A sweeping bill that’s at the center of Republicans’ efforts to deliver on President Donald Trump’s second-term agenda hit a major roadblock on Friday.
Trump was not happy.
“We don’t need ‘GRANDSTANDERS’ in the Republican Party,” the President posted on Truth Social minutes before a handful of GOP hardliners voted against his “big, beautiful bill” at a key House Budget Committee meeting, effectively stalling the legislation from advancing.
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The measure would extend Trump’s 2017 tax cuts and increase spending on the military and border security, offset in part by cuts to Medicaid, food stamps, and subsidies for clean energy. House Speaker Mike Johnson has struggled to craft a bill that slashes enough spending to satisfy right-wing members of his party without losing support from GOP moderates, who are wary of cutting too much from widely used safety-net programs.
Republican leaders had been hoping to push the bill through the House before a Memorial Day recess, though that timeline appears less probable after Friday’s failed vote in the Budget Committee—one of the final stops before it can reach the House floor.
Five Republican fiscal hawks on the committee joined with all Democrats in voting against the bill, with the GOP holdouts expressing concerns that the bill doesn’t cut Medicaid spending enough and takes too long phasing out the clean energy tax credits passed as part of former President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act. They argued that the way the bill front-loads tax cuts in the next few years but delays spending cuts until later is fiscally reckless.
“This bill falls profoundly short. It does not do what we say it does with respect to deficits,” Texas Rep. Chip Roy, one of those holdouts, said during the markup.
South Carolina Rep. Ralph Norman, another one of the holdouts, said he was “very disappointed” with the bill: “Sadly, I’m a hard no until we get this ironed out.”
Top GOP lawmakers are expected to continue private talks with the White House and reluctant Republicans over the weekend to figure out a path forward on Trump’s signature legislation. They are using a process known as budget reconciliation to allow Republicans to push the measure through the Senate with a simple majority, rather than the two-thirds support they would need to avoid a filibuster. Assuming Democrats remain united against the bill, Republicans can afford to lose no more than three votes in either the House or the Senate.
Here are the main sticking points for Republicans on Trump’s “big, beautiful bill.”
Medicaid cuts
For months, Democrats have condemned the bill’s health care provisions as a disaster for the country. More than eight million Americans are expected to lose insurance coverage if the bill becomes law—an outcome some Republicans fear will kill their chances in the 2026 midterms.
But that isn’t stopping some fiscal conservatives from wanting even more cuts. A key part of the measure is nearly $800 billion in reduced spending for Medicaid, a program that provides health coverage for low- and middle-income households. Republicans are hoping to include new work requirements for adult Medicaid beneficiaries without children that would take effect starting in 2029. Under the proposed plan, adult Medicaid recipients would need to submit paperwork every month showing they worked at least 80 hours or qualified for an exception. Democrats, and some swing-vote Republicans, have warned that millions of Americans will lose health care coverage if the provision goes into effect.
Indeed, an estimate from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office found that the Medicaid changes would reduce the number of people with health care by at least 7.6 million. But proponents say that the new work requirements are estimated to save $300 billion over a decade, while also creating incentives for work.
“We don’t want people to be on this program for forever,” Rep. Cliff Bentz, an Oregon Republican, said during the Energy and Commerce Committee budget reconciliation markup on Wednesday. “And this is a really good way to get off it and get a job.”
Roy and some of the other Republicans who voted against the measure said they wanted work requirements to start earlier than 2029, which falls after Trump’s term. “We do need to reform it. We need to stop giving seven times as much money to the able bodied over the vulnerable,” Roy said during the Budget Committee vote on Friday. “But guess what? That message needs to be delivered to my colleagues on this side of the aisle too. We are writing checks we cannot cash, and our children are going to pay the price. So I am a no on this bill unless serious reforms are made today, tomorrow, Sunday. We’re having conversations as we speak, but something needs to change, or you’re not going to get my support.”
IRA climate tax credits
The Republican holdouts also want to more quickly scrap Biden’s clean-energy tax credits, which the current bill phases out over several years.
Rep. Josh Brecheen of Oklahoma, one of the Republican holdouts who blocked the legislation, said he was particularly concerned about allowing wind and solar tax credits to continue. “As it is currently written, Green New Scam subsidy phaseouts are delayed until 2029—with some of these subsidies lasting until 2041,” he said in a statement, adding that he also wants the Medicaid work requirements to go into effect immediately rather than in 2029.
But not all Republicans support the cuts. More than three-quarters of the investments out of the Inflation Reduction Act have occurred in red districts. And many of the clean energy incentives were expected to last a decade after it was passed, prompting some businesses to invest heavily in the sector. Twenty one House Republicans wrote a letter to the House Ways and Means Committee in March urging against cuts to energy credits from the Inflation Reduction Act, writing that “countless American companies are utilizing sector-wide energy tax credits.”
Trump has acted aggressively to halt payments under the bill. On his first day back in office, he issued an executive order that required all federal agencies to immediately pause the disbursement of funds appropriated through the Inflation Reduction Act—which a federal judge later ruled against.
Under the bill, there would be new restrictions on tax breaks for power plants and factories that build solar panels and other technologies using components from China. It would also largely phase out a $7,500 tax break for buyers of electric cars.
SALT deductions
At the same time, Republican leaders are negotiating with GOP lawmakers from high-tax states like New York who are demanding a higher cap on the state and local tax (SALT) deduction for their constituents. The bill, in its current form, includes a provision that would raise the cap from $10,000 to $30,000 for those with a modified adjusted gross income of $400,000 or less, though some Republicans believe that limit is too low for their high-tax, high-income districts.
Four New York Republicans—Mike Lawler, Elise Stefanik, Andrew Garbarino, and Nick Lalota—wrote a joint statement last week rejecting the $30,000 SALT cap offer. “It’s not just insulting—it risks derailing President Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill,” they said, arguing that “New Yorkers already send far more to Washington than we get back, unlike many so-called ‘low-tax’ states that depend heavily on federal largesse.”
However, not all Republicans favor raising the SALT cap. Fiscal conservatives argue that Congress should not be subsidizing high-tax states at the expense of others.