House Republican leaders on Wednesday pressed ahead with their plan to hold an evening vote on their party’s budget blueprint, but the fate of the measure to unlock President Trump’s spending and tax cuts was in doubt amid a revolt among hard-line conservatives.
The resolution scaled a key hurdle Wednesday morning when the powerful House Rules Committee approved a measure that would allow it to go to the floor. G.O.P. leaders argued that time was of the essence to push it through and get started on Mr. Trump’s agenda, while Mr. Trump stepped up the pressure on Republicans to back it.
“Close your eyes and get there; it’s a phenomenal bill,” Mr. Trump told lawmakers Tuesday night at a fund-raising dinner in Washington. “Stop grandstanding.”
But a number of anti-spending House Republicans said they planned to defy the president and oppose the measure, arguing it would add too much to the nation’s debt.
“You cannot have a one-way ratchet on tax cuts and ignore the spending side of the ledger,” Representative Chip Roy of Texas said. “And my colleagues in the Senate, for sure, and some in the House on this side of the aisle, want precisely that. The Senate budget is all tax cuts and no spending cuts. Now we’re told, ‘Trust us, there’s a promise.’”
If all Democrats were to vote together, Speaker Mike Johnson could afford to lose no more than three Republicans.
Mr. Trump has personally appealed to House Republicans to pass the blueprint that the Senate passed over the weekend. He hosted some skeptical conservatives at the White House on Tuesday and sought to assure them that the final budget legislation would contain spending cuts at levels they could support.
“Republicans, it is more important now, than ever, that we pass THE ONE, BIG, BEAUTIFUL BILL,” he declared on Wednesday on social media.”
It was not clear whether enough skeptics would relent. House Republicans have time and again caved to Mr. Trump on critical issues, especially when he has singled them out, either on social media or with a well-timed phone call made as lawmakers were voting.
But some House conservatives view the issue of reining in the nation’s debt and federal spending as their most important priority, and they have shown less willingness — at least so far — to yield to his demands.
In order to move along the reconciliation process, which Republicans plan to use to push their budget and tax legislation through Congress strictly along party lines, the House and the Senate must adopt the same budget resolution.
The plan the Senate passed over the weekend directed committees in that chamber to find about $4 billion in spending cuts over a decade. That is a fraction of the $2 trillion in spending cuts that the House has approved, and conservatives there fear that if they agree to the Senate’s measure, they will ultimately be forced to accept far smaller spending cuts than they want.
As chairman of the Budget Committee, it fell to Representative Jodey Arrington of Texas, who has been deeply critical of the Senate plan, to make the case in the Rules Committee that it should be allowed to receive a vote on the floor.
Representative Joe Neguse, Democrat of Colorado, put Mr. Arrington on the spot. The resolution, he asked, “is a bill you described days ago as unserious and disappointing, right?”
Mr. Arrington replied that he didn’t dispute those words. “In fact, every time you say it, I want to say, ‘Amen,’” he added. “Inside, my Southern Baptist part of me wants to shout, ‘Hallelujah!’”
