House Republicans short on votes to adopt budget blueprint for Trump agenda

House Republicans do not have enough votes to adopt changes the Senate made to a budget blueprint for enacting President Trump’s agenda, which the lower chamber is scheduled to vote on this week.

The House GOP cannot afford to lose more than three votes on the budget given the united Democratic opposition. More Republicans than that have already announced their opposition to the Senate changes, arguing the blueprint no longer ensures steep spending cuts.

“From budget gimmicks to a pathetic $4 [billion] in spending cuts, the Senate’s budget resolution is a non-starter,” Rep. Andrew S. Clyde, Georgia Republican, posted on social media. “We need to be serious about delivering on President Trump’s America First agenda in a FISCALLY RESPONSIBLE manner. If this comes to the floor in its current form, I’m a NO.”

Mr. Clyde is a member of the hard-line House Freedom Caucus and some of the most vocal GOP opposition is coming from that group.

Freedom Caucus Chairman Andy Harris of Maryland and group members Reps. Chip Roy and Keith Self of Texas, Ralph Norman of South Carolina, Scott Perry of Pennsylvania, Josh Brecheen of Oklahoma and Andy Ogles of Tennessee are among the Republicans who said they would vote against the Senate budget changes. Others have been critical but not been explicit about how they’d vote.

The House first adopted the budget blueprint in late February. It contained instructions for committees to follow in drafting the “one big, beautiful” reconciliation package that will carry the president’s agenda. 

Republicans plan to load up that bill with sweeping tax and spending cuts, a debt-limit increase, energy policy, and funding for border security, immigration enforcement and defense.

The Senate this weekend voted 51-47 to alter the budget, adding instructions for its committees that are drastically different from those provided for House committees. 

House fiscal hawks are most upset that the Senate instructions set a collective spending cut floor of $4 billion over 10 years, a minuscule amount compared to the $1.5 trillion floor set in the House instructions. 

Both chambers have set a goal of cutting at least $2 trillion, but the Senate instructions are all that is enforceable under the budget reconciliation rules. That’s why Senate Republicans opted for a low floor, to ensure maximum flexibility that they won’t fall short of a specific target and derail the entire bill.

All of the House Republicans who’ve announced their opposition did so after Mr. Trump endorsed the Senate changes and called for the GOP to unite around the budget. The president stepped up his public pressure campaign on Monday and is expected to make private appeals to win over the holdouts as well.

“There is no better time than now to get this Deal DONE!” Mr. Trump posted on social media, urging the House to “quickly” adopt the budget.

He promised the House, the Senate and the administration would “work tirelessly” negotiating the bill that will follow and “everyone is going to be happy with the result.”

Mr. Norman said Mr. Trump will be meeting with some of the opponents but that may not change many minds.

“We’ll hear him out, but I don’t see it,” he said, suggesting the president’s time would be better spent convincing Senate Republicans to raise their enforceable spending cut targets. “Now it’s time for him to pressure the Senate.”

Mr. Self said it’s not Mr. Trump’s word House Republicans distrust but the Senate’s.

“There’s got to be a change in the numbers, because, frankly, the Senate is already pushing back against President Trump in many ways,” he said. 

Some of the opposition is coming from fiscal hawks outside of the Freedom Caucus.

“I can’t vote for it,” Rep. Lloyd Smucker, Pennsylvania Republican and vice chair of the House Budget Committee, wrote on social media.

He and others have cited figures from the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget that the Senate’s instructions would allow for bills that could add up to $5.8 trillion to the deficit over the next decade, while only guaranteeing $4 billion in offsets.

The lack of enforceable spending cuts in the Senate’s blueprint has House Republicans worried about the path ahead.

Mr. Harris said he is “unconvinced” the Senate will be able to deliver the $2 trillion in cuts Republicans are seeking.

“The Senate is free to put pen to paper to draft its reconciliation bill, but I can’t support House passage of the Senate changes to our budget resolution until I see the actual spending and deficit reduction plans to enact President Trump’s America First agenda,” he said.

Mr. Harris’ suggestion is in line with an idea some opponents of the Senate changes have been floating: Let the budget sit for now while the House and Senate work on the details of the reconciliation bill.

Once the two chambers have identified an acceptable level of spending cuts, then the House can adopt the budget resolution, which is needed to unlock the next step, the filibuster-proof reconciliation bill.

“Let’s see the language that the Senate’s going to put forward,” Mr. Roy said. “We don’t need to get the budget done this week. Let’s go look and see what the actual reconciliation product will look like. And then maybe we can decide to pass the budget and the reconciliation [bill], boom, boom.”

Some Republicans have also raised concerns about the Senate’s method for calculating the cost of the tax cuts in the bill.

The Senate is going to use a “current policy” baseline that will not count the cost of extending tax cuts already in law — namely the individual and small business tax cuts from the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act that are set to expire this year.

Republicans are planning to permanently extend those tax cuts from Mr. Trump’s first term and the current policy baseline allows them to discount the roughly $4 trillion cost of doing so.

The Senate then gives the tax-writing Finance Committee up to $1.5 trillion in room to increase deficits for new tax cuts, like Mr. Trump’s proposals to exempt tips and overtime income.