A key House committee voted late Wednesday evening to advance President Donald Trump’s legislative agenda to the House floor after marathon proceedings that lasted almost 22 hours, setting up a high-stakes vote in the chamber and a showdown between warring wings of the Republican conference.
The vote came after House Republicans released a package of major changes to the sweeping domestic policy bill earlier in the evening that reflect days of negotiations from GOP leaders in an effort to win over key holdouts.
House GOP leaders are racing to bring the bill to the floor for a full vote as soon as the early hours of Thursday morning. With a razor-thin margin, Speaker Mike Johnson can only afford a few defections if he wants to meet his ambitious Memorial Day deadline for sending the package to the Senate. To do so, he must balance competing demands from within the Republican conference.
Johnson in recent hours has been holed up in meetings with various factions to finalize a deal that would win over both GOP hardliners, who’ve been threatening to block the sweeping tax and spending cuts bill, as well as centrist members who have been wary of some of the right-wing’s proposed changes to it.
The amendment to the package includes changes demanded by the warring wings of the conference, including speeding up work requirements for Medicaid to the end of 2026, from the start of 2029. The shift is expected to hike the number of people who become uninsured, as well as increase the bill’s cost savings.
It also tightens the definition of a “qualified alien” who is eligible for the program. And it creates a new incentive for the 10 states that have not already expanded Medicaid under Obamacare. Those states would be permitted under the measure to funnel larger supplemental payments to hospitals and other providers, giving the states an extra incentive not to expand Medicaid.
Plus, the amendment takes another swipe at the Affordable Care Act, adding a provision that would likely result in higher premiums and fewer enrollees.
The language also formalizes one of Johnson’s biggest deals this week: The so-called SALT cap. It would allow people to deduct state and local income taxes up to $40,000 for certain income groups. GOP leaders had initially proposed a cap of $30,000 but key New York, New Jersey and California Republicans had refused to support it.
Republicans also decided to phase out Biden-era energy tax credits sooner than planned. For instance, new projects must break ground within 60 days or be “in service” by the end of 2028 to qualify for the credits.
The amendment renames a new kind of child savings accounts from “MAGA accounts” to “TRUMP accounts.”
The change also strikes language that would allow the sale of federal lands in Nevada and Utah. Rep. Ryan Zinke, a former Trump Cabinet official, strongly opposed this.
And the bill would now remove a tax on silencers, also known as firearm suppressors, as demanded by Rep. Andrew Clyde of Georgia.
This story has been updated with additional details.
CNN’s Tami Luhby, Manu Raju and Lauren Fox contributed to this report.
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