BREAKING: House Passes Trump-GOP Budget

PJ Media ^ | 02/25/2025 | Paula Bolyard

[SeekAndFind]

The House floor was the scene of some drama tonight—what else is new?—as Republicans launched a last-minute push to drag a few GOP holdouts over the finish line to pass the budget resolution.

Earlier in the night, Republican leadership brought the resolution to the floor, only to pull it back before voting could be completed, reportedly because the GOP had a few more votes to whip. Once those were secured, the resolution came to the floor again.

The party-line vote was 217-213 in favor, with three House members abstaining. Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) was the lone Republican holdout. He had indicated earlier in the day that he would vote no.

“If the Republican plan passes, under the rosiest assumptions, which aren't even true, we're going to add $328 billion to the deficit this year, we're going to add $295 billion to the deficit the year after that, $242 billion to the deficit after that,” Massie said. “Why would I vote for that?”

Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters he had spoken to President Trump multiple times today: "He knows exactly what we're doing and why."

According to the House Budget Committee, the resolution would: 

• Provide tax relief for working families and small businesses; 
• Reverse the Biden-Harris administration’s whole of government assault on domestic energy;
• Rein in reckless spending that lit the fuse on inflation; 
• Give the Trump-Vance administration the critical resources they need to secure our border and strengthen our national security.

[SeekAndFind]

President Trump had enthusiastically endorsed the plan, posting on X over the weekend: 

The House and Senate are doing a SPECTACULAR job of working together as one unified, and unbeatable, TEAM, however, unlike the Lindsey Graham version of the very important Legislation currently being discussed, the House Resolution implements my FULL America First Agenda, EVERYTHING, not just parts of it! We need both Chambers to pass the House Budget to “kickstart” the Reconciliation process, and move all of our priorities to the concept of, “ONE BIG BEAUTIFUL BILL.” It will, without question, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!

He was reportedly making last-minute calls to round up the stragglers.

[Fai Mao]

Not a popular position here but kudos to the Speaker of the house Johnson for getting the members in line.

[Gene Eric]

>> Massie: “going to add $328 billion to the deficit this year, we’re going to add $295 billion to the deficit the year after that, $242 billion to the deficit after that”

unfortunate the bill couldn’t have avoided the increased deficit spending — tariffs & DOGE voodoo aside

[dfwgator]

If you want to fix the blame, blame the voters.

Sure, they say they want to cut spending, but not when it comes to their pet programs.

[DouglasKC]

>> Massie: “going to add $328 billion to the deficit this year, we’re going to add $295 billion to the deficit the year after that, $242 billion to the deficit after that”
unfortunate the bill couldn’t have avoided the increased deficit spending — tariffs & DOGE voodoo aside

Gotta start somewhere. Removes a lot of graft and corrupt spending.

[Gene Eric]

totally agree — was referring to the political optics

[Lazamataz]

Not a popular position here but kudos to the Speaker of the house Johnson for getting the members in line.

I agree.

[Responsibility2nd]

More here.....

https://freerepublic.com/tag/*/index

[bray]

Nobody will ever be happy, but it is a step in the right direction

[lightman]

+101

[chajin]

One Dem woman brought her newborn in order to vote against the resolution, then gave a one minute speech to self applaud the fact. Unfortunately for her, no one watches one minutes except FReepers in the hospital 😉

[Owen]

>> Massie: “going to add $328 billion to the deficit this year, we’re going to add $295 billion to the deficit the year after that, $242 billion to the deficit after that”
unfortunate the bill couldn’t have avoided the increased deficit spending — tariffs & DOGE voodoo aside

Gotta start somewhere. Removes a lot of graft and corrupt spending.

////////////////////////////////////////////////////

No. No, and no.

It is not a good start. How can it be a good start when it is adding to the deficit? How?

And note those were rosy scenarios Massie is talking about . . . do you realize what happens if interest rates rise a point or two? There is $31Trillion of interest paying debt (the small portion on deposit at the Fed has interest refunded). Raise rates a point or two . . . the current composite rate is about 3.3%. Raise rates 1.5% . . . and no, it doesn’t add that to 3.3%. It’s more gradual. Just give it half that. 0.7% The 3.3% becomes 4%. X $31T = $1.24T IN INTEREST ALONE.

To get rates up, you would likely have inflation up that forced that. And look! Guess what? The $2.4T deficit ADDs to the debt, which will then be $34T interest paying. At 4.4% call it. $1.5T interest.

The resolution raised he debt limit about $4T. That will cover things right up to the midterms. What a horrible mistake.

But it’s not their fault. There is no solution to the problem. They aren’t even papering it over. They are just shrugging at this point and letting whatever is going to happen, happen.

[antceecee]

Yes! He held them together!

