A key committee meeting on the GOP’s “big, beautiful bill” is dragging into the daylight on Wednesday, as Democrats needle Republicans on the contents of the sprawling package and GOP lawmakers wait to review leadership’s changes to the measure.
The House Rules Committee’s hearing — which began at 1 a.m. on Wednesday — was still running as of 8 a.m., with committee chairs and ranking members taking turns testifying about the 1,000-plus page bill. The legislation includes an extension of the tax cuts President Trump enacted in 2017, energy policy, changes to Medicaid and a debt limit increase, among other provisions.
It remains unclear when the committee will hold a vote on adopting a rule — which governs debate on legislation and is the final step before the bill hits the floor — and wrap up its work on the legislation.
Republicans are still waiting for Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) to disclose what changes leadership plans to make to the bill, which the Rules Committee will have to consider and vote on.
Johnson has been engaged in near-constant negotiations with GOP holdouts for days. Moderate Republicans from high-tax blue states are pushing for a higher state and local tax (SALT) deduction cap, and hardline conservatives are demanding more significant changes to Medicaid and an accelerated rollback of green energy tax credits enacted by Democrats. He was meeting with lawmakers are recently as late Tuesday night.
Those eventual proposed changes will be laid out in what is known as a manager’s amendment. A source told The Hill that the Speaker would release the amendment “soon,” but did not disclose a more specific timeline.
“There will be a manager’s amendment, it is how reconciliation has operated under both Republican and Democrat control. I certainly can’t control the time that it will be ready,” Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.), the chair of the House Rules Committee, said at the beginning of the panel’s hearing.
The sprint to release a manager’s amendment comes as Johnson is looking to vote on the sprawling package on Thursday, which would achieve his goal of passing the bill by Memorial Day.
“Yeah, I think we’ll be ready,” Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) told CNN Wednesday morning. “We’re going to put it on the floor and I think we’ll have the votes.”
A number of key questions, however, remain. While the Speaker zeroed in on a SALT agreement with moderate Republicans Tuesday night, he still has to sell the plan to hardline conservatives, who have been averse to a higher deduction cap. The proposal would increase the SALT deduction cap to $40,000 — quadruple the current $10,000 cap — for individuals making $500,000 or less in income, three of the sources said. One source said the level would increase 1 percent a year over 10 years.
Additionally, hardline Republicans are still pushing for the beefed up Medicaid work requirements in the bill to kick in earlier than the planned 2029 start date, and for more provisions of the Democrats’ 2022 Inflation Reduction Act to be rolled back — and at a quicker speed.
“Still progress being made but we’re not there yet,” Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.), the chair of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, said Tuesday.