As tensions run high on Capitol Hill amid an upcoming working weekend for lawmakers, Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., told Newsmax that calls for the Senate parliamentarian’s removal over cuts she’s made to the “one big, beautiful bill” are “a little premature.”
The unelected position of Senate parliamentarian has been held by Elizabeth MacDonough since 2012. Earlier this week, MacDonough, who advises senators on the chamber's rules, cut several provisions from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act because they were not eligible for budget reconciliation.
“The parliamentarian did throw us some curveballs yesterday,” Mullin said Friday on “National Report.” “I get there's a lot of feelings about what she ruled on and why she's done this. The fact is, we've got to work around it because we have to deliver this one big, beautiful bill for the American people. … If we don't get this done, the American taxpayers, regardless of your income level, your taxes are going to go up 68%. You're going to have a $4 trillion increase in taxes. That's unheard of. We just shouldn't be doing that.”
While it “feels like things are starting to come together,” with the bill, Mullin said that there are still some sticking points, like Medicaid and the SALT (state and local tax) deduction.
“On both issues, it's going to come together,” he said. “Both sides aren't going to love it, but our whole purpose here is to make sure we have enough reasons for people to vote for the bill instead of voting against it. Unfortunately, this is part of negotiations, where neither side is going to be exactly happy with where it landed, but it's going to be better than dealing with the Biden administration policies, because that's really the choices here, right?”
The Oklahoma senator said that the parliamentarian’s job “is to interpret the Byrd rule,” which is a mid-1980s Senate rule, named after its main sponsor, Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., in which provisions considered unrelated to fiscal matters require 60 votes to pass.
“Because we can bypass the 60-vote margin and do 51 [votes], all we can deal with in reconciliation is mandatory spending,” Mullin said. “Can't get into Social Security, meaning that we can only do Medicare and Medicaid, and it deals with taxes. Anything outside of that, going into discretionary spending or going into policy making, can't be in that.
“That's where her rulings have been, but I think on some of these Medicaid decisions that she's made, I think she owes us an explanation to say, this is what happened and this is how you can change it,” he said. “And so, we got a little bit of that yesterday. We're making some tweaks to it … but to go out and call for her to be removed, I think, is a little premature. People always get upset when they're told no, but that's happened when we're kids and it happens when we're adults too.”
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