Senate Republicans have their eyes on making significant changes to President Donald Trump’s “one big, beautiful bill” that narrowly passed the House on Thursday.
The legislation, which covers Trump’s priorities on tax cuts, border security, energy, and defense, has fiscal conservatives in the upper chamber wanting more spending reductions. But more moderate Republicans are hoping to soften the portion on Medicaid and to preserve more green energy initiatives, Politico reported.
“I’m hoping now we’ll actually start looking at reality,” said Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis. “I know everybody wants to go to Disney World, but we just can’t afford it.”
Even behind an effort by Trump on Wednesday to pressure House Republicans, the reconciliation budget bill passed by a 215-214 vote. Although the Senate needs a simple majority to pass its version, Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said it can only afford to lose three votes.
Thune told Newsmax earlier this month that he's "not particularly optimistic" that Congress will pass the bill by the July 4 deadline Republicans set for themselves because of “spending levels” in the bill.
He said Thursday there are enough votes in the Senate to block the bill if the GOP doesn’t bend in his direction on spending reductions, Politico reported, including a bicameral process for going “line by line” to find a total of roughly $6.5 trillion in cuts over the coming decade.
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., said Thursday that although he supports the GOP’s tax agenda, he cannot support the bill if it includes a debt ceiling hike. Republicans want to use the bill to increase the debt ceiling until after the 2026 midterms without having to give concessions to Democrats.
“I think if you’re going to raise the debt ceiling $4 [trillion] or $5 trillion, it indicates that the project afoot isn’t going to fix the deficit at all,” Paul said, according to Politico. “Once Republicans vote for this, Republicans are going to own the deficit.”
Trump spoke to another potential holdout — Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo. — on Wednesday night, though their conversation also touched on unrelated issues like disaster aid, Politico reported. Two others — Sens. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, said they expected significant changes.
“There are some things that we want to address on the Medicaid side that I think are challenging for us in Alaska,” Murkowski said.
Michael Katz ✉
Michael Katz is a Newsmax reporter with more than 30 years of experience reporting and editing on news, culture, and politics.
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