionaires.”
Speaking to reporters after the resolution passed, Speaker Mike Johnson said: “We got it done. We had the requisite number of votes to move this process along, and now Passing the budget resolution in the House that will go to the Senate. This is the first important step in opening up the reconciliation process. We have a lot of hard work ahead of us, but we are going to deliver the America First agenda. We are going to deliver all of it, not just parts of it, and this is the first step in that process.”
What Happens Next?
The resolution now moves to the Senate, where it is expected to face strong opposition from Democrats but ultimately be adopted thanks to Republicans’ control of the chamber.
However, some Senate Republicans, including Senate Majority Leader John Thune, have a different approach to enacting Trump’s agenda, preferring a two-bill approach that will deal with one bill on defense and border security, before pursuing tax cut plans.
Republicans plan to employ the reconciliation process to avoid a filibuster and ensure that the resolution is signed into law. Used by Republicans to pass Trump’s 2017 tax cuts, this requires only a simple majority of Senators voting in favor, but both chambers must agree on an identical resolution.
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