Washington — Congressional Republicans are racing to meet a self-imposed Fourth of July deadline to send a massive tax and domestic policy bill to President Trump as he dials up pressure on lawmakers, even as several major disputes have yet to be resolved.
On his way to The Hague on Tuesday, Mr. Trump called on lawmakers to stay in Washington until they can resolve their issues and get the bill — which extends the president’s 2017 tax cuts and includes much of his second-term agenda — to his desk.
“NO ONE GOES ON VACATION UNTIL IT’S DONE,” he wrote on Truth Social.
The last scheduled day in session for both chambers before they leave town for the holiday is Friday, leaving them with little time to reach their goal.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who met with Senate Republicans Tuesday, told reporters after the meeting that they’re “on track” for a vote Friday on the bill, adding that he expects it can get to the president’s desk by July 4.
Still, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, a South Dakota Republican, threatened to keep senators in Washington over the recess as several Republicans cast doubt about the upper chamber’s ability to finish their work before the deadline.
Thune told reporters Monday that the Senate is “on schedule” to vote by the end of the week.
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The bill, named the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, narrowly passed the House last month, but Senate Republicans are making changes in order to navigate the party’s tight 53-47 margin in the upper chamber.
On Tuesday, House Speaker Mike Johnson said he told House Republicans to “keep your schedules flexible” as the Senate looks to send the legislation back to the lower chamber for approval. The Louisiana Republican predicted the Senate could pass the bill by Friday or Saturday. The timing of a House vote would eat into next week’s recess.
“There’s nothing more important that we should be involved in and can be involved in than getting the one big, beautiful bill to the president’s desk,” Johnson said at his weekly news conference.
Parliamentarian rulings
Days before an expected vote, the Senate’s final version has yet to come together. The Senate’s rulekeeper has been looking through the legislation to determine whether any provisions violate the upper chamber’s rules.
The Senate parliamentarian advised that several controversial provisions would violate the Byrd Rule, which requires that the legislation only include provisions that have a direct impact on federal spending, according to Senate Budget Committee Democrats.
Provisions that did not make the cut are subject to a 60-vote threshold, compared with the 51 votes needed under the reconciliation process.
Republicans can’t include language that would make it harder to challenge the government’s actions in court. The provision limited the ability of federal courts to delay or halt the government’s policies by requiring people suing the federal government to post a bond to cover the potential costs and damages incurred by the government.
The parliamentarian determined that a provision to bar immigrants who are not citizens or lawful permanent residents from receiving food assistance benefits under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, known as SNAP, should also be removed.
The parliamentarian also rejected a proposal championed by Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah that would have sold off millions of acres of public lands.
Other provisions struck from the bill include the sale of electric vehicles used by the United States Postal Service and several immigration-related measures, including limiting certain funding for “sanctuary cities” and allowing states to conduct border security and immigration enforcement.
But the parliamentarian did allow Republicans to keep a 10-year moratorium on state laws regulating artificial intelligence.
SALT sticking points
As the Senate lurches toward a vote on the bill, disagreement over the state and local tax deduction, known as SALT, has persisted. But Bessent said Tuesday afternoon that he expected a solution on what’s become one of the biggest sticking points will be reached in the next 24 to 48 hours.
While the House measure increases the deduction from $10,000 to $40,000 per household for incomes up to $500,000, the Senate Finance Committee’s version that was unveiled last week proposes permanently extending the $10,000 cap. The chasm sparked pushback among blue-state House Republicans, who have threatened to withhold their support should the Senate approve the changes and send it back to the House.
Republican Sen. Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma, who formerly served in the House and has worked as a messenger between the two chambers, told reporters Monday that “neither side is going to love where we’re at, but it’s going to be acceptable.”
“The Senate wants to go further to the right and the SALT caucus wants to go further to the left,” Mullin said. “We’re going to find, I think, hopefully some place right in the middle that both sides can live with.”
Medicaid and the provider tax
Senate Republicans have proposed steeper cuts to Medicaid funding by lowering provider taxes — which states use to help fund their share of Medicaid costs — from 6% to 3.5% by 2031, after the House sought to lower federal costs by freezing states’ provider taxes at current rates and prohibiting them from establishing new provider taxes. But the move has sparked pushback, and threatened to complicate the delicate balance reached in the House.
A group of 16 House Republicans penned a letter to Thune and Johnson Tuesday opposing the Senate’s changes to the House-passed legislation on Medicaid. The moderates argued that the House approach “reflects a more pragmatic and compassionate standard,” pointing in particular to the provisions restricting the provider tax within the Senate legislation.
Sen. Josh Hawley, a Missouri Republican, has voiced opposition to the provider tax changes, and said more senators spoke up at Tuesday’s lunch against the Senate’s provider tax proposal.
Fiscal hawks speak out
Another faction in Congress has voiced opposition to the spending levels in the legislation, advocating for deeper cuts that have often worked counter to leadership’s efforts to appease other members of their conferences.
Members of the conservative House Freedom Caucus who initially threatened to withhold their support for the House-passed legislation have suggested they would tank the Senate’s changes to the bill. And a number of Senate Republicans have voiced strong opposition to the legislation’s impact on the deficit.
Sen. Rick Scott of Florida was among a handful of Senate Republicans who met with Mr. Trump on Monday amid opposition from fiscal hawks. Despite the disagreements, he told reporters that “I’m the eternal optimist that we’re going to figure this out.”
Nikole Killion,
and
contributed to this report.
