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 senators Monday “to work as fast as they can to get this Bill to MY DESK before the Fourth of JULY.”
“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.”
Johnson called Musk’s harsh criticism of the bill “very disappointing.”
“With all due respect,” said Johnson, who said he spoke with Musk for more than 20 minutes, “my friend Elon is terribly wrong about the one big beautiful bill.”
Schumer said Tuesday that senators should listen to Musk. “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. But Republicans are ready to blast those findings from the congressional scorekeeper as flawed.
Trump switched to tougher tactics Tuesday, deriding the holdout Republican senators.
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.
Paul seemed unfazed. “I like the president, supported the president,” the senator said. “But I can’t in good conscience give up every principle that I stand for and every principle that I was elected upon.”
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 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.
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.
