WASHINGTON — After months of negotiations and knife-edge votes, Republicans in Congress reached agreement on a budget plan that could bring deep cuts to national health, food and social programs, such as Medicaid and school lunches, while increasing funding for the Trump administration’s national-defense and immigration policies.

In a display of why every vote matters in the House, the budget plan might not have cleared if Rep. Donald Norcross (D-1st), who is recovering from a medical emergency concerning his gall bladder at a hospital in Camden, had been at the Capitol this week.

The path is now clear for Congress to extend federal tax cuts established in 2017, a step that could also raise the limit on the federal deduction for state and local taxes, including property taxes, from $10,000.

The latest key vote came Thursday, when the House voted 216-214 to adopt a budget blueprint that allows Republicans, who hold majorities in both chambers of Congress, to pass sweeping legislation by avoiding the Senate’s filibuster — the 60-vote requirement in that chamber for most bills to advance.

How NJ members voted

New Jersey’s Republican members — Reps. Jeff Van Drew (2nd), Chris Smith (4th) and Tom Kean Jr. (7th) — voted for the budget plan along with all but two of their party colleagues. All Democrats present voted against it.

Last week the Senate voted, 51-48, for the budget plan. New Jersey senators Cory Booker and Andy Kim, Democrats, voted against it.

The core legislative work to specify funding cuts and additions will formally begin in the coming months.

The fate of this multitrillion-dollar tax and spending proposal could have been very different had Norcross, who was in North Carolina over last weekend when he had his medical emergency, had been in Washington.

Credit: (Mandel Ngan/Pool via AP)

In a procedural vote on Wednesday needed to set up Thursday’s vote to advance the budget plan, the House barely cleared it, with 216 members in favor and 215 against.

Norcross, recuperating in New Jersey after being transferred from North Carolina, was the lone Democrat who did not vote. In a statement before that vote, Norcross, who would have voted no, said: “The draconian cuts to Medicaid, a program that millions of seniors and people with disabilities depend on for healthcare and long-term care, are just plain wrong.”

The concept of remote voting has been a hot topic in Congress since the COVID-19 pandemic emerged in 2020.

What happens next

The core legislative work to specify funding cuts and additions will formally begin in the coming months, as congressional committees write, debate, amend and vote on portions of a massive bill that will determine trillions of dollars’ worth of federal money.

In all, the budget plan directs the House to write legislation that finds a minimum of $1.5 trillion in cuts and the Senate to make $4 billion at least in cuts, though many Republicans, especially fiscally conservative members in politically safe seats, want deeper cuts.

‘It’s a work in progress. We need the tax cuts.’ — Rep. Chris Smith (R-4th)

The budget resolution would also allow Congress to lift the debt ceiling — the limit on how much money the U.S. can borrow to pay back debt it already owes — and increase military spending by as much as $100 billion and immigration enforcement spending by as much as $90 billion.

The Senate and House are scheduled to be in recess and out of Washington for the next two weeks before returning April 28.

Tax cuts, SALT

Republicans are keen to extend tax cuts Congress created during Trump’s first term and raising the limit on the state and local tax deduction, known as SALT, is a priority for lawmakers of both parties from high-tax states like New Jersey, New York and California.

Democrats are zeroing in on potential cuts to Medicaid, the national health insurance program for the poor, disabled or people living in nursing homes.

In New Jersey, Medicaid is called NJ FamilyCare and covers about 1.9 million people in the state.

What Van Drew and Smith said

After the Thursday vote, Smith and Van Drew said they had received assurances from Speaker Mike Johnson, the Republican leader in the chamber who sets the legislative agenda, that Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security would not be touched.

“It’s a work in progress,” Smith said in an interview with NJ Spotlight News. “We need the tax cuts.”

To reach the cuts Republicans want would be essentially impossible without touching Medicaid, according to the Congressional Budget Office, the nonpartisan agency that analyzes economic and budget effects of legislation.

The GOP budget proposal is a ‘direct assault on Jersey seniors.’ — Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-5th)

Lawmakers are prohibited under federal law from using the budget process before Congress now — formally called “budget reconciliation” — from touching Social Security.

Van Drew told reporters after the vote Thursday he favors tightening work requirements for Medicaid requirements.

Ninety-two percent of people enrolled in Medicaid work full time or part time, according to analysis by KFF, a nonprofit health policy research, polling and news group.

“This was just a resolution today. In plain English, it doesn’t mean all that much. It’s just philosophical,” Van Drew said. “This vote is not the big deal,” he added, alluding to future votes when spending cuts to specific programs are actually written out.

NJ Democrats shred GOP plan

Democrats tore into the Republican budget blueprint.

“They’re hurting real people and they don’t care,” Rep. LaMonica McIver (D-10th) said of Republicans who voted for the plan.

Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-11th) called the budget proposal “disastrous,” arguing it “will threaten Medicaid access for nearly two million New Jerseyans — including one in three New Jersey children — eliminate critical food assistance as the price of groceries rise, and strip funding from New Jersey’s public schools,” while Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-5th) called it a “direct assault on Jersey seniors.”

Sherrill and Gottheimer are running to be New Jersey’s next governor.