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Donald Trump sought to crush a late rebellion in the House of Representatives from Republican critics of his flagship tax and spending bill, as the US president made a final push to get it passed by July 4.
Trump met privately at the White House with Republican holdouts to prevent them from torpedoing his “big beautiful bill”.
By late Wednesday, Trump said a vote on the bill could be held within hours. “It looks like the House is ready to vote tonight. We had GREAT conversations all day, and the Republican House Majority is UNITED, for the Good of our Country, delivering the Biggest Tax Cuts in History and MASSIVE Growth,” he posted on Truth Social.
But it remained unclear whether the dissident Republican lawmakers would drop their objections before the president’s self-imposed deadline to enact the bill by Friday. With a narrow majority in the House of Representatives, Republicans can only afford to lose three votes on the bill.
The legislation stalled on the House floor as Speaker Mike Johnson struggled to drum up enough support for a procedural vote that would clear the way for a formal debate on the bill.
Five Republicans had voted against advancing the bill — enough to stop it from moving forward — but Johnson and other Republican leaders hoped to change their minds and flip their votes at the eleventh hour.
Several conservative and centrist lawmakers have raised concerns about the legislation that was approved by the Senate on Tuesday.
Some are unhappy that the bill — which implements a big chunk of Trump’s domestic agenda — does not go far enough to rein in the US debt, or roll back clean energy subsidies. Others are worried about cuts to healthcare programmes.
Still, it is unclear how long the rebellion will last, since many conservative hardliners have a history of buckling to the will of the White House and congressional leaders.
One group of conservatives including Tennessee’s Tim Burchett emerged from the White House upbeat following a “very productive” two-hour meeting with Trump and his vice-president JD Vance on Wednesday.
“The president was wonderful, as always,” Burchett said in a video posted to his social media accounts. “We will hopefully get this worked out and do some great things for this country.”
The “big, beautiful bill” extends vast tax cuts from Trump’s first administration, paid for in part by steep cuts to Medicaid, the public health insurance scheme for low-income and disabled Americans, and other social welfare programmes.
The bill would also roll back Joe Biden-era tax credits for clean energy, while scaling up investment in the military and border protection.
A version of the sweeping legislation was narrowly passed in the Senate after three Republicans sided with Democrats against the bill, forcing Vance to cast a tiebreaking vote.
That sent the legislation back to the House, which must approve the bill before Trump signs it into law. An earlier version of the legislation passed the House by a single vote in May.
“The Senate bill moved way far away from the House bill,” Andy Harris, a Maryland Republican who chairs the influential House Freedom Caucus, told CNBC. “We should take the time to get this right.”
Fiscally conservative lawmakers, including many Freedom Caucus members, object to the cost of the legislation, which the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office says will add $3.4tn to the deficit over the next decade. The group has circulated a three-page memo detailing what it described as “failures” of the Senate bill.
More moderate members have argued that the cuts to Medicaid, which would strip an estimated 12mn people of their health insurance, are too steep.
The White House has dismissed the CBO’s projections and argued that the bill would more than pay for itself in the long term by generating stronger economic growth.
“THE ONE BIG BEAUTIFUL DEAL IS ALL ABOUT GROWTH,” Trump said in a post on his Truth Social platform on Wednesday morning. “IF PASSED, AMERICA WILL HAVE AN ECONOMIC RENAISSANCE LIKE NEVER BEFORE.”
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