Johnson faces uphill battle keeping GOP divisions from derailing Trump budget bill

House GOP leaders’ aim to sync up with the Senate on a massive bill advancing President Donald Trump’s agenda is on the rocks as of Monday morning, with fiscal hawks worried the upper chamber’s version will not go far enough to reduce the national deficit.

House Republican skeptics are worried specifically about the Senate plan requiring a baseline of $4 billion in spending cuts, while the House plan calls for a $1.5 trillion minimum. 

Two conservatives told Fox News Digital they would oppose the bill if it came to a House vote this week, while two others suggested they were leaning strongly against it. 

“The Senate proposal is not serious and is an insult to the American people,” Rep. Andy Ogles, R-Tenn., who said he is leaning “against” the measure, told Fox News Digital.

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That is coupled with at least three GOP lawmakers declaring on social media this weekend that they are against the legislation – while even more have aired public concerns.

“It’s dead on arrival,” Rep. Ralph Norman, R-S.C., told Fox News Digital last week. “We have to stay with what we worked so hard to put over there, which is a bare minimum. When they talk about changes and talk about putting, basically, a teardrop in the ocean as far as cuts – we’re not going to go along with that.”

When asked on Monday morning about whether he felt the same, Norman replied emphatically via text message, “YES.”

House Freedom Caucus Chairman Andy Harris, R-Md., shared similar concerns about the gap in the House and Senate’s minimum for spending cuts.

“At this point, I would vote against it,” he said.

Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., another critic of excessive government spending, told Fox News Digital he had not made his mind up on the bill but said there were “not enough cuts” in the Senate version.

House GOP leaders are arguing that passing the Senate version does not impede the House in moving forward with its own more fiscally conservative version in any way. House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., has pitched House passage of the Senate bill as a necessary step to allow Republicans to enact Trump’s agenda.

However, doubts over spending cuts are even extending beyond the House GOP’s right-most flank. House Budget Committee Vice Chair Rep. Lloyd Smucker, R-Pa., voiced his own issues with the bill in a private call with House Republicans on Sunday, two people familiar with discussions told Fox News Digital.

Smucker’s office said it would not comment on internal deliberations, but pointed Fox News Digital to the lawmaker’s statement on Saturday. “The Senate’s passage of the amended House resolution is a critical step forward. However, with $5.8 trillion in costs and only $4 billion required savings in their instructions, I cannot vote for it. We can and must do better.”

Committee Chair Jodey Arrington, R-Texas, called it “unserious,” but added he was open to working with House and Senate leaders and the White House to ease those concerns.

Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, who sources said also raised concerns on the Sunday call, posted on X of the bill, “If the Senate’s ‘Jekyll and Hyde’ budget is put on the House floor, I will vote no.”

In addition to opposing the gap in baseline spending cuts, some conservatives who oppose the bill are also wary of the Senate, signaling it would use the current policy baseline method to factor in the cost of extending Trump’s 2017 tax cuts.

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The scoring tool essentially means the cost of making Trump’s tax cuts permanent would be factored at $0, because it extends current policy rather than counting it as new dollars being added to the federal deficit.

“I’m very wary of this budget gimmick, especially paired with a measly $4 billion floor in spending cuts,” Rep. Andrew Clyde, R-Ga., told Fox News Digital. “The fiscally responsible way to extend and pay for tax cuts is through significant spending cuts, which is exactly what House Republicans instruct in our budget resolution.”

Congressional Republicans are working on a massive piece of legislation that Trump has dubbed “one big, beautiful bill” to advance his agenda on border security, defense, energy and taxes.

Such a measure is largely only possible via the budget reconciliation process. Traditionally used when one party controls all three branches of government, reconciliation lowers the Senate’s threshold for passage of certain fiscal measures from 60 votes to 51.

As a result, it has been used to pass broad policy changes in one or two massive pieces of legislation.

The House’s framework passed in late February and included some new funding for defense and border security, along with $4.5 trillion for extending Trump’s 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act and implementing newer Trump proposals like no taxes on tipped wages.

The framework also called for between $1.5 trillion and $2 trillion in spending cuts, dependent on how much Trump’s tax policies would add to the national deficit – something that was key to winning support from deficit hawks.

It also raised the debt limit, something Trump has specifically asked Republicans to deal with, by $4 trillion. The Senate’s version, which passed in the early hours of Saturday, would raise the debt limit by $5 trillion.

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Trump himself has endorsed both the House and Senate versions of the bill.

Passing a framework then allows lawmakers to craft actual policy to match the framework’s federal spending guidelines, led by the respective committees of jurisdiction.

Those policy plans are all brought back together into another massive bill. The Senate and House must pass identical versions before it gets to Trump’s desk for a signature – something the House speaker said would be done by Memorial Day.

In a letter to House GOP colleagues on Sunday, Johnson said lawmakers would vote on the Senate’s amended version this week. 

However, Johnson insisted that the Senate’s passage of its framework simply allows the House to begin working on its version of the bill passed in February – and that it does not impede their process in any way.

“The Senate amendment as passed makes NO CHANGES to the House reconciliation instructions that we voted for just weeks ago. Although the Senate chose to take a different approach on its instructions, the amended resolution in NO WAY prevents us from achieving our goals in the final reconciliation bill,” the letter said.

“We have and will continue to make it clear in all discussions with the Senate and the White House that—in order to secure House passage—the final reconciliation bill must include historic spending reductions while protecting essential programs.”

Johnson’s office pointed back to the letter when reached for comment on Monday.

Republicans will have slightly more wiggle room to pass the measure than they have for much of the year so far, with the special election victories of Reps. Randy Fine, R-Fla., and Jimmy Patronis, R-Fla.

Even with those additions, however, Johnson can only lose three GOP votes with full House attendance to pass anything along party lines.