Due to the election cycle, everyone in Washington is fully aware that President Trump only has until the end of this year to actually get a budget passed without additional extensions.

The reason it has to get done now, in these first months of his second term, is because the 2017 Trump tax cuts are due to expire at the end of the calendar year. If those tax cuts are not extended, or made permanent, then taxes will revert to their pre-2017 levels, increasing for most Americans. That is the last thing that the Republicans need, and even the more fiscal hardliners know it. Something has to get passed, and in a Congressional majority held together by spit, duct tape, and good vibes, Speaker Mike Johnson is tasked yet again with pulling another proverbial rabbit out of his hat.

The Speaker of the House has pulled this off once before, when he backed Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer into a corner over the Continuing Resolution (CR) just two months ago. Schumer threatened a filibuster that would have shut down the government, but then reversed himself once he realized that he was caught in a “heads, you win; tails, I lose” situation. Schumer hasn’t quite gotten over that, and neither has his reputation among Democrats. So could Speaker Johnson do it again? The “big beautiful bill” has been slowly making its way through House committee votes, but hit a snag when the House Budget Committee failed to pass it out of committee last Friday. At the time, President Trump was finishing up his Middle East trip, but was definitely being informed about what was happening back in Washington.

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This, plus some behind-the-scenes work, was what Speaker Johnson needed to get the Budget Committee back in their chamber to vote. The message was loud and clear – “Dad’s coming home, and you need to get your homework done before he gets here.” And once again, Johnson managed to pull off a vote to pass the bill out of committee with some voting legerdemain and letting the dissenting GOP congressmen vote “present” late Sunday night.

After gaveling in after 10 p.m. EDT Sunday, the committee voted 17-16 to advance the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which would extend Trump’s tax cuts and boost his border funding priorities while reforming Medicaid and food assistance programs.

The four Republican holdouts who had tanked the vote Friday — Reps. Ralph Norman (S.C.), Chip Roy (Texas), Andrew Clyde (Ga.) and Josh Brecheen (Okla.) — voted present to allow the bill to go forward, with Roy revealing there was progress on moving up the start date for new Medicaid work requirements and speeding up the phaseout of green energy incentives.

In a sign of the high-stakes nature of the vote, the Speaker as well as White House Legislative Affairs Director James Braid made appearances off a room to the side of the late-night Budget Committee affair.

Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said they are counting the vote “as a big win tonight.”

“There’s a lot more work to do; we’ve always acknowledged that towards the end there will be more details to iron out. We have several more to take care of,” Johnson said. “But I’m looking forward to very thoughtful discussions, very productive discussions over the next few days, and I am absolutely convinced we’re going to get this in final form and pass it in accordance with our original deadline, and that was to do it before Memorial Day.”

“So this will be a victory out of committee tonight. Everybody will make a vote that allows us to proceed, and that was my big request tonight.”

The four hard-line conservatives who tanked the vote on the legislation Friday had said the cost-cutting measures in the bill did not go far enough.

They claimed new Medicaid work requirements on “able-bodied” single adults and repeal of green energy incentives do not kick in soon enough, causing them to worry that the savings that are back-loaded on the overall 10-year cost of the package will not actually be realized.

On the other end of the House Republican Conference, moderates in high-tax states are demanding an increase to the state and local tax (SALT) deduction cap, currently written as $30,000 — a figure that is three times the current level, but moderates say is not acceptable to win their votes for the sprawling package. Making changes to appease those members will require tweaks to the bill elsewhere.

While those changes are not fully ironed out, it was good enough for the holdouts to allow the package to go forward.

As per the usual arrangement, these budget bills – even this “one big beautiful bill” – is going to end up being a crap sandwich. There will absolutely have to be reforms to Medicaid that kick in sooner rather than later, and Republicans would be wise to point out the Clinton-era Medicaid reforms contained these same work requirements. But the fiscal hawks – who really are trying to make the math work – also need to realize that at this point, there is zero incentive structure for either party to change how the crap sandwich gets made. Nothing in Washington DC is going to change until the country is forced into austerity measures to avoid default, and in the meantime, both parties are going to keep passing the buck merrily along like a hot potato until some poor sap gets caught with the hot potato that explodes in red ink. That day is coming, even if a growing economy can help push it back. Judgement Day can only be delayed, not stopped.

In the meantime, President Trump is back – and strategists expect that he will start getting more personally involved in getting his “big beautiful bill” passed. With Republicans holding the slimmest of majorities, it will likely require him whipping votes and making phone calls to keep the caucus on track – but so far, he hasn’t jumped in yet.

The official, who was granted anonymity to discuss behind-the-scenes dynamics, said that Trump’s involvement right now is limited to staying in close touch with Speaker Mike Johnson and being briefed by legislative director James Braid and political director James Blair. But he wouldn’t start whipping votes until Braid’s office thinks he needs to, the official said.

“The White House is in constant touch with the speaker’s team. The president is in constant touch with the speaker, and when they feel the president needs to make calls to members, those lists are drafted for him and he’s always willing to do it, but we haven’t gotten to that point yet,” the official said.

Trump is not weighing in on or putting pressure either way on whether to decrease the percentage contribution the federal government gives to Medicaid, as some conservatives have suggested, nor is he weighing in on the debate over a key tax deduction sought by blue-state Republicans, instead leaving it “to members to negotiate amongst themselves.”

“We expect them to come to a mutually agreeable solution to move the bill forward,” the official said, adding that the president supports the current language in the bill.

This is very much Trump’s M.O. – he wants the optics of a win, but is less concerned about the smaller details. He doesn’t care if the House hashes out an earlier start date to Medicaid work requirements – he just wants them to make up their minds, and then pass the bill. Right now, if Speaker Johnson can keep the committees moving the bill forward, and making “tweaks” to the bill along the way, then President Trump is fine with sitting back and letting Johnson cook. If the caucus starts getting rowdy and threatens to derail the bill, that’s when he will step in and start making phone calls.

Will the “big beautiful bill” make it to the floor of the House for a vote before Memorial Day break? According to the calendar, the House plans on recessing by this Friday for their week off. Can Speaker Johnson have the vote wrapped up by Thursday night? That feels like a tall order, but after Johnson got the Budget Committee to hold a Sunday night vote, I could see him pushing a late night Thursday vote – and telling everyone they don’t get to go on vacation until their homework is done. And it’s a guarantee that President Trump would be right behind him, nodding and making calls.

Featured image: President Donald Trump, official White House portrait by Daniel Torok via Wikimedia Commons, cropped and modified, public domain