Johnson punts on key budget blueprint vote as GOP holdouts seek concessions on spending cuts

Source: CNN Politics

Updated 8:37 PM EDT, Wed April 9, 2025


CNN — Speaker Mike Johnson punted Wednesday night on a key budget vote essential to advancing Donald Trump’s agenda, as a group of House GOP conservatives demanded party leaders agree to steep spending cuts. Johnson said he had personally spoken with the president about the need to postpone the vote on the Senate’s budget blueprint in order to make concessions to the group. Those demands remained late Wednesday despite a fierce lobbying push from the president himself.

“This is part of for process. This is a very constructive process,” the speaker said. “So we’re going to … talk about maybe going to conference with Senate or an amendment, but we’re going to make that decision,” Johnson said, adding he hopes to pass the Senate blueprint Thursday morning before the House leaves for a two week recess.

Johnson said he stepped out of the room to speak with Trump and that he “told him exactly what we’re doing.” “He understands it. He supports the process. He wants us to do this right and do it well, and sometimes it takes a little bit more time to do that,” the speaker said. The decision to push the vote drew the fury of Johnson’s leadership team, who ultimately had to bend to the ultraconservatives after they made clear they would not budge on the party’s contentious budget measure as written.

Rep. Lloyd Smucker, one of the Republican holdouts, said he is pushing for an amendment that would have binding language for higher spending cuts. One idea is for the budget resolution to tie the size of the tax cuts to deficit reduction measures – similar to Smucker’s idea in the House. While Rep. Andy Ogles, one of the hold outs, has walked the plank for Trump on politically tough bills before, it became clear in the hours before Johnson’s planned vote that the president’s pressure campaign wasn’t working.

Read more: https://www.cnn.com/2025/04/09/politics/gop-conservatives-johnson-budget-vote/index.html

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The House GOP can't lose more than 3 from their side, so apparently they don't have the votes to pass the Senate bill. If they add ANYTHING to the Senate version, it will have to go back to the Senate for a new debate and re-vote. Similarly, the Senate can't lose more than 4 from their side.

Whatever both chambers vote on in the end HAS TO BE "identical". So they are bringing up the idea of having a "joint conference" of members from both chambers to hash out a SINGLE bill. I believe this is the "blueprint" part of the conciliation. Then later comes the hard part.