Senate Republicans are stepping on the gas.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune is charting a four-week sprint to pass a reconciliation bill that can clear the House quickly and get President Donald Trump’s signature by July 4.
The stakes are extraordinarily high for Thune, Trump and Senate Republicans. The House passed the massive reconciliation package by one vote on May 22. Speaker Mike Johnson is urging his Senate GOP counterparts to move cautiously in revising the proposal despite their many concerns over the spending and tax-cut provisions.
“It’ll have to track very closely to the House bill because they’ve got a fragile majority and struck a very delicate balance,” Thune said Monday. “But there are some things that senators want to add to the bill or things we’d do slightly differently.”
Thune added that Senate Republicans are “on track” to deliver by Independence Day, but he acknowledged there are “a lot of moving parts.”
That’s an understatement.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent wants GOP congressional leaders to pass a debt-limit increase by mid-July, providing a backstop for any negotiations. Wall Street is already nervous about the fiscal implications of the Republican proposal, so the White House wants to avoid rattling markets on a debt-limit showdown too.
Trump hosted Thune for a meeting at the White House on Monday. The president phoned a few other GOP senators who have reservations about the House GOP version of reconciliation, including Sens. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) and Ron Johnson (R-Wis.). Trump met with Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) in-person. He’s also spoken with Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who has publicly opposed the reconciliation package over the debt-limit increase.
Trump’s aggressive posture underscores the White House and Senate GOP leadership’s need for speed. Trump posted Monday that he wants a bill to sign by July 4. Setting fast-approaching deadlines has been an asset for GOP leadership during the process so far, but this timeline will require warpspeed.
“Things are going to have to move at a much faster clip,” Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) said.
But Senate Republican leaders have problems as they try to satisfy one end of the conference that wants deeper spending cuts while the other is already squeamish about slashing federal programs – especially Medicaid.
Medicaid & IRA cuts. The House’s Medicaid provisions continue to be problematic for several GOP senators, especially the limiting of states’ provider taxes.
“To a lot of states, we can’t just let [provider taxes] get undermined. Because if you get that undermined, you hurt a lot of nursing homes,” Sen. Jim Justice (R-W.Va.) said. “There could be things [in the bill] that absolutely hurt people. And I think our president, nor I, in any way — I promise you, we don’t want to hurt people.”
Hawley told us that during their phone call, Trump agreed with his red line on Medicaid — that there shouldn’t be benefit cuts. According to Hawley, Trump said politicians who cut Medicaid are “stupid” and “lose elections.”
Hawley noted that while they didn’t discuss the provider tax provisions, he still has major concerns about the potential impact on rural hospitals.
He’s not alone.
“I’m still unclear on how the provider tax base would work and what the impact would be on states like Maine,” Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) said. “I’m very concerned about not only low-income families but our rural hospitals.”
Meanwhile, Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) is warning about the scale of House Republicans’ cuts to Inflation Reduction Act clean-energy tax credits. Tillis said the GOP needs to consider that some subsidies fuel economic growth, including in his home state.
“We need to be smart about where capital has been deployed,” Tillis said, “and to minimize the impact of the message we send businesses that every two or four years, we have massive changes in our priorities for energy transition.”
Remember: accelerating for eliminating the IRA tax credits was key to winning the House Freedom Caucus’s votes for the package.
House fault lines. There are some crucial pieces of the bill that senators are thinking about for maintaining the House Republicans’ vote math.
Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.), a former House member who often acts as a liaison with House Republicans, said the Senate needs to keep intact the House’s spending-cut total and SALT deal.
“As long as we leave those two things there and then we put our fingerprints on the rest of it, I think we’re in good shape,” Mullin said.
Byrd Bath. The House may be forced to accept watered-down elements of the reconciliation bill because of the Byrd Rule, which governs the Senate’s reconciliation process. Thune reiterated Monday that he doesn’t want to vote to overrule the Senate parliamentarian, who will be responsible for determining what’s in and what’s out.
Thune said Byrd-related conversations have been ongoing. But one major Byrd element that remains unresolved is the House’s inclusion of a version of the REINS Act, a proposal giving Congress new authority to claw back federal regulations.
The REINS Act is popular with conservatives. Thune told us Monday he hopes it passes muster with the parliamentarian.
“We’re seeing what can comply with the Byrd test,” Thune said. “In some areas it’s harder than in others. But we’re going to be doing everything possible to have it included.”
News: Speaker Mike Johnson raised $4 million over the recess during a swing through California. On the swing, alongside a majority of the state’s GOP delegation, Johnson spoke about polling that showed House Republicans on offense in California battleground districts. The money raised goes to Grow the Majority, Johnson’s joint fundraising committee.
