Europe
April 29, 2025 – Donald Trump marks 100 days in office
GOP Rep. Chip Roy expressed frustration as House Republicans work to assemble a bill that cuts more than a trillion dollars in spending while also including President Donald Trump’s lofty tax cut promises.
“A lot of people say don’t touch benefits, but they don’t want to do the math,” Roy told CNN today, saying that he thinks he could calculate the GOP goal for spending cuts “without getting directly to the heart of some of that, without touching benefits.”
Republicans on the Energy and Commerce Committee, which has jurisdiction over Medicaid, have been tasked under the budget blueprint with finding at least $880 billion in spending cuts, significantly more than any other committee.
Roy told CNN “that’s insane” if Republicans refuse to weigh altering how federal funding goes to states to cover Medicaid recipients.
“Then people should say that extending the tax cuts is off the table, if that’s what they’re saying. Like, do math. I just want people to do math,” he said.
The Texas Republican said he and other hardliners got “comfortable, reluctantly” earlier this month with the Senate’s budget blueprint due to a “promise-slash-guarantee of putting these things on the table” from the White House and GOP leadership on how they would get to $1.5 trillion in total spending cuts.
“We’re having very serious conversations that we should be having, but I think the rushed timeline is creating a bit of chaos that was unnecessary,” he said.
Roy said he understands why Johnson is being “ambitious” with his timeline for passing a reconciliation bill, but he predicted that “pushing this through rapid fire is going to cause, I think, some issues.”
“It’s not even a deadline,” he said of Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s goal of passing Trump’s agenda by July 4, noting how many timelines laid out by leadership have aligned with holidays.
“Does it have anything to do with policy? Hell no. It has to do with, what, jet fumes, people leaving town,” he said.