By Marianna Sotomayor, Jacob Bogage · The Washington Post (c) 2025
Republicans in Congress approved an agreement Thursday to begin implementing President Donald Trump’s legislative agenda on taxes and immigration – a deal that could add trillions of dollars to the national debt.
The House in a 216 to 214 vote adopted a budget that allows Congress’s GOP majorities to use the reconciliation process, which permits conservatives to bypass a Democratic Senate filibuster so long as the two chambers work in lockstep drafting the policies.
Major portions of Trump’s 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act expire at the end of the year, and Republicans aim to pair renewing them – at a cost of $5.5 trillion – with new business tax breaks and major new spending to power the White House’s mass deportation campaign.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-South Dakota) and House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) signaled an agreement shortly before the vote to cut at least $1.5 trillion in spending. But the chambers remain sharply divided over how to arrive at that figure – and if it will truly reduce the federal deficit, as House hard-liners have demanded.
“Our ambition in the Senate is we are aligned with the House in terms of what their budget resolution outlined in terms of savings,” Thune said Thursday. “The speaker has talked about $1.5 trillion. We have a lot of United States senators who believe that is a minimum. We’re certainly going to do everything we can to be as aggressive as possible to see that we are serious about the matter.”
The House in February passed a budget that set ambitious goals to offset the cost of the tax cuts and find additional savings in social safety net programs, such as Medicare, Medicaid and SNAP, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program formerly known as food stamps.
But that framework spooked the less budget-conscious Senate, which was wary of getting boxed into cutting politically popular benefits programs.
The Senate over the weekend amended that budget to set a floor of just $4 billion in spending reductions over a 10-year window and approve an accounting maneuver that zeros out the multitrillion-dollar cost of the tax cuts.
That enraged House fiscal hawks who Wednesday night held final approval of the budget hostage in exchange for an agreement with the Senate for more deficit reduction.
“I support the president, I trust the president. I do not trust the Senate,” said Rep. Andy Ogles (R-Tennessee). “I’ve seen this movie. I know how it ends. Why are we going down this path?”
That afternoon, six members of the archconservative House Freedom Caucus met with Thune and two lieutenants in hopes of receiving assurances that the Senate would pledge to cut trillions in federal spending. But the 40-minute meeting did not sway them. During the evening’s vote series, Johnson led 18 holdouts off the floor an into a nearby meeting room where he shuttled between negotiations and a phone call with Trump.
“The equilibrium point that we’re trying to reach, the consensus tonight, is what is the minimal number of cuts and savings that we can find in the budget that can satisfy everyone to move forward with this nation-shaping piece of legislation?” Johnson told reporters afterward. “I think this is a very productive conversation. It’s a very productive, and a good one for us to be having.”
Thursday morning’s pronouncement with Thune appeared to buy Johnson the leeway he needed to win over enough remaining holdouts. The speaker declared he was a “man of faith” as he walked into a final negotiating session shortly before the vote. Some Freedom Caucus members were still hoping for a written commitment from the Senate before voting, but most appeared hopeful.
“We’ve got some good assurances,” Rep. Ralph Norman (R-South Carolina) said entering the meeting.
Leaders emerged shortly thereafter, allowing holdouts to confer one last time. Johnson declared, “We got the votes” as he walked onto the House floor.
The roughly 20 lawmakers, who range from budget hawks to Freedom Caucus members, spent their time alone negotiating and counting how each of them would vote. Asked whether the group would vote yes, Ogles, a holdout all week, said, “We should be.”Republicans in Congress approved an agreement Thursday to begin implementing President Donald Trump’s agenda on taxes, energy and immigration, setting up a sprint to draft legislation that the GOP hopes will reshape the federal government and much of the economy.
The House in a 216-to-214 vote adopted a budget resolution that allows Congress’s GOP majorities to use what’s known as the reconciliation process. That permits Republicans to bypass a Democratic Senate filibuster so long as the two chambers work in lockstep drafting policies inwhat Trump has taken to calling his “big, beautiful bill.”
Securing passage of the Senate-amended budget resolution by anarrow, fiscally conservativeHouse majority was an immense challenge even with Republicans in charge of both chambers of Congress and the White House.It required frequent meetings between factions across Pennsylvania Avenue, and separate commitments from the White House, Senate and Houseas late as Thursday morning to convince skeptics that Trump’s agenda would sharply cut federal spending and not add more to the ballooning national debt.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) and Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-South Dakota) held their first jointnews conference as leaders to announce an agreement to cut at least $1.5 trillion in spending over 10 years.
