Trump’s 'big, beautiful bill' faces a swarm of Senate GOP objections

The 1,116-page bill the House passed early Thursday morning to enact President Trump’s ambitious legislative agenda faces a swarm of objections from Senate Republicans.

GOP senators are calling for a rewrite of the bill to address concerns ranging from Medicaid reforms and the phase-out of clean energy incentives to the sale of government owned spectrum bands and the bill’s projected impact on the federal debt.

The deal that Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) struck with Republicans from blue states to raise the cap on state and local tax (SALT) deductions from $10,000 to $40,000 is also a sticking point with Republican senators.

The biggest obstacle may be the threatened opposition from Senate conservatives who say the bill doesn’t do nearly enough to cut future deficits, which are projected to exceed $2 trillion annually for the next two years.

Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul (R) immediately announced his opposition to the House-passed bill Thursday, vowing to vote against it unless Senate Republican leaders remove a provision to raise the federal debt limit by $4 trillion over the next two years.

“We’ve never, ever voted to raise the debt ceiling this much. It’ll be a historic increase. I think it’s not good for conservatives to be on the record supporting a $4 trillion or $5 trillion increase in the debt ceiling,” he said.

“The anticipated deficits per year now will be $2 trillion a year for the next two years,” he added. “It’s not conservative, I can’t support it.”

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), an outspoken fiscal hawk, said Thursday that there are four Senate Republican conservatives who will vote against the House bill as currently drafted, which would be enough to sink the bill if there is full attendance.

“There should be a goal of this Republican Senate budget resolution to reduce the deficit not increase it. We’re increasing it.  It’s a non-starter from my standpoint,” he said.

Johnson said he’s “absolutely” a no on the House bill as “currently constructed.”

“I actually want to reduce the deficit,” he said.

The Congressional Budget Office projects the bill will add another $3.8 trillion to the debt but Johnson thinks that number is likely to be closer to $4 trillion.

“I think I’ve got at least four right now that this is not going anywhere,” Johnson said when asked how many Republican senators would refuse to advance the House bill without deeper spending cuts.

“Three in addition to myself. We’ve got the four we need,” he said.

Fiscal conservatives in the House also threatened to vote against Trump’s big, beautiful bill unless GOP leaders agreed to include bigger spending cuts in the package, but several of them folded after Trump met with them earlier this week and told them bluntly: “Don’t f—k around with Medicaid.”

Just two House Republicans voted against the bill, Reps. Thomas Massie (Ky.) and Warren Davidson (Ohio), while House Freedom Caucus Chair Andy Harris (R-Md.) voted “present.”

A group of Senate Republicans concerned about Medicaid reforms pose another major obstacle to the bill. This group includes Sens. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), Susan Collins (R-Maine), Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and Jerry Moran (R-Kan.).

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) has begun meeting one-on-one and in small groups with some of these senators to listen to their concerns about the impact of the House reforms on constituents and rural hospitals.

These lawmakers are primarily concerned about reforms intended to crack down on states’ use of health care provider taxes to receive more federal Medicaid funding and a proposal to require more cost sharing for adults who earn between 100 percent and 138 percent of the federal poverty level.

 Asked about the health care provider tax reforms and expanded cost sharing, Collins said: “We’re still trying to figure out what the provider tax reforms are but I’m very worried about our rural hospitals in Maine.”

Hawley flagged health care provider tax reform and cost-sharing reform as two problems earlier this month.

He said the “cost-sharing proposal” would make “beneficiaries pay more.”

“These are working people in particular who are going to have to pay more,” he said.

Hawley this week advised colleagues to listen to Trump’s reported instruction GOP lawmakers to “leave Medicaid alone.”

Another point of friction are the proposals in the House bill to phase out clean energy incentives enacted by the Inflation Reduction Act, which could wipe out billions of dollars of investment in Republican states.

Sens. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), John Curtis (R-Utah), Murkowski and Moran wrote a letter to Senate Thune last month to “emphasize the importance of maintaining a stable and predictable tax framework to promote domestic energy development.”

“We caution against the full-sale repeal of current credits, which could lead to significant disruptions for the American people and weaken our position as a global energy leader,” they warned.

Tillis said Thursday that the House bill would need to be changed to avoid stranding billions of dollars of private-sector investment in clean energy projects.

“If millions or billions of dollars have been deployed, we’ve got to give those businesses some off ramp,” he said.

He said that suddenly cutting off renewable energy subsidies would “have the same sort of effect” as what the oil industry suffered when then-President Biden “just arbitrarily cancelled the [Keystone] XL pipeline” in 2021.

 Some Senate Republicans are also balking at Speaker Johnson’s deal with Republicans from New York, New Jersey and other high-tax state to raise the SALT cap from $10,000 to $40,000.

The higher limit on those deductions would phase out at annual incomes above $500,000.

“The SALT thing is going to come up. It’s going to be an issue,” Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) said.

Thune acknowledged Thursday that the language to lift the SALT cap will be a one of many provisions Senate GOP colleagues will seek to change.

“Our members want to be heard on it and I assume we’ll have something to say,” Thune remarked on the SALT deal.

Thune says that Senate Republicans will rewrite parts of the House bill but he noted that Speaker Johnson warned GOP senators in a meeting Tuesday that they risked scrambling the coalition he put together in the House Republican Conference to pass the bill.

 Some Republican senators are digging in their heels to oppose lower-profile provisions in the House bill, such as a plan to auction off government owned spectrum that is currently used by the Pentagon.

Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) says the House provision poses a major national security risk.

“It has to be taken out or modified,” Rounds said of that House language on spectrum. “That to me is of critical national importance.”

Rounds, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said House negotiators “extended the [spectrum] auction authority until 2034” but only protected the military portions of the spectrum in the first auction sale.

“If they’re going to have auction authority until 2034, the [Department of Defense] portions and the [intelligence community] portions have got to be protected during the time this auction authority exists,” he said.

“It outweighs everything else in the bill,” he said.