[Nachoman]

It was my understanding that a tax decrease is treated like an increase in the budget. That is why Trump want the debt ceiling raised, so he can get his tax cuts passed.

Voodoo budgeting.

[Owen]

Not quite, but close.

The issue was that there are tax cuts already in place. The Trump tax cuts from his first term. They could only be passed if they had an expiration date on them. And that date is now.

So what was being done is making them permanent. The comparison to expiration looks like a revenue loss and that’s probably correct. That makes the deficit go up and that adds to the debt and I think they’re not so stupid that they do not realize it. They are just trying to hang around and hope something good happens. They have no plan.

[citizen]

Let’s give the Trump teams a bit more time b4 throwing in the towel, eh?

W/ your scenario, all we will have is the Rs & Ds trying to time the collapse so they can blame the other party.

[Fury]

Props to Speaker Johnson for getting this done. I had doubts - he delivered.

Now please get back to Regular Order.

[Paul R.]

The problem is that the gov’t, with all its waste and inefficiencies, is much too large a part of the economy. Chopping out some of that waste and inefficiency will improve the economy, but that takes time. Reagan’s policies (not at all a real analog, but still instructive) took time to create the desired results, which pushed the Congress left, eventually undermining further corrections. But... Reagan was personally popular, and there was none of this “impeach for any reason you can drum up” nonsense from the center-left. Trump doesn’t have that advantage.

Trump will be very very lucky to hold Congress with him in 2026. The economic headwinds are considerable, adding to the normal time lag of improvement, and at the same time, some of the acceleration that keeps the economy afloat is being removed. Tricky stuff.

What we have here is essentially a system that requires acceleration to remain stable. Obviously such has a bad end, so, we have to modify the system and and also create other “drives”, like strongly increased low cost energy production (which you disparage in virtually every post of yours on the subject), and get them up to speed, before we chop out too much of the current drive known as “government spending”.

Strictly from an economic standpoint, it would be more efficient to allow more of a dip in the economy to get to more marked improvements 3 or more years out, but, that’s where the political considerations overrule. If Trump loses the House and Senate in 2026, he and Vance are hosed, and MAGA likely set back several years.

[Paul R.]

Oh, I meant to include that there is almost no “center-left” anymore.

[nathanbedford]

… the House Resolution implements my FULL America First Agenda, EVERYTHING, not just parts of it! …It will, without question, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!

There is clearly a political risk to the president's implacable optimism concerning the budget and by extension the economy. With statements like these, coming as it does in a series of optimistic assessments and promises going all the way back to the campaign, the president now owns the economy and any disasters arising out of our fiscal dilemma.

But this bill only makes our debt/deficit crisis worse because it adds to both.

Most Americans understandably do not have any sense that there is an acute crisis looming in our future because we presumptively cannot pay our debts. That sense of complacency is the normal reaction to decades of deficit spending without any consequence in terms of inflation until recently, and because deficit spending was resorted to to get us through downturns or pandemics.

Now, most Americans are told that Musk and his whiz kids are performing miracles by unearthing waste fraud and abuse running into the billions of dollars. Understandably, many Americans who have a dim understanding of the looming budget threat feel reassured that the Trump administration is bravely getting the mess under control. In the real world the solution requires trillions not billions.

To the president's credit he envisions a way out of this mess, he wants to initiate a series of measures that will cause the economy to grow its way out of deficit. He probably feels he needs time to revivify the energy sector, cut taxes, repatriate American money from abroad, attract foreign money for investment in America, revivify American industry by the judicious use of tariffs, and cut substantial expenditures from the budget.

He probably has bought some time, some running room, with his flurry of positive presidential activity and especially with all the revelations produced by Musk of government fraud and abuse. In fact, recent polls show public very favorably impressed by all of these measures, and properly so. But the polls do not tell us whether the public also believes, contrary to reality, that we've made real and sufficient progress against this existential financial threat.

I have applauded Trump's budget cutting crusade as a necessary step to condition the public to the necessity of making painful choices when all the low hanging fruit, the easy choices, have been made. More, I support exposing these fiscal outrages because it puts the opposition to budget sanity, the Democrats, on the wrong side of the issue leaving them less capable of defeating real budget cuts when that time comes.

I don't know whether there is enough waste fraud and abuse in the budget (I doubt it) that, when combined with GDP growth, will enable us to swim out of the deficit trap. This is essentially what President Trump tried to do in his first term and was cut off by Covid. He was trying to make the growth lines cross the deficit but a black Swan intervened and simply froze the economy.

This time around, our position is weaker, the threat is graver, the threat is more immediate and we are all the more vulnerable to any setback - of which one can imagine many, as well as some catastrophic black Swan event.

We have no practicable choice but to support this bill and the hope for reconciliation in the Senate just as we have no intelligent option but to support Donald Trump but we ought to keep a clear head about the real state of of our affairs.