Rep. Smucker votes for megabill with assurances from President Trump, Speaker Johnson

• By Jaxon White/LNP | LancasterOnline

U.S. Rep. Lloyd Smucker said he chose to vote Thursday for the massive tax cut and spending bill after getting assurances from President Donald Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson that they would work to lower the size of the federal deficit relative to the nation’s economy.

Smucker spent months at the forefront of Republican hardliners demanding that tax cuts be matched with deeper cuts to federal spending.

“The House reconciliation instructions are binding,” Smucker and his co-signers wrote in the first of two letters to GOP leaders. “They set a floor for savings, not a ceiling. We must hold that line on fiscal discipline to put the country back on a sustainable path.”

But the bill, passed in a 218-214 vote, did not follow the provision that Smucker successfully negotiated into the House budget framework earlier this year. That provision would have required the bill’s $4.5 trillion in tax cuts to be offset by at least $2 trillion in spending reductions.

The approved legislation slashes $4.5 trillion in taxes, according to the latest Congressional Budget Office analysis, but cuts just $1.2 trillion in spending, with most of the reductions being made to Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.

It would also expand the national deficit by about $3.3 trillion over the next decade, the CBO found.

Smaller deficit pledge

Smucker told LNP | LancasterOnline Thursday afternoon that Trump and Johnson committed to working toward reducing the country’s deficit to 3% of gross domestic product by the end of the president’s term in January 2029.

“We talked about steps, how we can get there,” Smucker said. “And I’m convinced that everyone understands this won’t end well if we don’t work to rein in our spending, if we don’t try to change the fiscal trajectory.”

Smucker said he and the “budget hawks group” — as he called it — also “didn’t know that the bill would survive another move through the Senate” if the House sent it back with more cuts included.

“It’s the legislative process,” Smucker said. “We weighed in and had a huge impact.”

The disparity in costs between the House and Senate versions of the bill is largely attributable to the Senate making permanent certain portions of Trump’s 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act that were set to expire this year. The House had sought to extend those portions only to 2029.

“It’s not bad policy,” Smucker said of the Senate’s version.

Republican leaders in the House walked a fine line to get the bill passed, as their small majority could afford only a handful of defections and still get through. Smucker was seen by Politico reporter Meredith Lee Hill in a meeting Wednesday morning with Johnson and several members of the House Freedom Caucus who had previously voiced concerns over the legislation.

Smucker is a member of the powerful tax-writing Ways and Means Committee and has used his position as vice-chair of the Budget Committee to expand his influence on the budgeting process this year.

Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, of southeast Pennsylvania, was the only Pennsylvania Republican House member to join with every House Democrat to oppose the legislation. Democrats have heavily criticized the planned reductions in Medicaid and SNAP spending.

Before the vote, Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries broke the House record for the longest floor speech in House history — from 4:53 a.m. to 1:37 p.m. — largely by reading letters from constituents who have expressed concerns about the cuts to social programs.

The CBO estimated the budget would increase the number of uninsured people nationwide by roughly 11.8 million.

Benefit cuts

Gov. Josh Shapiro spent the week posting to social media about the number of Pennsylvanians in each of the 17 congressional districts that his administration estimates will lose their benefits under the bill.

In Smucker’s 11th District, covering Lancaster County and the southern half of York County, Shapiro estimated 13,889 people will lose Medicaid and 3,509 will lose SNAP.

“To our members of Congress considering voting for this bill: if you do, you are doing so knowing the consequences it will have across Pennsylvania and in your district,” Shapiro said.