WASHINGTON (KCBD) – Before President Trump signed HR 1, nicknamed “The One Big, Beautiful Bill Act,” into law Friday, he addressed an Independence Day picnic from a balcony at the White House, celebrating congressional approval of the landmark legislation.
“It’s the most popular bill ever signed in the history of our country,” he declared.
The President then thanked the Republicans who helped pass it over the past week, including House leadership and Lubbock representative Jodey Arrington.
“House Budget Committee Chairman Jodey Arrington. Jodey, thank you very much,” he said. “Jodey has been good right from the beginning.”
Chairman Arrington, who also represents parts of the Big Country, started working on his vision for budgetary reform a year ago. Normally, House Republicans couldn’t get a full budget proposal like this one through such a divided Congress, so they turned to a different process called “reconciliation,” allowing them to reprioritize the nation’s finances with simple majorities in both chambers.
The measure cuts billions from entitlement programs and transfers that money into tax breaks for businesses and workers, as well as investments into border security, deportation, and the military.
Last week, during a committee hearing in the heat of the dispute over whether Republicans would pass the bill, Chairman Arrington cited a non-partisan Congressional Budget Office letter describing the people who would lose access to Medicaid under the proposed plan. They include more than four million adults who refuse to find work, nearly two million people who are eligible for other government health care subsidies, and 1.5 million people who are in the country illegally.
“The people who need them, the vulnerable folks who are entitled to them will continue to get them,” Chairman Arrington told KCBD Friday morning. “In fact, I think we strengthen the programs and strengthen the preservation of those in the future.”
The bill also contains a major investment in agriculture, a substitution for the Farm Bill, which Congress is behind on rewriting by nearly two years, having passed extensions for the 2018 bill since 2023. Rep. Arrington says the new spending measure includes billions of dollars in relief for producers.
“I think it may be the largest investment in a quarter century in the Farm Bill safety net,” he said. “That’s to address the weather risks, the market volatility, et cetera.”
The tough task was getting the proposal across the finish line with a slim majority in both chambers of Congress. Dozens of Republicans didn’t want to support it, with deficit hawks saying it didn’t cut enough and some moderates in swing districts saying it cut too much.
It came down to a final vote Thursday afternoon, with House Republicans narrowly achieving the 218 votes required to pass the proposal. Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) gave Rep. Arrington the pen he used to sign the approved draft and send it to the President.
“All in all,” Rep. Arrington said hours before the President signed it, “it’s a great day for our country, a special birthday for our country.”
Every Democrat on the Hill opposed the measure, including Rep. Gabe Vasquez (D-Hobbs). After the bill’s passage Thursday, he denounced the measure in a statement, writing the pain from this bill will “echo for generations.”
“When millions lose their health care, local hospitals close, utility bills skyrocket, and kids are left hungry, New Mexicans will remember today as the day Republicans sold them out to billionaires,” he wrote.
If the bill hadn’t passed, reports have shown the average tax payments for every American would go up by as much as 20% next year.
Rep. Arrington said Friday his work on balancing the nation’s budget isn’t over, and he’s happy the party could deliver on the President’s priorities and promises.
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