OAN Staff Blake Wolf
3:51 PM – Sunday, May 18, 2025
House Speaker Mike Johnson stated on Sunday that President Donald Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill,” aimed at cutting around $900 billion in federal spending is still “on track” to pass by the “end of next week” despite opposition from GOP fiscal hawks.
Johnson (R-La.) made an appearance on “Fox News Sunday” to explain the components of the bill and also provide an update after the legislation that was shot down last week by GOP hard-liners.
“It’s very important for everybody to understand why we’re being so aggressive on the timetable, and why this really is so important. This is the vehicle through which we will deliver on the mandate that the American people gave us in the last election,” Johnson began.
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“You’re going to have historic savings for the American people, historic tax relief for American workers, historic investments in border security, at the same time that we’re restoring American energy dominance, and we’re rebuilding the defense industrial base,” he continued. “And we’re ensuring that programs like Medicaid and SNAP are strengthened for the U.S. citizens who need and deserve them and not being squandered away by illegal aliens and persons who are ineligible to receive them and are cheating the system.”
“And look, the tax cuts — look, is critical. We’re going to make the 2017 tax cuts permanent. We’re going to eliminate taxes on overtime and tips as the president promised, new tax relief for seniors on Social Security. And we’re going to cut taxes on job creators, so that will help everybody across the country at the same time as incentivizing American-made production and manufacturing,” Johnson added.
The House Budget Committee is set to convene at 10 p.m. on Sunday to vote on whether the bill advances to the house.
Should the bill pass through the House Budget Committee, the Rules Committee will meet next week prior to a vote on the House floor by the end of the week.
GOP Reps. Andrew Clyde (R-GA.), Josh Brecheen (R-Okla.), Lloyd Smucker (R-Pa.), Ralph Norman (R-S.C.), and Chip Roy (R-Texas), all voted against the bill, arguing that the vast majority of the savings don’t go into effect until after Trump leaves office.
The GOP defectors were holding out for the bill to implement Medicaid work requirements much sooner, which is where the bulk of the federal savings are expected to stem from.
The work requirements for Medicaid would mandate that able bodied adults aged 19-64 would need to work at least 80-hours-per-month in order to be eligible to receive the health insurance.
“What they were complaining about or mostly concerned about, I think is, for example, work requirements in Medicaid. They wanted them to be implemented earlier rather than later. Well, so do we,” Johnson continued.
“The concern is … the ability of the states to retool their systems and ensure the verification processes, to make sure that all the new laws and all the new safeguards that we’re placing can actually be enforced,” he noted. “We’re working through all those details, and we’ll get it done.”
“Look, all 11 of our committees have wrapped up their work and they spent less and saved more than even we projected initially. This really is a once-in-a-generation opportunity that we have here,” he added. “We’re on track, working around the clock to deliver this nation-shaping legislation for the American people as soon as possible.”
“This is a big thing. We cannot fail, and we’ll get it done for the American people.”
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