President Donald Trump’s “One Big, Beautiful Bill” passed in the House Rules Committee after an aggressive pressure campaign by the president.
The passage of the legislation through the Rules Committee likely sets up the bill for a smooth passage through the House of Representatives either early Thursday morning in the afternoon.
The vote came after the committee spent more than 24 hours of deliberation. Conservatives and Republicans from swing districts expressed their strong objections to the bill. Conservatives wanted steeper cuts and changes to Medicaid, while Republicans from states with Democratic governments wanted to restore a tax deduction.
The Rules Committee convened at 1:00 a.m. on Wednesday morning, where members voted on numerous amendments to the legislation.
But Reps. Chip Roy of Texas and Ralph Norman of South Carolina of the right-wing House Freedom Caucus voiced their frustrations that the bill did not go far enough on spending cuts, despite the fact they won a major concession in moving up work requirements for Medicaid.
The objections led to a last-minute meeting at the White House with Trump, House Speaker Mike Johnson and members of the Freedom Caucus.
But a series of last-minute deals came to fruition to satisfy both Republicans in swing districts and hardline conservatives.
The final deal moved up work requirements from being enacted in 2029 to December 31, 2026. In addition, Medicaid dollars went from going to gender-affirming care for transgender youth to restricting gender-affirming care for any Medicaid recipient. The bill also provides an addition $12 billion of money to the US-Mexico border. In addition, the bill also removes a tax on silencers, a demand from Georgia Republican Rep. Andrew Clyde.
The legislation would also mandate a quicker-then-planned phaseout of some of the renewable energy tax credits in the Inflation Reduction Act, President Joe Biden’s signature environmental legislation.
In the same token, the bill also changed the name of “MAGA Accounts,” a tax-advantaged account for children eight years old and younger and for children born between 2025 and 2028, to “Trump Accounts.”
The shuttle negotiations coordinated by Johnson, a strident conservative, and Trump to pressure conservatives showed the urgency to pass the president’s signature piece of legislation.
Despite a late-night deal struck between Johnson and Democrats in states like New York, the amendment detailing the changes was not made available to the public for much of the hearing.
On Tuesday morning, Trump visited the Capitol to make the case for the passage of the bill. Trump insisted that the legislation would not make sweeping changes to Medicaid, the program meant for poor people, pregnant women, children and people with disabilities, as well as many elderly in nursing homes.
“We’re not doing any cutting of anything meaningful,” he insisted on Tuesday morning. “The only thing we’re cutting is waste, fraud, and abuse. With Medicaid – waste, fraud, and abuse. There’s tremendous waste, fraud, and abuse.”
