If GOP Sticks to Script, Megabill Wraps Up Today

Maya MacGuineas, President of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, talks about how President Trump's tax legislation would affect the US debt and deficit.

If Speaker Mike Johnson’s nose-counting and President Donald Trump’s arm-twisting perform as intended — and the weather cooperates enough for lawmakers to get back to Washington — the House will gavel in, handle the requisite housekeeping, and cast the final vote today on their giant tax break-spending cut-government debt bill.

Johnson (R-La.) told reporters he’s speaking with “all members and all caucuses” and said he’s “optimistic we’re going to land this plane.”

Among many, many other things, the version that made it out of the Senate would reward the wind and solar lobby by dropping a proposed excise tax on projects using Chinese components; punish Chinese direct-to-consumer retailers like Shein and Temu by ending a tariff exception; and make it cheaper for semiconductor manufacturers to build plants in the US.

There was enough GOP resistance to the Senate-passed changes that Trump amped up the pressure, in part using social media posts like this one: “We can have all of this right now, but only if the House GOP UNITES, ignores its occasional “GRANDSTANDERS” (You know who you are!), and does the right thing, which is sending this Bill to my desk.”

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) said the plan is to get the measure (H.R. 1) through final passage with no more alterations. “At least 85% of the House bill is still in the Senate bill. And so they didn’t make dramatic changes in the sense of the totality of it,” Scalise said.

- President Donald Trump is meeting with a faction of conservative lawmakers at the White House who have threatened to sink his signature tax legislation over its $3.4 trillion price tag as lawmakers cast doubt on whether it can pass by July 4.

The president’s ambitious timeline to pass the bill is encountering considerable opposition as moderate and ultraconservative Republican lawmakers threaten to defy him and perhaps frustrate his domestic agenda. House lawmakers returned to Washington Wednesday to vote on the Senate version of the measure, which passed the upper chamber 51-50 on Tuesday with Vice President JD Vance’s tie-breaking vote.

House leaders plan to hold a procedural vote to advance the legislation on Wednesday, with the goal of sending it to the president by Friday for his signature.

Several House lawmakers, including Texas Representative Chip Roy and Representative Ralph Norman of South Carolina, predicted the first procedural vote would fail. Members openly defying the president could inflame already-tense relationships between some Republicans and the White House.

That would also likely mean the House would not be able to move to a final vote on Wednesday. House Speaker Mike Johnson can afford to lose few Republican votes in the closely divided chamber.

Representative Andy Harris, the leader of the hardline Freedom Caucus cast doubt on the prospect of Trump’s sprawling tax and spending legislation will be completed by July 4. He told reporters he would vote “no” on the bill.

“We could take another week to get this thing right,” Harris, a Maryland Republican, said during an appearance on CNBC Wednesday. “We’re willing to stay until we resolve this.”

“I don’t think it’s going to be ready by July 4,” he added, saying that the Senate “should not have left town” after passing its version of the measure on Tuesday.

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