Republicans are staring down more complications this week with their One Big Beautiful Bill Act, this time from the Senate’s parliamentarian, who ruled against several provisions that they included to win over conservative support.
The House narrowly passed the tax and spending legislation last month after weeks of fierce negotiations. Now the bill is in the Senate, where parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough has ruled that specific provisions cannot pass using the special legislative process that allows Republicans to skirt the filibuster.
The changes forced by the parliamentarian threaten Republican leadership’s vote tally on the bill, especially among conservatives who demand spending cuts. Many such lawmakers were already apprehensive about the bill because it does not sufficiently cut spending.
Usually, Republicans would need 60 votes in the Senate to pass this legislation. Advertently, Republicans are moving President Donald Trump’s tax and border agenda through reconciliation, a legislative process that allows bills to bypass the filibuster and pass with only a simple majority in the Senate.
However, only specific matters are included in a reconciliation bill. The parliamentarian goes through the legislation and ensures its provisions comply with the Byrd Rule, which requires reconciliation to focus solely on fiscal matters and allows senators in the minority to raise a point of order if they believe there is “extraneous matter” in the bill.
Some notable measures are already on the chopping block, threatening Republican votes. Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX), a fiscal hawk, took to social media Monday and branded MacDonough’s changes to the One Big Beautiful Bill Act as “NOT GOOD.”
“The OBBB is now 1) increasing deficits a LOT than the House bill, 2) watering down termination of the Green New Scam to less than 50%, 3) watering down food stamp reforms, 4) taking out HSA expansion, 5) gutting our (weak) effort to stop rogue judges, & 6) more… so… NOT GOOD,” Roy said.
One notable measure MacDonough ruled will not survive the so-called “Byrd bath” is a provision to cut funding from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. According to congressional Democrats, that would have cut some $6.4 billion in funding for the agency.
Some Republicans also hoped to slip in provisions related to the REINS Act, which would give Congress more power over the federal bureaucracy and rulemaking. However, MacDonough cut a reworked version of the REINS Act that Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) had pushed for.
“Moving in the wrong direction,” Lee said on Monday about the parliamentarian’s rulings.
MacDonough’s team also ruled against a GOP plan to make states pay a portion of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, expenses in another blow for conservatives. The House version of that plan would have saved $130 billion.
The parliamentarian also ruled against a provision that would have prevented noncitizens from receiving SNAP benefits, with Democrats arguing that such a measure would violate the Byrd Rule. If it had not been on the chopping block, that would have been another $4 billion in savings.
The Senate parliamentarian also ruled against a Republican effort to restrict the power of federal judges to block Trump administration policies with preliminary injunctions.
Likewise, MacDonough ruled against cutting some $1.4 billion in pay for staff at the Federal Reserve.
Taken together, MacDonough’s and her team’s highly anticipated rulings are a big setback for Republicans, who are working to whip as much support from conservatives as they can for the legislation, with slim margins.
And the parliamentarian isn’t done yet. MacDonough will go through other provisions in the coming days.
The bulk of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act extends or permanently implements the tax cuts that were part of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act and implements some of Trump’s new tax priorities. Republicans have yet to make their final arguments to MacDonough on the Finance Committee language.
As the rulings and changes continue, especially if unfavorable to Republicans, more lawmakers might speak out about the process.
For instance, on Monday, Rep. Bob Onder (R-MO) accused MacDonough of being politically biased and called for her to be “overruled or fired.”
“The Senate parliamentarian decided that a ban on illegal aliens receiving food stamps did not fit the ‘Byrd rule,’” Onder said. “It is pretty clear that this woman is not an impartial arbiter, but a liberal activist. She should be overruled or fired.”
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And if MacDonough keeps peeling away at provisions in the bill that Republicans included to save money and make the deficit hit of reconciliation more palatable to fiscal hawks, it could spell trouble for the overall bill, or at least make it more challenging for Republican leadership to get it to Trump’s desk.
The rulings also come as Republicans try to pass the bill in the Senate before July 4th.