By Jack Phillips
Contributing Writer
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said he is unsatisfied with how the Senate changed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act before passing it this week and sending it back to the House.
“I’m not happy with what the Senate did to our product. We understand this is the process. It goes back and forth, and we’ll be working to get all of our members to yes,” Johnson told reporters on Wednesday outside the House Rules Committee at the Capitol.
He then previewed how the House would proceed.
“So, high stakes, aggressive schedule, and we knew we would come to this moment,” he said.
“We knew the Senate would amend the House product. I encouraged them to amend it as lightly as possible. They went a little further than many of us would have preferred.”
But he noted, “My objective and my responsibility is to get that bill over the line, so we will do everything possible to do that, and I will work with all of our colleagues.”
Some GOP lawmakers have signaled they won’t back The Big Beautiful Bill Act because of the Senate’s changes and are threatening to upend the July 4 deadline they had set to pass the spending and tax package.
Due to the GOP’s thin majority in the lower chamber, Johnson and other supporters of the bill can afford few defections. The House passed its original version of the bill in a 215-214 margin under pressure from President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance and White House staff.
Rep. Ralph Norman, R-S.C., signaled on Tuesday that he wouldn’t support the measure in its current form. He accused Senate GOP members who changed the bill of trying to send “goodie bags” back to their states.
“I’ll vote against it here … until we get it right,” Norman said, adding that the GOP needs to “go back to the drawing table.”
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., an influential figure among conservatives, said the bill won’t pass the House as amended by the Senate.
“There’s no way that [Johnson] has the votes in the House for this,” Greene told political commentator and former Trump campaign manager Steve Bannon on an episode of his “War Room” podcast on Tuesday.
“I think it’s far from over.”
In a social media post on Wednesday morning, Trump again said he wants the bill passed because it would generate vast economic growth.
Democrats and some Republicans have cited estimates from the Congressional Budget Office that say the bill will add trillions to the national debt over the next decade.
Former Trump adviser Elon Musk has repeatedly railed against the measure on social media, saying that he would move to primary some lawmakers who back it.
In his Truth Social post, the president wrote: “Nobody wants to talk about GROWTH, which will be the primary reason that the Big, Beautiful Bill will be one of the most successful pieces of legislation ever passed. THIS GROWTH has already begun at levels never seen before. Trillions of dollars are now being invested into the USA, more than ever before.”
The United States, he added, “will make a fortune this year, more than any of our competitors, but only if the Big, Beautiful Bill is PASSED!”
