GOP hardliners rebel over Johnson’s budget plans

Conservative backlash has brought Speaker Mike Johnson’s budget plans to a halt, offering an early sign of the struggle Republicans will face as they try to muscle President Donald Trump’s agenda through a narrowly divided Congress.

Conservative backlash has brought Speaker Mike Johnson’s budget plans to a halt, offering an early sign of the struggle Republicans will face as they try to muscle President Donald Trump’s agenda through a narrowly divided Congress. House GOP leaders are struggling to coalesce behind a budget blueprint that will mark the first step toward delivering Trump’s agenda, as some hardliners demanded hundreds of billions more in cuts and more details about how to pay for Trump’s tax cuts. GOP leaders believe they will, ultimately, get consensus to move ahead, but the disagreement is — for now — halting Johnson’s plans to move ahead with the first committee vote on Trump’s big border, tax and energy package this week. “The American people gave us the gavel for a reason,” said Republican Rep. Ralph Norman of South Carolina, a member of the House budget panel who is among those seeking more cuts. “Everybody wants to cut until it’s time to cut.” Johnson plans to huddle with several key Republicans on Tuesday night as they chart a path forward but said leaders haven’t yet decided whether to move ahead with a committee vote on the budget measure this week. “We’re in the midst of this process. We’re right on schedule,” Johnson said. “It’s not yet determined if we will be marking up this week or not. We’re having an important meeting tonight with key figures on the committee and others to sort through it. But this is the deliberative process.” Passing a budget blueprint is only a small piece of the GOP’s challenge this year, since it is a non-binding document that includes no specifics about what will be in Trump’s legislative package. But it’s a critical step toward that final bill: Both the House and Senate must adopt the identical budget measures to unlock the procedural powers to allow Trump’s agenda to bypass the Senate’s filibuster.