The House of Representatives in the early morning hours of May 22 approved legislation to enact President Donald Trump’s agenda, capping off weeks of negotiations and uncertainty within the House Republican conference.
The House narrowly approved the bill in a party-line 215-214 vote. The vote came just before 7:00 a.m. after an all-night debate in the lower chamber.
The bill now heads to the Senate which is expected to make revisions to the package. Any differences will then need to be resolved in conference before moving to Trump’s desk.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) celebrated the victory moments after the vote, saying: “It’s a great day to be an American. It’s great to be a Republican.”
Johnson said the bill reflects the conservative values of the party, including limited government, individual freedom, and fiscal responsibility.
The speaker acknowledged that, at times, he questioned whether the party would unite over the bill.
“I give glory to God,” he said. “There’s a lot of prayer that brought this together.”
Some Republicans declined to support the legislation over spending concerns.
“It’s a debt bomb,” Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) told The Epoch Times.
Massie and Rep. Warren Davidson (R-Ohio) voted against the bill. Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.), chair of the House Freedom Caucus, voted present.
Trump hailed the bill’s passage, calling the package “arguably the most significant piece of Legislation” in the country’s history.
The House session, beginning around 11:00 p.m. on Wednesday, came after a marathon 21-hour hearing in the House Rules Committee which cleared the package for the floor vote.
Republican leaders unveiled an amendment to the megabill in the evening on May 21, tailored to address objections from fiscal conservatives and moderates in the Republican conference.
Dubbed a “manager’s amendment” in Capitol Hill parlance, the changes were unveiled following a marathon 19-hour debate in the House Rules Committee on the legislation. Its release followed a day of hurried negotiations between Trump, Johnson, and conservative members of the House Freedom Caucus.
The amendment makes consequential changes to several key components of the bill, including the State and Local Tax (SALT) deduction and Medicaid.
It would accelerate the start date of Medicaid work requirements—which are strengthened under the bill—from 2029 to 2026. It also speeds up the phasing out of Inflation Reduction Act energy tax credits for wind, solar, and battery storage in 2028, with some exceptions.
The amendment also bumps the SALT deduction cap up to $40,000 per household with an income of up to $500,000.
Those two changes could assuage conservatives, who have demanded steeper cuts, as well as a contingent of purple district moderates who have pushed for increasing the SALT deduction and gradual phasing-out of certain Inflation Reduction Act projects.
The amendment also includes $12 billion in potential grants to states for border security actions.
It also includes a provision to remove the requirement to register silencer attachments under the National Firearms Act of 1934, a move that was immediately celebrated by gun rights groups.
Ahead of his speech prior to the vote, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) told The Epoch Times that he and his colleagues were eager to get the measure passed and moved on to the Senate.
Speaking just hours after the manager’s amendment modified the bill, he said he had been in conversation with Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.), Senate Finance Committee Chair Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), and other Republicans in the upper chamber, “making it clear that we’re in sync.”
“They know what’s at stake here,” Scalise said when asked if the Senate was in sync with them on their new, higher SALT deduction cap, a cause championed by several blue state Republicans in the House.
After the Rules Committee reconvened to consider the amendment, Ranking Member Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) was critical of the panel moving ahead with the vote, saying that the changes contained in the manager’s amendment were too consequential for immediate consideration.
The Democrat made a motion to adjourn to stall consideration of the amendment, but it was defeated easily in a party-line vote. McGovern put forward several additional motions and amendments to stall the vote.
The 21-hour committee session began at 1 a.m. and followed weeks of debate among Republicans over key provisions of the package, ranging from Medicaid to clean energy credits to taxes.
Democrats characterized changes to Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) as a scheme to take from the poor to give tax breaks to the rich. Republicans defended the changes as a sensible way to slow the growth of social programs that have become unsustainable.
The underlying urgency in the debate was that the bill provides funding for Trump’s second-term agenda and is seen as must-pass legislation by Republicans.
Foxx defended the late hearing as relatively normal for the important panel, citing instances as recently as 2022 when Democrats, then in the majority, held similarly late hearings.
Foxx pointed to pro-worker policies in the mega bill, such as the extension of the 2017 middle-class tax cuts, ending taxation on tips, ending taxes on overtime, and other election promises from Trump.
In his opening statement, McGovern accused Republicans of trying to “ram the bill through in the middle of the night.”
“This is not business as usual,” McGovern said.
McGovern said the bill would provide tax cuts to the wealthy while taking away people’s health care, a reference to its cuts to federal Medicaid spending.
“Nearly 14 million people will lose their health care,” he said. “Hospitals will close, nursing homes will shut down, and people will die.”
Rep. Teresa Leger Fernández (D-N.M.) characterized the expansion of work requirements for certain SNAP and Medicaid beneficiaries as an attack on the poor.
“The purpose isn’t [to] get people back to work. It’s to kick people off Medicaid,” Fernández said.
Norman defended the requirements, saying, “Work brings dignity, work brings a cause, a sense of purpose ... America was built on work.”
Regarding taxes, Ways and Means Committee Chairman Rep. Jason Smith (R-Mo.) said the bill did not contain a tax cut.
“We are not allowing tax rates to go up, keeping the same current tax policy with all the rates,” Smith said. He noted that tax rates for all income brackets would increase without congressional action.
If the bill passes the House, it will be considered by the Senate. Any changes made by the Senate would have to be resolved by a conference committee made up of members from both chambers.
