WASHINGTON — The House Rules Committee advanced President Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful” tax bill late Wednesday after 21-hours of debate and amendments, sending the legislation to the floor where it was expected to receive a final vote early Thursday morning.
The 8-4 vote to proceed out of committee was a victory for Republican leaders, who had spent the day making last-minute changes to the more than 1,000-page bill in an effort to win over both moderates and hardline conservatives.
Speaker Mike Johnson has set a self-imposed Memorial Day deadline for passing the bill. No Democrats are expected to join Republicans in voting for it.
One notable conservative holdout did not cast a vote in the Rules Committee: Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas. It was unclear late Wednesday whether Roy would vote to pass the tax bill when it ultimately comes to the floor.
Johnson’s narrow Republican majority means that the speaker can only lose a handful of votes from his conference and still pass the bill on a straight party line vote.
Roy and House Freedom Caucus chair Andy Harris, R-Md., were among the members who met with Trump at the White House Wednesday afternoon, in a hastily arranged effort to convince fiscal hawks to set aside their objections and back the deficit-exploding package of tax cuts.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt later said the “meeting was productive and moved the ball in the right direction.”
“The president reiterated how critical it is for the country to pass the One Big Beautiful Bill as quickly as possible,” she said in a statement.
Meanwhile, markets tumbled Wednesday on concerns that Trump’s spending bill would pass and lead to exploding federal deficits and weaker long-term fiscal health for the nation. The yield on the 30-year Treasury bond yield hit 5.09%.
UNITED STATES – MAY 21: Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, left, and House Freedom Caucus chair Rep. Andy Harris, R-Md., along with members of the House Freedom Caucus speak to reporters about the One Big Beautiful Bill Act reconciliation package in the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, May 21, 2025.
Bill Clark | Cq-roll Call, Inc. | Getty Images
The final version of the bill that passed out of the Rules Committee Wednesday contained a 42-page set of amendments, designed to give each of the competing factions within the party a small victory.
A timeline for imposing work requirements for Medicaid recipients was moved up by two years, to the end of 2026 — a victory for conservatives.
But the amendments also contained a four-fold increase in the so-called SALT deduction cap, from a maximum of $10,000 in deductible state and local taxes to $40,000 for taxpayers reporting less than $500,000 in income.
The broader bill seeks to deliver on Trump’s key campaign promises, and includes provisions to make permanent Trump’s 2017 tax cuts and eliminate taxes on tips.
A new analysis from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates “that in general, resources would decrease for households in the lowest decile (tenth) of the income distribution, whereas resources would increase for households in the highest decile.”
If the bill passes the full House, it still faces a complicated path through the Senate. The upper chamber will consider the legislation under a set of rules called budget reconciliation, which requires only a simple majority instead of the typical 60 votes required to move bills through the Senate.
Nonetheless, several Republican senators have already said they will require significant changes to the bill before agreeing to vote for it.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.