Protect filibuster-skirting power

House GOP tweaks megabill to protect filibuster-skirting power in Senate 

Republicans had to nix major policy, including Pentagon funding and a tax crackdown estimated at saving more than $6 billion.

By Jennifer Scholtes and Katherine Tully-McManus

House Republicans successfully amended their party-line tax and spending package Wednesday afternoon, nixing policies that would have ruined the bill’s special status in the Senate.

In a 213-207 vote, the House approved a fast-track maneuver to automatically change the bill, negating the need for another House passage vote before the measure lands in the Senate. Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) was the only Republican opposing.

The vote deleted major policies Republicans had written into the House version of the megabill Republicans hope to clear this summer to fulfill President Donald Trump’s biggest campaign-trail promises.

That includes scrapping $2 billion for Pentagon military intelligence programs and more than $500 million for developing missiles, as well as removing a crackdown on the “employee retention” tax credit that became a magnet for fraudsters during and after the pandemic. Republicans were counting on that tax policy to drum up more than $6 billion in savings to offset tax cuts and spending in other parts of the package.

If House GOP leaders had sent the bill across the Capitol before fixing the issues the Senate parliamentarian flagged as violations of the bill’s “privilege,” it would have lost its power to pass the Senate at a simple-majority bar and would have been subject to the filibuster. In the weeks ahead, the Senate parliamentarian will pinpoint other pieces of the package that she considers in violation of different rules of the special budget process, which Republicans need to harness to sidestep the filibuster and get the bill to Trump’s desk.

Republicans hope to rewrite some of these policies thrown out by the House and fold them into the version of the package Senate GOP leaders are now crafting, with less than a month to go before their self-imposed target of passing the bill by July Fourth. Some top Republicans are growing skeptical of the likelihood of meeting that soft deadline without a plan yet for reaching bicameral agreement on a final version that can clear both the House and Senate.