This time, Senate Republicans were dead-set on making an expensive suite of pro-growth business tax cuts permanent. That required finding deep offsetting cuts, and the cold, hard calculus by the Senate GOP’s chief architects was that enough of their 53-member conference would ultimately swallow their protests and go along.

A procedural vote in the House was set for five minutes but has been open for nearly an hour. The delay comes as GOP hardliners have expressed unhappiness with the Senate-passed version of the bill.