House GOP pushes ’big’ budget resolution to passage, a crucial step toward delivering Trump’s agenda

House Republicans pass $4.5 trillion tax breaks, $2 trillion spending cuts despite Democratic opposition, GOP infighting, and public backlash.

With a push from President Donald Trump, House Republicans sent a Grand Old Party (GOP) budget blueprint to passage Tuesday (February 25, 2025), a step toward delivering his “big, beautiful bill” with $4.5 trillion in tax breaks and $2 trillion in spending cuts despite a wall of Opposition from Democrats and discomfort among Republicans.

House Speaker Mike Johnson had almost no votes to spare in his bare-bones GOP majority and fought on all fronts — against Democrats, uneasy rank-and-file Republicans and skeptical GOP senators — to advance the party’s signature legislative package. Mr. Trump made calls to wayward GOP lawmakers and invited Republicans to the White House.

The vote was 217-215, with a single Republican and all Democrats opposed, and the outcome was in jeopardy until the gavel.

“On a vote like this, you’re always going to have people you’re talking to all the way through the close of the vote,” Majority Leader Steve Scalise said before the roll call.

“We got it done,” the speaker said afterward.

Passage of the package is crucial to kickstarting the process. Mr. Trump wants the Republicans who control Congress to approve a massive bill that would extend tax breaks, which he secured during his first term but are expiring later this year, while also cutting spending across federal programs and services.

Next steps are long and cumbersome before anything can become law — weeks of committee hearings to draft the details and send the House version to the Senate, where Republicans passed their own scaled-back version. And more big votes are ahead, including an unrelated deal to prevent a government shutdown when federal funding expires March 14. Those talks are also underway.