Opposition to G.O.P. Budget Plan Builds in the House

A budget blueprint to unlock President Trump’s spending and tax cuts was teetering on the brink of collapse in the House on Tuesday, as anti-spending conservatives lined up to say they would oppose the measure because it would add too much to the nation’s debt.

House Republican leaders were pressing for a vote to move their party’s budget resolution past its next hurdle as early as Wednesday, after the Senate pushed through the measure in an overnight weekend session. The action would clear the way for the G.O.P. to craft legislation carrying out Mr. Trump’s domestic agenda and move it through Congress over unified Democratic opposition.

But its fate was in doubt after conservative hard-liners refused to back it and expressed doubt that even entreaties from Mr. Trump could overcome their opposition.

The president was scheduled to meet with a group of House Republicans at the White House later on Tuesday. G.O.P. lawmakers have shown him extraordinary deference in recent months, with even the staunchest holdouts giving in to Mr. Trump on critical votes. This time, at least some of them said that would not happen.

“No matter what the president tells anybody, the votes just aren’t there,” Representative Andy Harris of Maryland, the chairman of the Freedom Caucus, said, estimating that there were “at least a dozen” Republicans who would refuse to vote for the resolution.

Mr. Harris said that he had been invited to the meeting with Mr. Trump but declined. “Let the president spend time with people whose minds he might change,” he said. “He’s just not going to change my mind.”

The conservative holdouts are unhappy with the level of spending cuts the resolution requires Senate committees to find — about $4 billion over a decade, a fraction of the $2 trillion in spending cuts that the House has approved.

Republican leaders have said that number is a minimum and is intended to give them flexibility to comply with strict procedural rules that the legislation is subject to in the Senate. Republicans are using a process called reconciliation to fast-track the tax and budget legislation through Congress and shield it from a filibuster in the Senate.

Before they can use the process to pass the legislation, both the Senate and the House must agree on the same budget blueprint.

Some House Republicans fear that if they agree to the Senate’s budget resolution, the Senate will ultimately force them to accept a far lower level of spending cuts than they have demanded.

And many are unhappy with the Senate’s insistence that extending the tax cuts that Mr. Trump signed into law in 2017 would cost nothing because it simply maintains the status quo. Senate Republicans have adopted that approach so they can continue the tax cuts indefinitely and give themselves more room to write legislation with a price tag more palatable to fiscal hawks.

“No serious individual would suggest that this is going to possibly reduce the deficits,” said Representative Eric Burlison of Missouri, referring to the resolution. “This is going to only accelerate our deficit.”

Their resistance poses a familiar problem for Speaker Mike Johnson, who must again try to deliver the votes on budget-related legislation that is deeply unpopular with his hard-liners.

Mr. Johnson on Tuesday made the case that House Republicans needed to approve the legislation so lawmakers could get to work writing a bill that will contain the tax and spending cuts. Until both the House and the Senate adopt the same budget resolution, they cannot use the reconciliation process to pass that bill.

If the House were unable to adopt the Senate-passed budget resolution, it would require Republicans to go back to the drawing board, hash out another compromise bill, and restart the process.

“This amendment just allows us to get off the sidelines, to get on the field and start this game,” Mr. Johnson said. “We’ve got to get this done.”

He added: “We have no luxury of complacency, and we really don’t have time to dither on this thing.”