The Senate could scramble an already difficult negotiation over President Donald Trump’s agenda, with Republicans promising further changes to his “big beautiful bill” once it clears the House.
The legislation, which sweeps together Trump’s tax, border, and defense priorities, has torn apart the Republican conference ahead of a House vote planned for next week. Republicans cannot agree on a slate of issues, from Medicaid reform to the state and local tax deduction demanded by blue-state lawmakers.
The infighting could jeopardize the strict time frame Republicans have set to send the legislation, which includes a hike in the federal debt ceiling, to Trump’s desk. The administration wants to see it passed by mid-July to avert the prospect of default.
But Senate Republicans are also making clear they won’t be content with the House bill as it stands, complicating the delicate balance leadership must strike with narrow majorities in both chambers. Fiscal hawks are unhappy with the relatively modest changes to Medicaid, including the delayed enactment of work requirements, while centrists are reluctant to meet the $1.5 trillion in spending offsets Republicans are targeting.
“That’s why I’ve always thought I’d like to decouple the ‘big beautiful bill’ into three separates, and I’m still recommending that,” said Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI), one of the fiscal hawks demanding further spending reductions. “I’m pushing it right now.”
For now, House Republicans are focused on getting the legislation through the House. Portions of the package were debated and advanced this week through key House committees, but negotiations continue outside of that process with holdouts who can almost singularly tank the bill.
Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), who controls the House by three votes, could need to amend the bill on the House floor before it can pass. Any changes made in the Senate would then have to be reconciled between the two chambers before a final series of votes.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) described the House’s version as a “good first step” but previewed more spending cuts in the Senate, a feat that will undoubtedly prove difficult to achieve given their three-vote GOP majority. Centrists in the upper chamber are equally, if not more, resistant to Medicaid changes that pare back the program.
“I think we should cut as much unnecessary spending as humanly possible, and I am hopeful that we will see the Senate prove to be even more fiscally conservative than the House,” Cruz said. “There is a whole lot of negotiation between today and the final finished product.”
In a bid to stay on the same page, Senate leadership and Finance Committee Chairman Mike Crapo (R-ID) have been in regular contact with their House counterparts to avoid last-minute conflicts.
But Crapo, the Senate’s top tax writer, acknowledged that there will be some daylight between the priorities of each chamber.
“We’ve been working very closely together to get our work product as close together as we can,” Crapo said. “I think you’ll see a significant amount of overlap, but there will be differences.”
On the tax side, there is concern about the level of green energy clawbacks included in the House bill for the Biden-era Inflation Reduction Act. The spending reductions are meant to pay for the tax cuts, as are reforms to Medicaid that include more frequent eligibility checks and new fees for patients.
The bill is projected to reduce Medicaid spending by $715 billion over 10 years and lead 8.6 million people to lose health coverage from a mix of policy changes and work eligibility requirements.
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO), the Senate’s loudest Republican defender of Medicaid, has made benefit cuts to the government-run health program a red line.
“The bottom line is, we need to get our savings from somewhere other than Medicaid,” Hawley told the Washington Examiner before pivoting to the climate change-related tax credits. “We ought to be looking at the Green New Deal subsidies, for instance. A lot of those are still on the House’s bill. That’s absurd. That’s gobs of money. That’s gobs of money. Why are we not cutting that? Why would we cut Medicaid but not the Green New Deal?”
Even wonky, less contentious pay-fors are facing heightened scrutiny from senators. That includes a push to auction off $88 billion in radio spectrum owned by the government to companies like Verizon.
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The House included legislation from Cruz to sell off some 600 megahertz to the private sector, but defense hawks like Sen. Mike Rounds (R-SD) expressed concern that the Pentagon could not afford to lose control of the airwaves.
“There are certain parts of the spectrum that are simply off limits for national security purposes,” Rounds said. “Those have to be respected. I don’t think the language that they’ve got in the bill right now does that.”
David Sivak contributed to this report.