Johnson gets a small win in the fight for budget legislation

Speaker Johnson (R-LA) has his hands full trying to get Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” passed in the House.

While members of the Freedom Caucus were pushing back, Johnson is now only one step away from getting the legislation passed.

Make Changes

Last week, it looked like this bill was dead in the water.

The House Freedom Caucus has been pushing back on the legislation from the outset, insisting that its members would not support the bill because it is not fully funded.

For instance, House Freedom Caucus Chair Andy Harris (R-MD), stated, "At this point, I would vote against it.”

The administration has been pointing to DOGE savings, but much of those savings are not a reality yet due to many of the cuts being litigated, and members of Congress running on getting the budget under control, so I get why they are upset.

Trump Steps In

This week, Donald Trump reportedly invited the members of Congress who were against the bill to the White House, but that did not go as planned either.

While some of the members took the meeting, there were several who decided to stay away, believing there was nothing that Trump could tell them they did not already know.

To that point, once again, Rep. Harris was front and center, stating, “There’s nothing that I can hear at the White House that I don’t understand about the situation.”

Harris later told the media, “At this point, there are definitely more than a dozen (holdouts). Maybe the president can whittle that down, but he’s not going to whittle it down to four or three.”

Johnson passes first House hurdle

While Johnson is far from being out of the woods, he did manage to pass a huge hurdle this week in getting a procedural vote passed in the House.

After the rule vote passed, and even though Freedom Caucus members were adamant that it did not mean they would support the actual bill, Johnson was quite upbeat.

The Republican Speaker stated, "I think we can get this job done. I understand the holdouts. I mean, their concerns are real. They really want to have true budget cuts and to change the debt trajectory that the country is on.”

The legislation passed 216-215, so there is no room to spare here, so Johnson clearly has his work cut out for him. There is at least one Republican, Rep Andy Ogles (R-TN) who still says that unless that bill changes, he will not support it. So, while this is a win, don’t get too excited because there is still a lot of work to do.