House Budget Committee advances FY2025 budget framework amid fights over Medicaid, tax cuts and agency oversight

Chairman Jodey Arrington opened the House Budget Committee markup on Feb. 13, 2025, framing the draft concurrent budget resolution as a vehicle to "restore the fiscal health" of the nation and to advance what he described as an "America First" economic agenda. "Today, we will deliver on the people's mandate by advancing the FY25 budget resolution to restore the fiscal health of our great nation by reining in reckless spending and reigniting economic growth," Arrington told the committee.

Ranking Member Brendan Boyle answered that charge directly in his opening remarks, calling the GOP framework "a Republican betrayal of the middle class." "This budget rips health care away for millions while handing out 4 and a half trillion dollars in tax breaks," Boyle said, listing proposed cuts to Medicaid and nutrition programs and warning of downstream effects on seniors, children and families.

Why it matters: The markup set the committee's terms for reconciliation — instructions to authorizing committees to produce legislation implementing the resolution's targets. The GOP resolution directs authorizing committees to deliver at least $1.5 trillion in mandatory-savings reductions while instructing Ways and Means to allow up to $4.5 trillion of deficit-increasing tax measures (a figure committee leaders said is intended to fund a substantial extension of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act provisions). Committee Republicans argue the package reverses what they call runaway spending and will spur pro-growth tax policy; Democrats say the plan pays for tax cuts for the wealthy by imposing large cuts to Medicaid, SNAP and education.

Key numbers and assumptions: Committee majority staff described the package as relying on a 2.6 percent average annual real GDP growth assumption over the coming decade and on roughly $2.6 trillion of "macroeconomic feedback" (higher growth increasing…