WASHINGTON — Senate Republicans were closing in Monday on passing their version of the “big beautiful” tax break and spending cut bill that President Donald Trump wants to make law by a self-imposed July Fourth deadline.
But the chamber’s Democrats first kicked off a marathon of amendment votes, forcing their GOP colleagues to go on the record on tough issues, including cuts to health and food safety net programs. As of early evening, Democrats had not prevailed on any votes.
The tactic is used by the opposition party during massive budget reconciliation fights to draw attention to specific issues even as their amendments are likely to fail.
Democrats decried numerous measures in the mega-bill, including new work reporting requirements for Medicaid, the federal-state health insurance program for low-income people and people with disabilities.
Loud opposition has also swelled as legislative proposals shift significant costs of the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, to states for the first time.
“I say to our colleagues, ‘Vote for families over billionaires,’” Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota said on the Senate floor.
The heart of the nearly 1,000-page legislation extends and expands the 2017 tax law to keep individual income tax rates at the same level and makes permanent some tax breaks on business investments and research and development costs.
The bill would also put in motion some of Trump’s campaign promises, including no tax on qualifying tips, overtime or car loan interest, but only for a few years.
The tax cuts are estimated to cost nearly $4.5 trillion over 10 years, and a provision in the bill raises the nation’s borrowing limit to $5 trillion as the United States faces record levels of debt.
Overall, the Senate bill is projected to add $3.25 trillion to deficits during the next decade, according to the latest calculation from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.
Here are some key votes so far:
Planned Parenthood
Washington Democratic Sen. Patty Murray tried to remove language from the bill that would block Medicaid payments from going to Planned Parenthood for one year unless the organization stops performing abortions.
Federal law already bars funding from going toward abortions, with limited exceptions, but GOP lawmakers have proposed blocking any other funding from going to the organization, effectively blocking Medicaid patients from going to Planned Parenthood for other types of health care.
Murray said the proposal would have a detrimental impact on health care for lower-income women and called it a “long-sought goal of anti-choice extremists.”
“Republicans’ bill will cut millions of women off from birth control, cancer screenings, essential preventive health care — care that they will not be able to afford anywhere else,” Murray said. “And it will shutter some 200 health care clinics in our country.”
Mississippi Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith opposed efforts to remove the policy change and raised a budget point of order, which was not waived following a 49-51 vote. Maine Republican Sen. Susan Collins and Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski voted with Democrats.
“There was a time when protecting American tax dollars from supporting the abortion industry was an uncontroversial, nonpartisan effort that we could all get behind,” Hyde-Smith said.
Medicaid for undocumented immigrants
Senators from both political parties crossed the aisle over whether the federal government should reduce how much a state is given for its Medicaid program if that state uses its own taxpayer dollars to enroll immigrants living in the country without proper documentation.
The provision was included in an earlier version of the bill, but the Senate parliamentarian ruled it didn’t comply with the complex rules for moving a budget reconciliation bill.
The vote was 56-44, but since it was on waiving a budget point of order, at least 60 senators had to agree to set aside the rules and move forward with the amendment, so the vote failed.
Democratic Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada, Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire, and Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock of Georgia voted with GOP senators. Maine’s Collins voted with most of the chamber’s Democrats against moving forward.
Texas Republican Sen. John Cornyn asked for the vote, saying he believes the policy change would reduce undocumented immigration.
“Border patrol talks about push and pull factors,” Cornyn said. “One of the pull factors for illegal immigration is the knowledge that people will be able to receive various benefits once they make it into the country.”
Senate Budget Committee ranking member Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., opposed Cornyn’s attempt to get the language back in the bill, saying the policy change would financially harm states that expanded Medicaid under the 2010 health care law for simple mistakes.
“What this amendment says is that if one person, despite state law, through a bureaucratic mistake, is receiving funds, then the whole state pays the price and has their rate on expanded Medicaid changed from 90% to 80%,” Merkley said, referring to the percentage paid by the federal government.
