House Republican leaders are uniting GOP lawmakers around a plan to implement a wide range of President Donald Trump’s agenda after the legislation was passed by the Senate early Saturday morning.
“More than a year ago, the House began discussing the components of a reconciliation package that will reduce the deficit, secure our border, keep taxes low for families and job creators, reestablish American energy dominance, restore peace through strength, and make government more efficient and accountable to the American people. We are now one step closer to achieving those goals,” Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and his top lieutenants wrote to House Republicans. “Today, the Senate passed its version of the budget resolution. Next week, the House will consider the Senate amendment.”
Congressional Republicans are advancing a sweeping conservative policy agenda through the budget reconciliation process—a legislative tool typically reserved for when one party controls the White House and both chambers of Congress. Reconciliation allows certain fiscal measures to pass the Senate with a simple majority of 51 votes, bypassing the usual 60-vote filibuster threshold. As a result, reconciliation has often been used to push through sweeping policy changes in just one or two major pieces of legislation.
Early Saturday morning, around 2 a.m. ET, Senate Republicans passed a framework for a reconciliation bill following hours of debate and a flurry of amendment votes. The Senate version mirrors much of the House bill passed in late February, but key differences—such as mechanisms to exclude the cost of extending Trump’s 2017 tax cuts and a lower baseline for mandatory federal spending cuts—have prompted warnings from some House conservatives, who say they may oppose the final package.
The Senate bill proposes at least $4 billion in spending cuts, while the House version sets a minimum target between $1.5 trillion and $2 trillion. Both versions include top Trump priorities, such as enhanced border security, expanded domestic energy production, and new tax provisions, including the elimination of penalties on tipped and overtime wages. “If the Senate’s ‘Jekyll and Hyde’ budget is put on the House floor, I will vote no,” Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, wrote on X.
“In the classic ways of Washington, the Senate’s budget presents a fantastic top-line message – that we should return spending back to the pre-COVID trajectory (modified for higher interest, Medicare, and Social Security) of $6.5 Trillion, rather than the current trajectory of over $7 Trillion – but has ZERO enforcement to achieve it, and plenty of signals it is designed purposefully NOT to achieve it,” he added.
House GOP leaders maintain that the Senate’s approval of its framework is merely a starting point for the House to develop its own version of the bill that was passed in February. They assert that this does not disrupt their legislative process in any way.
“The Senate amendment as passed makes NO CHANGES to the House reconciliation instructions that we voted for just weeks ago. Although the Senate chose to take a different approach on its instructions, the amended resolution in NO WAY prevents us from achieving our goals in the final reconciliation bill,” the letter said. “We have and will continue to make it clear in all discussions with the Senate and the White House that—in order to secure House passage—the final reconciliation bill must include historic spending reductions while protecting essential programs.”