Terrible peril......

GOP plans to advance megabill in peril

Republican leaders are facing a potential vote shortfall in the House Budget Committee.

By Mia McCarthy and Meredith Lee Hill

A planned Friday vote in the House Budget Committee to advance the GOP megabill is increasingly in peril, with at least three hard-liners pledging to oppose the party-line legislation.

Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.), who sits on the Budget Committee, told reporters he will vote against the package of tax cuts and extensions, border security investments, energy policy and more.

So will Reps. Josh Brecheen of Oklahoma and Chip Roy of Texas. They were in a briefing with the Congressional Budget Office chief earlier Thursday, where hard-liners were upset to learn that the CBO wouldn’t have cost estimates for the Energy and Commerce Committee’s portion of the bill ready until early next week, according to two Republicans who were in the room.

That leaves huge questions for already-skeptical hard-liners over how much in savings is actually contained in the proposed Medicaid overhaul approved by Energy and Commerce earlier this week.

Asked if the vote would proceed as planned Friday, House Budget Chair Jodey Arrington (R-Texas) said, “We’ll see.”

Conservatives are also deeply concerned that changes in state program funding for Medicaid will actually incentive non-expansion states to broaden their Medicaid programs. CBO appeared to acknowledge that possibility and will likely add that into their modeling, according to the people.

It remains unclear what that will mean for the Budget Committee’s ability to proceed with its scheduled Friday morning markup, which is intended to set the stage for a vote on the package on the House floor next week in time to meet Speaker Mike Johnson’s Memorial Day deadline.

Johnson, heading into a House Republican Conference meeting Thursday afternoon, said he expected the markup to go on as planned.

“We’re going to get that done, and we’re working on all those issues,” he said in an interview regarding a social media post from Brecheen, which said “we have a duty to know the true cost of this legislation before advancing it.”

Johnson added that he is going to speak with Brecheen “in a little while.”

Norman also said he believes Budget Committee GOP Rep. Andrew Clyde of Georgia will vote “no,” while Rep. Glenn Grothman of Wisconsin was noncommittal but suggested the bill in its present form “doesn’t seem very sincere.”