WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump is eager for his “big, beautiful” bill that includes tax breaks and spending reductions to be signed into law by the Fourth of July. He’s urging the gradually moving Senate to expedite the process.
Earlier this week, Trump met with Senate Majority Leader John Thune at the White House. He has also been reaching out to senators for individual discussions, using a combination of incentives and pressure to motivate them to take action. Nevertheless, the path forward remains lengthy for the extensive package spanning over 1,000 pages.
“His question to me was, How do you think the bill’s going to fare in the Senate?” remarked Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., regarding his call with Trump. “Do you anticipate any issues arising?”
It’s a potentially tumultuous three-week sprint for senators preparing to put their own imprint on the massive Republican package that cleared the House late last month by a single vote. The senators have been meeting for weeks behind closed doors, including as they returned to Washington late Monday, to revise the package ahead of what is expected to be a similarly narrow vote in the Senate.
“Passing THE ONE, BIG, BEAUTIFUL BILL is a Historic Opportunity to turn our Country around,” Trump posted on social media. He urged them Monday “to work as fast as they can to get this Bill to MY DESK before the Fourth of JULY.”
Thune, like House Speaker Mike Johnson, has few votes to spare from the Senate’s slim, 53-seat GOP majority. Democrats are waging an all-out political assault on GOP proposals to cut Medicaid, food stamps and green energy investments to help pay for more than $4.5 trillion in tax cuts — with many lawmakers being hammered at boisterous town halls back home.
“It’d be nice if we could have everybody on board to do it, but, you know, individual members are going to stake out their positions,” Thune said Tuesday.
“But in the end, we have to succeed. Failure’s not an option. We’ve got to get to 51. So we’ll figure out the path forward to do that over the next couple of weeks.”
At its core, the package seeks to extend the tax cuts approved in 2017, during Trump’s first term at the White House, and add new ones the presidents campaigned on, including no taxes on tips and others. It also includes a massive build-up of $350 billion for border security, deportations and national security.
To defray the lost tax revenue to the government and avoid piling onto the nation’s $36 trillion debt load, Republicans want reduce federal spending by imposing work requirements for some Americans who rely on government safety net services. Estimates are 8.6 million people would no longer have health care and nearly 4 million would lose Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program benefits, known as SNAP.
The package also would raise the nation’s debt limit by $4 trillion to allow more borrowing to pay the bills.
Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said Trump’s bill “is ugly to its very core.”
Schumer said Tuesday it’s a “lie” that the cuts won’t hurt Americans. “Behind the smoke and mirrors lies a cruel and draconian truth: tax breaks for the ultra-wealthy paid for by gutting health care for millions of Americans,” said the New York senator.
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office is expected to soon provide an overall analysis of the package’s impacts on the government balance sheets, particular its rising annual deficits. But Republicans are ready to blast those findings from the congressional scorekeeper as flawed.
Trump Tuesday switched to tougher tactics, deriding the holdout Republican senators to get on board.
The president laid into Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, the libertarian-leaning deficit hawk who has made a career of arguing against government spending. Paul wants the package’s $4 trillion increase to the debt ceiling out of the bill.
“Rand votes NO on everything, but never has any practical or constructive ideas. His ideas are actually crazy (losers!).” Trump posted.
The July 4th deadline is not only aspirational for the president, it’s all but mandatory for his Treasury Department. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has warned Congress that the nation will run out of money to pay its bills if the debt ceiling, now at $36 trillion, is not lifted by mid-July or early August to allow more borrowing. Bessent has also been meeting behind closed doors with senators and GOP leadership.
Thune acknowledged Tuesday that lifting the debt ceiling is not up for debate.
“It’s got to be done,” the South Dakota senator said.
The road ahead is also a test for Thune who, like Johnson, is a newer leader in Congress and among the many Republicans adjusting their own priorities with Trump’s return to the White House.
While Johnson has warned against massive changes to the package, Thune faces demands from his senators for adjustments.
To make most of the tax cuts permanent — particularly the business tax breaks that are the Senate priorities — senators may shave some of Trump’s proposed new tax breaks on automobile loans or overtime pay, which are policies less prized by some senators.
There are also discussions about altering the $40,000 cap that the House proposed for state and local deductions, known as SALT, which are important to lawmakers in high-tax New York, California and other states, but less so among GOP senators.
“We’re having all those discussions,” said Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., another key voice in the debate.
Hawley is a among a group of senators, including Maine Sen. Susan Collins and Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who have raised concerns about the Medicaid changes that could boot people from health insurance.
A potential copay of up to $35 for Medicaid services that was part of the House package, as well as a termination of a provider tax that many states rely on to help fund rural hospitals, have also raised concerns.
“The best way to not be accused of cutting Medicaid is to not cut Medicaid,” Hawley said.
Collins said she is reviewing the details.
There’s also a House provision that would allow the auction of spectrum bandwidth that some senators oppose.
__ Associated Press writer Matt Brown contributed to this report.
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