House approves Trump’s ‘big, beautiful’ bill by single vote, sending it to Senate

( NYPost )

House Republicans narrowly approved President Trump’s “big, beautiful” agenda bill Thursday morning, sending it to the Senate after a 48-hour scramble to get fiscal conservatives and blue-state moderates on board.

With the 215-214 vote, lawmakers met the goal of House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) to approve the legislation by the Memorial Day holiday, but more drama is likely in the Senate, where Republicans have both demanded additional spending cuts and insisted on preserving current rules around Medicaid.

“My friends it quite literally is, again, morning in America,” Johnson said in a speech ahead of the vote — and almost 30 hours after deliberations on the bill had begun in the House Rules Committee on Wednesday at 1 a.m.

“This One Big Beautiful Bill is the most consequential legislation that any party has ever passed, certainly under a majority this thin,” he added.

Two Republicans voted with 212 Democrats against the measure: Warren Davidson of Ohio and Thomas Massie of Kentucky. Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.), leader of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, voted “present.”

Harris and Texas Rep. Chip Roy led a group of Freedom Caucus defectors who moved to block the legislation less than 24 hours before the final vote, forcing a White House meeting Wednesday afternoon with the president.

That resulted in a few apparent handshake agreements on further executive actions from Trump or bills in Congress, Johnson told reporters upon returning to Capitol Hill.

“I voted to move the bill along in the process for the President. There is still a lot of work to be done in deficit reduction and ending waste, fraud and abuse in the Medicaid program,” Harris said in a statement Thursday.

Republican holdouts had opposed the initial bill’s failure to implement Medicaid work requirements sooner than 2029 or cut hundreds of billions of dollars in green-energy tax credits passed under the last administration.

“It has massive deficits in the first five years because we’re not addressing the structural reform that we’re talking about right here,” Roy fumed, “including very specifically eliminating the 45% of the subsidies under the Green New Scam that continue.”

Blue-state Republicans like New York Rep. Mike Lawler had hours before the Freedom Caucus rebellion secured a deal to raise the state and local tax (SALT) deduction cap to $40,000 for individuals and $20,000 for married couples filing separately, so long as their income levels were below $500,000 and $250,000 each, respectively.

A final “Manager’s Amendment” included that language while shifting Medicaid work requirements up to “no later than December 31, 2026” and wiping away wind, solar and battery storage energy credits by 2028, unless 5% of the total cost was invested within 60 days of enactment.

Johnson said later that the GOP would have had 217 votes but for Reps. David Schweikert (R-Ariz.) failing to cast his vote before the gavel and Andrew Garbarino (R-NY) apparently falling “asleep in the back.”

“I’m going to just strangle him,” the House speaker joked at a press conference following its passage. “But he’s my dear friend.”

Garbarino was central to the SALT-y Republican deal that raised the deduction cap but also stood opposed to some of the green energy rescissions sought by Freedom Caucus members.

The bill also approved Thursday extends Trump’s 2017 tax cuts while temporarily eliminating levies on qualified tips, overtime pay, and car loan interest payments. The measure does not do away with taxes on Social Security income, instead giving seniors an additional deduction.

It also included hundreds of billions of dollars more in border security and national defense funding, clawbacks of green energy provisions passed under former President Joe Biden as well as a $40,000 state and local tax (SALT) deduction cap critical for GOPers with constituents in blue states like New York and California.

“’THE ONE, BIG, BEAUTIFUL BILL’ has PASSED the House of Representatives!” Trump cheered in a Thursday morning Truth Social post.

“Great job by Speaker Mike Johnson, and the House Leadership, and thank you to every Republican who voted YES on this Historic Bill! Now, it’s time for our friends in the United States Senate to get to work, and send this Bill to my desk AS SOON AS POSSIBLE! There is no time to waste,” he said.

“The Democrats have lost control of themselves, and are aimlessly wandering around, showing no confidence, grit, or determination,” he said. “They have forgotten their landslide loss in the Presidential Election, and are warped in the past, hoping someday to revive Open Borders for the World’s criminals to be able to pour into our Country, men to be able to play in women’s sports, and transgender for everybody. They don’t realize that these things, and so many more like them, will NEVER AGAIN happen!”

Johnson also took a victory lap and fired back at critics — including House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) who used his “magic minute” to denounce the bill’s tax breaks, elimination of Medicaid coverage and other spending cuts from the floor.

The speaker also celebrated Rules Committee Chairwoman Virginia Foxx (R-NC) as the “Iron Lady” of the House Republican conference for having presided over hundreds of amendments submitted by Democrats to stall the bill from advancing to the floor.

Other key components of the bill include:

• Increasing the state and local tax (SALT) deduction cap to $20,000 for married individuals filing separately ($250,000 income limit) and $40,000 in the case of any other taxpayer ($500,000 income limit).

• Raising the debt ceiling by $4 trillion

• Providing $175 billion in spending on border security, including $46.5 billion for the construction of a wall along the US-Mexico border.

• Providing $150 billion in additional funding for defense, including $25 billion for Trump’s space-based Golden Dome missile defense system, $34 billion to expand the Navy’s capacity and shipbuilding, $21 billion to replenish America’s ammunition stockpile and $5 billion for border security.

• Implementing an 80-hour-per-month work requirement — including volunteer work and school — on able-bodied adults ages 19 to 64 to be enrolled in Medicaid.

• Extending SNAP work requirements for able-bodied adults without children through the age of 64.

• Setting up a fast-track system for permitting natural gas exploration if applicants pay either 1% of a project’s costs or $10 million, whichever is less.

• Ending the Biden-era mandate that two-thirds of new car sales be electric vehicles by 2032.

• Creation of “Trump” savings accounts for children born between Jan. 1, 2025, and Jan. 1, 2029, with the government providing $1,000 in seed money.