House Republican leaders on Tuesday teed up changes to the “big, beautiful bill” of President Trump’s tax cut and spending priorities that are slated to come up for a vote of the full chamber this week.
The tweaks come after the Senate parliamentarian reviewed the sprawling package and identified provisions that do not comply with the upper chamber’s procedural requirements for using the budget reconciliation process, which allows Republicans to circumvent a Democratic filibuster and approve the legislation by simple majority.
Leaving the language in the bill risks losing the ability to pass the bill under budget reconciliation.
The parliamentarian’s process is known as the “Byrd bath.”
One House Republican described the lower chamber's tweaks as preventing “fatalities” from remaining in the bill when it hits the Senate.
“There are a small number, I mean, could count them on one hand, of fatalities that have been identified by the parliamentarian,” the GOP lawmaker said. “Of course we can’t transmit the bill with fatalities so those fatalities will be cured through a rule this week.”
While the lower chamber is planning to strip those terms from the bill, party leaders are not giving up on the policy: House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) said Senate Republicans will fight for the provisions when the bill hits the floor.
“We disagree; ultimately we’re going to try it again on the Senate floor,” Scalise told reporters. “We disagree with the parliamentarian. … But you can’t take the risk on any of them. You cannot take the risk because if any one of them is ruled on the Senate floor to be fatal, it’s a 60-vote bill. The whole bill is a 60-vote bill — you can’t take that risk.”
The full House will vote on approving those changes this week, with the adjustments tacked on to a “rule” resolution — a procedural measure that governs debate for legislation. The rule making the fixes to the megabill will also tee up the terms of debate for unrelated legislation to claw back $9.4 billion in funding for foreign aid and public broadcasting. It advanced out of the Rules Committee on a party-line, 8-4 vote Tuesday evening.
Rule resolutions are typically passed along party lines and are tests of party loyalty, but Republicans sometimes buck leadership and vote against the procedural rules in protest of process or policy.
Rep. Thomas Massie (Ky.) — one of two House Republicans who voted "no" on the bill when it passed the House last month — voiced his disapproval of making the changes to the bill via a rule in a post on the social platform X.
“Nancy Pelosi once said the House needed to vote for a bill to find out what was in it. Today @SpeakerJohnson said ‘hold my beer.’ He just announced he’s using the Rules Committee to change the text of the Big Beautiful Bill a week after we voted on it!” Massie said.
While House Republicans have already passed the bill in the lower chamber, they have not officially transmitted it to the Senate — enabling them to make the fixes via the rule mechanism.
Republicans are using the budget reconciliation process to push the megabill through Congress while avoiding the Senate’s 60-vote cloture rule, enabling them to pass the bill on party lines without support from Democrats.
The tweaks in the House come as party leaders are holding out hope that they can enact the package by July 4, which was their self-imposed deadline. Trump, however, opened the door to the process blowing past that timeline, saying if it "takes a little longer, that's OK.”
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