GOP holdouts sound alarm on $36T debt crisis as Trump's 'big, beautiful bill' passes House vote

Fox News

22-05-2025

House Republicans passed President Donald Trump's "one big, beautiful bill" on Thursday morning, working through overnight committee meetings, last-minute huddles in the speaker's office and even a last-minute assist from the president.
But while House GOP leadership preached party unity as they passed The One Big Beautiful Bill Act by just one vote, two House Republican holdouts were unwavering in their concerns about the $36 trillion national debt crisis and ultimately voted "no."
Reps. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., and Warren Davidson, R-Ohio, took their concerns to social media on Thursday, telling their constituents exactly why they bucked the Republican Party on Trump's key legislative agenda.
"While I love many things in the bill, promising someone else will cut spending in the future does not cut spending. Deficits do matter and this bill grows them now. The only Congress we can control is the one we're in. Consequently, I cannot support this big deficit plan. NO," Davidson said early this morning before the vote was final.
Massie responded soon after, telling Davidson he agreed and "if we were serious, we'd be cutting spending now, instead of promising to cut spending years from now."
"I'd love to stand here and tell the American people, 'We can cut your taxes and increase spending and everything is going to be just fine.' But I can't do that because I'm here to deliver a dose of reality. This bill dramatically increases deficits in the near-term, but promises our government will be fiscally responsible five years from now. Where have we heard that before?" Massie said on the House floor.
The Kentucky congressman, who regularly sports a national debt clock pin, presented a bleak reality for Trump's "big, beautiful bill" on Thursday as most Republican holdouts rallied behind the final manager's amendment. "This bill is a debt bomb ticking," Massie said.
When White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt was asked about Massie and Davidson voting against the bill, she said the president believes they should be primaried.
"I don't think he likes to see grandstanders in Congress. What's the alternative? I would ask those members of Congress. Did they want to see a tax hike? Did they want to see our country go bankrupt? That's the alternative by them trying to vote 'no.' The president believes the Republican Party needs to be unified," Leavitt said.
Massie, who has been campaigning on Trump calling him a grandstander, even fundraised on Leavitt's comments, writing on X, "The big beautiful bill has issues. I chose to vote against it because it's going to blow up our debt. For voting on principle, I now have the President AND his press Secretary campaigning against me from the White House podium. Can you help me by donating?"
Former Rep. Bob Good, R-Va., who served as Chair of the House Freedom Caucus, has spoken out against the country's debt crisis amid House negotiations, piled on the national debt criticism on Thursday, writing, "The Big Ugly Truth is that the Big Ugly Bill will push the Big Ugly Debt over $60 trillion."
Good found himself out of the job when he lost the Republican primary to now-Rep. John McGuire of Virginia last year.
He was one of just a handful of House Republicans who endorsed Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in the 2024 GOP presidential primaries, and then Trump threw his political might behind McGuire.
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act is a multi-trillion-dollar piece of legislation that advances Trump's agenda on taxes, immigration, energy, defense and the national debt.
While the bill seeks to make a dent in the national debt crisis by cutting roughly $1.5 trillion in government spending, the United States still has over $36 trillion in debt and has spent $1.05 trillion more than it has collected in fiscal year 2025, according to the Treasury Department.
"I think the most essential truth in American politics is that nobody actually really cares about the national debt or deficit. It's too abstract to saturate public sentiment," Fox News Digital columnist David Marcus said after the bill passed.