WASHINGTON — House Republicans are divided over a budget plan backed by President Donald Trump, so much so that the president rounded up some resistors and urged them to get behind the plan. The holdouts, who include some lawmakers from Texas, want even deeper spending cuts. 


What You Need To Know

  • House Republicans are divided over a budget plan endorsed by President Trump, with some demanding deeper cuts

  • Key opposition comes from Texas GOP lawmakers, questioning the deficit impact of the proposed budget

  • Despite the president's full endorsement, there's significant skepticism about the Senate's blueprint in the House

Fresh off a White House meeting, Rep. Chip Roy, R-Austin, said on the way to the House floor for votes, that with the latest GOP budget plan, “The math still doesn’t math.”

On Tuesday afternoon, Trump met with some of the House Republicans who are not happy with the budget blueprint approved by the Senate last week. It includes large tax cuts and deep spending reductions, but the hardliners, some of them from the Lone Star State, say it does not go far enough.

“We all gravitate to the lowest common denominator, and it’s simply insufficient,” Rep. Keith Self, R-McKinney, told reporters on Capitol Hill. 

“Why am I voting on a budget based on promises that I don’t believe are going to materialize out of the Senate?” Roy later added. 

The opposition stands, despite the president vouching for the Senate plan. On social media, Trump said the Senate budget blueprint has his “Complete and Total Endorsement and Support.”

Roy would not comment on Trump’s influence or whether he was able to sway any of the holdouts.

“I’m not going to speak about the president’s demands or anybody else’s demands. What I’m saying is, I’ve got a bill in front of me, and it’s a budget, and that budget, in my view, will increase the deficit,” Roy said. “I didn’t come here to do that.”

Self did not attend the White House meeting, but when asked what he would tell the president, he said, “President Trump has told us he wants to balance the budget. This would have done nothing for the deficit in the debt. So this was not in the Trump agenda to move forward. So I would have told the president, ‘Mr. President, this is not in your best interest to support the Trump agenda.’”

U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson appears eager to advance the blueprint, although it is not clear that it has enough support.

One lawmaker to watch is Rep. Jodey Arrington, R-Lubbock, the chairman of the Budget Committee. Last week, he criticized the Senate proposal as unserious and disappointing.

But if the president pushes hard for this plan, it might be hard for Arrington to say no.