Republican fractures multiply over Trump’s megabill

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is pushing for Congress to pass its signature legislation within the next two weeks, before Independence Day, when lawmakers return home for much of the summer. But their deadline appears to be in jeopardy after a Senate version of the bill released this week prompted blowback from influential Republicans in both chambers.

Widespread public opposition

Senate Majority Leader John Thune speaks along with Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) on Tuesday in the Capitol.

(Anna Moneymaker / Getty Images)

The proposal, titled the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, is meant to be the legislative vehicle to pass President Trump’s core campaign promises into law. But the overall price tag of the legislation, its cuts to Medicaid and green energy tax credits, and its tax provisions are dividing the Republican caucus.

The GOP infighting comes as new polling shows a sizable majority of Americans disapprove of the bill. A Washington Post/Ipsos poll found that Americans oppose the legislation by 2 to 1, while 64% said they opposed it in a recent KFF Health Tracking Poll.

The House passed its version of the bill last month with a razor-thin majority. But within days, several House Republicans said they regretted their votes over a host of tangential provisions, such as a line that would prohibit states from regulating artificial intelligence over the next decade.

Now, the Senate bill would hike the federal debt limit by $5 trillion — $1 trillion more than the House language — making Trump’s 2017 business tax credits permanent, expanding tax cuts for seniors and slowing the end of green energy tax breaks that had phased out more quickly in the House version.

The Senate language also introduces its own controversial, niche provisions, such as the removal of suppressors — also known as silencers for guns — from regulation under the National Firearms Act.

Gutting Medicaid, raising deficits

The Senate language, drafted by the Senate Finance Committee, also would make even more drastic cuts to Medicaid, capping provider taxes at 3.5% from 6% by 2031 and imposing even more restrictive work requirements. Those provisions risk key votes in the chamber from GOP members who have expressed concern with funding reductions to the program, including Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Shelly Moore Capito of West Virginia and Josh Hawley of Missouri, among others.

After the Finance Committee draft was released, Sens. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Rand Paul of Kentucky, who have advocated for a bill that would reduce annual deficits, said they would not vote for it in its current form. Republicans can only afford to lose three votes in the chamber to pass the bill.

“We’ve got a ways to go on this one,” Johnson said.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, of South Dakota, said he would refer the text to the Appropriations Committee, headed by Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, yet another skeptic of the bill.

“Republicans’ ’One Big Beautiful Bill’ is one huge ugly mess that will come at the cost of working families’ health care,” said Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii). “This bill proposes the biggest cut to Medicaid in history, kicking almost 14 million Americans off their insurance.”

Pushback from both GOP wings

Even if it passes the Senate, reconciliation with House Republicans will be a tall order.

“This bill, as the Senate has produced it, is definitely dead if it were to come over to the House in anything resembling its current form,” said Rep. Chip Roy of Texas, a member of the House Freedom Caucus, which advocates for decreased government spending, in a call with reporters.

But the other end of the House GOP caucus, composed of Republican lawmakers from majority Democratic states, also oppose the Senate bill as is.

Those Republicans successfully advocated to raise the cap in state and local tax deductions, to $40,000 for those making $500,000 or less a year. But the Senate version keeps the SALT provisions as is, extending them at a $10,000 cap.

“That is the deal, and I will not accept a penny less,” said Rep. Mike Lawler of New York. “If the Senate reduces the SALT number, I will vote no, and the bill will fail in the House.”

The White House has intensified its push for passage of the bill next month, warning that failure will have dire consequences. “More than 1.1 million jobs in the manufacturing sector and nearly six million jobs overall will be lost” if Trump’s 2017 tax cuts expire, the administration warned in a statement.

The bill also would provide funding for thousands of more agents at the Department of Homeland Security to perform border enforcement, a top priority for the administration that is currently reaching for unconventional resources — from refugee officers to the armed forces — for assistance in its mass deportation efforts.

“It needs to be passed,” Thune told Fox News this week. “We believe that the president and the House, the Senate, are all going to be on the same page when it’s all said and done, and we’ll get a bill that we could put on his desk that he’ll be happy with, and that the American people will benefit from.”

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More to come,
Michael Wilner

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