By Marianna Sotomayor, Jacob Bogage
You could argue that the easy part is over.
Now that the Senate passed President Donald Trump’s massive tax and immigration bill, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act must pass the House.
But House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) and his lieutenants have a bumpy road ahead to meet their self-imposed July 4 deadline.
Here’s what to watch as the House begins debating Trump’s agenda:
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Timing
The bill’s first stop in the House will be Tuesday in the Rules Committee, a procedural but powerful panel responsible for setting the terms of debate and amendments on the House floor. Without its approval, the legislation cannot advance, and several fiscal hawks on the committee – Reps. Chip Roy (R-Texas), Ralph Norman (R-South Carolina) and Morgan Griffith (R-Virginia) could demand changes to the measure or block it completely.
Norman said Tuesday he’s voting against the bill in committee unless substantive changes are made.
Any change, though, would force the bill back to the Senate, or Congress could enter a conference committee – group made up of negotiators from the House and Senate – to hash out remaining differences. If the bill advances unscathed out of the Rules Committee, its determinations about the terms of debate must be approved on the House floor. That will be the legislation’s first major test; fiscal hawks have in the past defeated Rules proposals to protest legislation they say adds too much to the national debt.
And, finally, if the rule is approved, the bill will head for a final approval by the end of the week. The process sounds swift – it is not. It can be delayed at numerous junctures by bands of holdouts. There have been several moments in Johnson’s speakership when bills appeared to be moving along smoothly only to be waylaid and subject to frantic renegotiation.
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Senate changes to the bill
The Senate overhauled the bill by making deeper cuts to Medicaid and allowing energy tax credits to phaseout more slowly, among other changes. The Senate parliamentarian, the arbiter of the upper chamber’s rules, also stripped out provisions that the House wanted to use to pay for other programs, including provisions that imposed penalties on states’ social safety net programs if they provide health coverage to some immigrants.
Those changes have made the bill costlier; excluding borrowing costs, the House version would raise the national debt by $2.4 trillion over 10 years while the Senate bill increases it by $3.3 trillion. Read a full breakdown of the key differences between the House and Senate proposals here.
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Division within the House
The Senate’s changes have angered an array of House Republicans, but Johnson can only lose three members of his conference if all lawmakers are present and voting to send the bill to Trump’s desk.
So far, Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Kentucky) has pledged to vote against the bill. Rep. Warren Davidson (R-Ohio) voted against the House bill in May due to deficit concerns, but has not said he’s opposed this time around.
The Senate was far more punitive than the House when it came to Medicaid. It imposed stricter limits on the funds states could draw from certain health care tax provisions and shifted costs for the program from federal to state accounts.
But members of the ultraconservative House Freedom Caucus are aghast at the bill’s price tag. The group has argued for years that a GOP majority should work to reduce the deficit, and some, like Rep. Ralph Norman (R-South Carolina), have said they will die on this hill.
“The House was clear: no new deficit spending. The Senate isn’t listening,” Rep. Keith Self (R-Texas) wrote on X Monday after meeting with Johnson. “This isn’t just reckless – it’s fiscally criminal.”
More moderate Republicansare also concerned with the shape of the Senate bill – and the consequences that could come with crossing Trump. Many are worried that the Senate’s changes will result in constituents losing access to Medicaid, and that taxes limiting what states charge medical providers – known as provider taxes – would force rural hospitals in their districts to close.
Some New York and California Republicans are also withholding their votes until they are satisfied with a cap to raise the state and local tax deduction, or SALT, which allows itemizers to deduct their state and local tax bills from their federal tax balance.
Some House and Senate lawmakers agreed to raise the SALT cap from $10,000 to $40,000 for five years, with the cap increasing by 1 percent each year. At the end of that period, the cap would snap back to $10,000. It’s unclear if that deal has broad enough buy-in to satisfy SALT-focused House members.
