11.06.2025 23:43

House Republicans significantly altered President Trump's ambitious legislative proposal to ensure its survival in the Senate. This involved the removal of several key provisions identified as violating Senate rules, a decision reached after a closely contested 213-207 vote on Wednesday afternoon. This procedural maneuver cleverly updated the bill automatically, eliminating the need for a second House vote. Kentucky Representative Thomas Massie cast the lone Republican dissenting vote.

This strategic adjustment was crucial to preserving the bill's reconciliation status, a critical exemption allowing it to bypass the Senate filibuster and pass with a simple majority vote. Without these changes, the bill would have lost this protection, requiring a 60-vote supermajority—a threshold it was highly unlikely to achieve. As reported by Politico, this streamlined version aims to maintain the bill's chances of success during Senate consideration.

The revised bill reflects the removal of substantial spending initiatives from its original House form. Among the discarded provisions were a $2 billion allocation for Pentagon military intelligence, over half a billion dollars earmarked for missile development, and a measure to curtail abuse of the employee retention tax credit, a program plagued by fraud during and after the pandemic. This last item alone was projected to generate over $6 billion in offsetting revenue, crucial for balancing the bill's other spending and tax reductions.

These provisions, however, proved incompatible with Senate reconciliation rules, jeopardizing the bill's passage. A ruling by the Senate parliamentarian against these policies would have effectively killed the bill by exposing it to a filibuster. To preempt this outcome, Republican leadership swiftly acted to excise these elements before the bill even reached the Senate for review. The process, however, is far from complete, with the Senate parliamentarian's review still ongoing.