Reduction in funding for Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
An amendment to stop a nearly 50% reduction in funding for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was blocked by Republican Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, who chairs the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a Democrat who championed the CFPB after the 2008 financial collapse, attempted to bring the amendment to the floor saying the agency “is the financial watchdog to keep people from getting cheated on credit cards and mortgages and Venmo and payday loans and a zillion other transactions.”
“When this financial cop can’t do its job there is no one else in the federal government to pick up the slack,” Warren said.
Scott blocked her using a budget point of order, saying the reduction still provides “ample funding” for the agency. Democrats tried to waive that procedural tactic, but failed following a 47-53 vote.
An original provision to completely zero out the budget for the CFPB was not included because it did not meet the reconciliation process’ parameters.
Medicaid hospitals and maternal mortality
Senators voted 48-52 to reject Delaware Democratic Sen. Lisa Blunt Rochester’s proposals to send the legislation back to committee to remove language cutting certain funding for Medicaid, which she said would negatively impact “vital hospital services, especially labor and delivery rooms.”
“Today, Medicaid is the single largest payer of maternity care in the United States, covering 40% of births nationwide and nearly half of the births in our rural communities,” Blunt Rochester said. “Obstetric units, particularly in rural hospitals, are closing at alarming rates, actually creating maternity deserts.”
No Republicans spoke in opposition to the proposal, though Maine’s Collins voted in support.
Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program
New Mexico Democratic Sen. Ben Ray Luján offered a motion to commit the bill back to committee in order to remove all changes related to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP. It was rejected following a 49-51 vote, though Alaska Republican Sens. Dan Sullivan and Murkowski voted in favor.
“I’m offering my colleagues the opportunity to step away from these devastating cuts, to show our fellow Americans that in this country we care for our friends, family and neighbors who need support,” Luján said.
Senate Agriculture Chairman John Boozman, R-Ark., opposed the proposals, saying that SNAP is “on an unsustainable path wrought with mismanagement and waste.”
“This program has devolved into viewing success as enrolling more individuals to be dependent on government assistance,” Boozman said. “SNAP is long overdue for change.”
Medicaid work requirements
Senators voted 48-52 to reject a proposal from Delaware Democratic Sen. Chris Coons that would have sent the bill back to committee to remove language requiring Medicaid enrollees to work, participate in community service, or attend an educational program at least 80 hours a month. Alaska’s Murkowski was the only member of her party to vote in favor of the effort.
Democrats have expressed concern for weeks that some people would lose access to Medicaid if they forgot to complete paperwork proving that time commitment or didn’t understand how to show the government they met the new requirement.
“It is cruel and dishonest to bury patients, kids and seniors in paperwork and then blame them when they lose their health care, all to further rig our tax code for the very wealthiest,” Coons said.
Kansas Republican Sen. Roger Marshall urged opposition to the proposal, saying that working helps people.
“My question is, don’t you think a job brings value, that it brings dignity?” Marshall said. “Do you not think it brings purpose and meaning to life?”
Rural hospitals and Medicaid
Maine’s Collins and Alaska’s Murkowski both voted for a proposal from Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Ed Markey that would have removed parts of the bill changing Medicaid.
But even with some bipartisan support, the changes were rejected on a 49-51 vote that would have technically sent the bill back to committee for three days to implement the changes.
“My Republican colleagues’ so-called Medicaid cuts replacement fund is like giving aspirin to a cancer patient,” Markey said. “It is not enough. It is pathetically inadequate to deal with the health care crisis Republicans are creating here today on the Senate floor. No billionaire tax break or Donald Trump pat-on-the-back is worth the risk of people’s lives.”
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, spoke out against the proposal, saying that rural hospitals have long had financial challenges and that it was clearly “intended to derail this very bill.”
“Unfortunately for far too long some rural hospitals have struggled to achieve financial stability, even with a wide-range of targeted payment enhances,” Crapo said. “These issues pre-date the consideration of the reforms that we are including in the legislation today.”
