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House members looking for an excuse to oppose the Republicans’ so-called “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” were handed plenty of opportunities. The Congressional Budget Office, for example, delivered a brutal assessment of the party’s far-right reconciliation package on Tuesday night. Hours later, investors and the bond market offered a similar verdict: As GOP policymakers prepared to add trillions of dollars to the national debt, growing concerns about government borrowing costs sent markets tumbling.
What’s more, to the extent that the party cares about public attitudes, the Republicans’ bill is filled with wildly unpopular provisions. As Democratic Sen. Brian Schatz of Hawaii told The Wall Street Journal, “It’s like this was designed in a lab to piss off the maximum number of people.”
The pieces were in place for a disastrous outcome for GOP leaders: Conservative members thought the legislation wasn’t regressive enough; members from competitive districts thought it went too far to the right; and given the narrow Republican majority in the chamber, the odds of failure were great.
And yet, Republicans ended up passing it anyway. With that in mind, let’s dig in.
What’s in the bill?
It’s unrealistic to think the entire package can be summarized in a blog post, but in broad strokes, the public should recognize the GOP’s legislation as a potentially transformative bill, filled with trillions of dollars’ worth of tax cuts, provisions that would increase food vulnerability for struggling families, funding for mass deportations and an ineffective border wall, a wholesale abandonment of efforts to combat the climate crisis, and perhaps most notably, massive cuts to Medicaid — a celebrated health care program that Trump vowed not to cut.
As the Congressional Budget Office made clear, the bill is effectively Robin Hood in reverse: Republicans intend to give to the rich and take from the poor.
That said, those trying to keep up with the legislation came to realize that the details were moving targets: Republican leaders kept making backroom deals, changing the proposal in meaningful ways, even in the final hours before the bill reached the floor.
Did House members have time to read the bill before voting on it?
Almost certainly not. As my MSNBC colleague Hayes Brown noted: “[F]ew, if any, members ... had time to read in its entirety after last-minute changes were made to win over a group of conservative holdouts.”
Was the vote close?
Very. The final vote was 215-214. Republican Rep. Andy Harris of Maryland, the chair of the House Freedom Caucus, voted “present,” and two GOP members — Reps. Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Warren Davidson of Ohio — joined a unanimous House Democratic conference in voting against it. Two other House Republicans — Andrew Garbarino of New York and David Schweikert of Arizona — did not vote at all.
Did GOP leaders pass the bill in a normal way?
Not even a little. Despite the sweeping significance of the legislation, Republicans didn’t even ask for CBO analyses; they refused to hold substantive hearings about the effects of their legislation; they held middle-of-the-night committee markups; they made secret deals behind closed doors; and they rushed the bill to the floor before members could read it. Congress was designed to work in a certain way, and this wasn’t it.
Didn’t Republicans insist in the recent past that the final version of all bills be publicly available for three days before members vote on them?
Yep. That was a real priority for the party — until it wasn’t.
What was the rush?
The official explanation from GOP leaders was that they needed to advance the bill before Memorial Day weekend if they had any chance of getting a final version to the White House by the party’s self-imposed July 4 deadline. The unofficial explanation, however, matters too: Republicans also understood that the longer the process took, the more opponents would be able to marshal their resources; the more members would learn about the far-right package’s many “surprises”; the more journalists could shine a light on its many flaws; and the more Americans would be able to call Capitol Hill and urge their representatives to vote against this monstrosity.
So what happens now?
The bill will move on to the Republican-led Senate, where members have made clear that they’re not especially impressed with the House’s version. NBC News reported last week that a variety of GOP senators said “the emerging package won’t fly as written when it reaches them.”
Republican Sen. John Hoeven of North Dakota was asked whether the Senate would pass the House bill as it currently stands. “No. We’ll make changes,” Hoeven said.
Can Senate Democrats use a filibuster to derail the bill?
No. Republicans are utilizing what’s known as the budget reconciliation process, which allows the majority party to pass a tax-and-spend bill through simple majorities in both chambers. Democrats can try to persuade their GOP colleagues to oppose the far-right legislation, but they’re powerless to defeat it.
If the Senate passes a changed bill, then what?
It would go back to the House for another contentious vote. With this in mind, opponents of the legislation — both on and off Capitol Hill — have reason to be disappointed by the outcome of Thursday morning’s vote, but there will be other opportunities. Watch this space.