Senate Tackles Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill – Get Ready for Drama

The big, beautiful conflict isn’t over yet.

The Senate returns to Washington, DC, today, June 2, to take up the so-called big beautiful bill that passed the House last month. It barely squeaked by in the lower chamber, passing 215-214, and anyone expecting smooth sailing through the Senate hasn’t been reading the writing on the wall. About half a dozen senators could hold up the process in the coming weeks, and the revision suggestions started rolling in before the proverbial ink could dry on the final version that passed the lower chamber.

Things Are Different in the Senate

In a Q&A recently posted to his website, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) shares a story about George Washington telling Thomas Jefferson that “we pour legislation into the senatorial saucer to cool it.” And that’s precisely what’s expected to happen here. The bill as passed by the House makes the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act permanent. It increases the standard deduction by a thousand dollars for individual taxpayers through 2028, permanently sets the current $2,000 child tax credit, which was $1,000 before the 2017 law, and even increases it to $2,500 through 2028.

Seniors 65 and older can claim an additional special deduction through 2028, and no inheritance under $15 million suffers an estate tax. Tips, overtime, and Social Security payments would no longer be taxable, and car loan interest can be deducted up to $10,000 a year. Then there’s SALT. The state and local tax deduction cap was raised from $10,000 to $40,000 for anyone earning less than half a million a year.

Many of these are expected to be mitigated – though the child tax credit could be, some analysts claim, raised even higher.

Also likely to face revision are changes to Medicaid and SNAP (commonly referred to as food stamps). The House sought to cut fraudulent claims and add work requirements, but some senators have pushed back on any changes to any welfare program, and those provisions might not survive the upper chamber. Several Senate republicans also want to see considerably more spending cuts – a tall order indeed when so many government programs seem to be untouchable.

Half a Dozen One Way, a Dead Bill the Other

All told, the Senate GOP needs to pull 51 votes in order to pass this reconciliation bill. The fact that it’s a budget reconciliation allows lawmakers to suspend the rules of filibuster and the need for 60 votes to invoke cloture and end the discussion phase. With a 53-47 majority, one could be forgiven for thinking Republicans have this in the bag. But even with Vice President JD Vance’s tiebreaker, it’s going to be mighty close.

There are about six lawmakers who might jump ship – or, at the very least, hold up the process. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) told the press back in April that she’s worried about work requirements for Medicaid, what the Medicaid changes could mean to tribal communities, and the implications of cutting solar, wind, and geothermal energy tax credits.

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) also has  concerns regarding cuts to Medicaid, calling any decrease in funding a “red line” for him. President Trump reportedly told lawmakers to “leave Medicaid alone,” and Hawley backed him up on it. “His exact words were ‘don’t touch it, Josh,’” Hawley told reporters. “I said, ‘hey, we’re on the same page.’”

Susan Collins of Maine and Kentucky’s Rand Paul both voted against the budget resolution in April. Paul’s attitude hasn’t changed toward it, and he told the press he’s a “no” vote unless considerably spending and the debt ceiling increase can be cut. That wasn’t Collins’ issue, of course. She’s worried about the potential cuts to Medicaid.

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) didn’t go so far as to say he won’t vote for the bill at all if he doesn’t see more in spending cuts, but he has threatened to at least gum up the works if necessary. “I think we have enough [senators] to stop the process until the president gets serious about the spending reduction and reducing the deficit,” he said. And last on the list, Thom Tillis (R-NC), who has expressed concerns over funding cuts for renewable energy.

So, we have six senators who want numerous different – and often conflicting – changes. But the more the bill is modified to win over their votes, the harder it will likely be to get enough representatives in the House to accept the amended version. Lawmakers hope to have the big beautiful bill on Trump’s desk for signing by July 4. The Senate, it seems then, has a busy and dramatic several weeks ahead. Don’t forget the popcorn!