“Our ambition in the Senate is we are aligned with the House in terms of what their budget resolution outlined, in terms of savings,” Thune said.
The joint announcement was seen as an effort of good faith by roughly 20 holdouts: budget hawks and members of the House Freedom Caucus who delayed a planned vote Wednesday until they received a firm commitment from the Senate on spending cuts. But the chambers remain sharply divided over how to find the savings- and whether it will truly reduce the federal deficit, as House hard-liners have demanded.
In the Senate on Thursday morning, Finance Committee Chair Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) was foggy on the details of any deal, saying, “I don’t know what agreement you’re referring to.”
Reps. Chip Roy (R-Texas) and Ralph Norman (R-South Carolina) both stated that the written commitments – which Freedom Caucus members expect to be made public soon – include reducing spending by curtailing funds in Democrats’ 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, eliminating “waste, fraud and abuse” in Medicaid subsidies, and other measures.
“This is not over. We will continue to hold everyone’s feet to the fire to the commitments that they’ve made,” said Rep. Eric Burlison (R-Missouri).
At issue was how Republicans tackle renewing major portions of Trump’s 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which expire at the end of the year, without raising the deficit. Republicans aim to renew the law – at a cost of $5.5 trillion – with new business tax breaks and major new spending to power the White House’s mass deportation campaign. But the plans that the House and Senate drafted to reach those marks were more than $1 trillion apart, threatening to stall progress on legislation that Trump and the GOP hoped to claim as a major early accomplishment.
The House in February passed a budget that set ambitious goals to offset the cost of the tax cuts and find additional savings in social safety net programs, such as Medicare, Medicaid and SNAP, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formerly known as food stamps.
But that framework spooked the less budget-conscious Senate, which was wary of getting boxed into cutting popular benefits programs that could politically hurt Republican senators and House members representing swing districts.
The Senate over the weekend amended that budget to set a floor of just $4 billion in spending reductions over a 10-year window and approve an accounting maneuver that zeros out the multitrillion-dollar cost of the tax cuts.
That enraged House fiscal hawks who Wednesday night held final approval of the budget hostage in exchange for an agreement with the Senate for more deficit reduction.Trump had announced support for the Senate measure after backing the initial House proposal, confusing loyalists who thought the president wanted steep cuts to federal spending.
“I support the president, I trust the president. I do not trust the Senate,” said Rep. Andrew Ogles (R-Tennessee). “I’ve seen this movie. I know how it ends. Why are we going down this path?”
On top of the spending cuts, lawmakers said, the legislation can generate hundreds of billions of dollars in federal revenue by allowing additional energy leases and auctioning off access to valuable electromagnetic spectrum, which is necessary for everything from wireless technologies to military communications and radars.
They also hope that renewing the 2017 tax cuts will spur economic growth, thoughCongress’s nonpartisan bookkeepers and leading independent economists say their projections are far too optimistic, especially after Trump’s trade war has rattled global markets.
Congressional leaders pitched the budget legislation as a salve for investors who have seen portfolios slide over Trump’s tariffs.
“I do hope and believe that the vote today is a very strong signal to the markets to investors, job creators, entrepreneurs, the people that make the economy run, that Congress is going to get us on sound footing,” Johnson said.
But the tariffsthreaten to push the economy into recession, analysts say,meaning that the additional tax revenue Republicans anticipate from growth might not materialize.
Trump administration policies that are not part of the legislation should also be counted as budget savings, Crapo said, even though congressional bookkeeping standards demand they remain separate. Those policies include savings from the U.S. DOGE Service, many of which are facing legal challenges, and business deregulation.
Crafting actual legislation that follows the budget outline and can pass both chambers – almost certainly with only Republican votes – could still pose a major challenge. Moderate Republicans in the House might rebel over cuts they feel put their reelections at risk, just as conservatives held up the budget resolution for not going far enough.
Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-New Jersey) said he thought the tax cuts “are a separate part” that would not be offset with new spending cuts or revenue. He warned the Freedom Caucus against “screwing us” in reconciliation by slashing benefit programs.
“If we get screwed, we are not voting for” the final policy package, he said.
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Paul Kane, Liz Goodwin, Mariana Alfaro and Theodoric Meyer contributed to this report.