House Conservatives Fold on Budget Deal With Little More Than a Pinky Promise From Leadership

President Trump’s “one big beautiful bill” will advance to the next step in the coming weeks. Roughly two dozen debt hawk holdouts, who helped delay the vote on Wednesday night, folded to Speaker Johnson and Senator Thune on Thursday morning after the two leaders said they would cut more funding, though those guarantees amount to little more than a pinky promise. The House passed the Senate budget framework by a margin of 216 to 214 on Thursday morning, with only two GOP lawmakers voting no. The original House framework had a minimum spending cut number of $1.5 trillion over ten years, though the Senate version had a mere $4 billion floor — which amounts to one day of federal borrowing. One of the two Republican lawmakers to vote no, Congressman Thomas Massie, tells the Sun that his conservative friends are probably going to be betrayed by House and Senate leadership in the coming months. “I hope it works out for them,” Mr. Massie said sarcastically with a laugh. “The people who traded their vote for a promise — that’s just salve for their conscience.”Mr. Massie says they were “probably” looking to fold sooner rather than later “because what was coming next was a lot of pressure from the president to vote for this.” He added: “We need cuts. But there aren’t cuts in this. There are cuts in taxes, but there’s no cuts in spending. You watch. Next year, we’ll spend more money than we did this year.”One member of the Freedom Caucus, Congressman Ralph Norman, withheld his vote from the budget resolution Wednesday night over the lack of spending guarantees. He and around 20 other lawmakers met with Mr. Johnson for more than an hour just off the House floor, after which the speaker pulled the vote and convened a teleconference meeting with Senate leadership, House holdouts, and the president. Mr. Norman shared with the Sun a memorandum drafted by the Speaker himself. The one-page letter simply stated that lawmakers would push for more cuts. “I am committed to maintaining linkage between provisions that result in a deficit increase, either via spending or revenue loss, and provisions that reduce federal spending,” Mr. Johnson’s letter states. Mr. Norman tells the Sun that they will get a second letter tomorrow with an “outline” of specific cuts to things like Medicaid, provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act, and other federal subsidies. “You ever see a commitment like that before?” a former chairman of the Freedom Caucus, Congressman Scott Perry, asked reporters after the vote. “That’s right. Anybody ever seen the majority leader in the Senate come out and actually say, ‘Yes, we agree with the House’?” the current chairman of the Freedom Caucus, Congressman Andy Harris added. The chairman of the Budget Committee, Congressman Jodey Arrington, told members of the press that he would not bring any legislation to the floor if it adds a dollar to the national debt — a nearly impossible lift. “I have confidence that we can advance the full America First agenda,” Mr. Arrington said. “Most importantly, it’s putting our nation on a path to balance.” The Senate framework budget is estimated to add nearly $6 trillion to the debt.

House Conservatives Fold on Budget Deal With Little More Than a Pinky Promise From Leadership

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