Senate sets an ambitious timeline for the adoption of President Donald Trump’s experience Extensive legislation Cut taxes and expenditures. But put it on the Republican president’s desk By July 4 Some big decisions are needed soon.
Republican senators raised concerns about different parts of the legislation, including cuts in Medicaid, changes to food aid and the impact on the deficit. To promote the passage of the bill,Senate Majority Leader John ThuneSouth Dakota and other negotiators will need to find a compromise that satisfies both ends of the meeting — which can still satisfy the House, which passed the bill with just one vote last month.
Look at some groups and senators, leaders will have to convince them to push Trump’s“Big, beautiful” BillConducting a Senate Voting:
Rural State Councilor
Every Republican senator represents a country with rural constituencies—some of their states are the most rural nations in the country. In these smaller population areas, many rely heavily on Medicaid for health care, leading some of them to warn that changes in the program could destroy already struggling communities.
Particularly worrying is the freezing of so-called provider taxes that some states use to help pay for most of their Medicaid programs. Additional taxes often lead to high federal payments, critics say, a loophole that allows states to overstate their budgets. Missouri Senator Josh Hawley and several others believe that the freezing of taxes will especially harm rural hospitals.
“The hospital will be closed,” Hawley said last month. “It’s simple. This model will be replicated in states across the country.”
Alabama Senator Tommy Tuberville said Thursday that his state’s provider tax is “the money we use for Medicaid.”
“You start cutting this and we have a big problem,” Tuberville said. Eliminating these taxes “could lose some people.”
Meanwhile, Republican senators have no interest in a House rule that spends more money by raising salaries (called salt) on state and local tax breaks. Traditionally, higher caps benefit from states with high tax revenues, such as New York and California.
House of Representatives includes New York Republicans threatening to oppose the bill’s new ceiling, but Senate Republicans unifiedly dislike it. “I think the salt supply has to be adjusted some time,” Thune said Wednesday.
Former state (perhaps future) governor
The bill closed by the House will also transfer the costs of some Medicaid and food stamps to states, a change especially for former Senate governors, especially concerns.
West Virginia Sen. Jim Justice, who served as governor for eight years before being elected to the Senate last year, said he favors many aspects of the bill. He supports new job requirements for Medicaid and food stamp recipients, welfare restrictions on illegal immigration, and efforts to reduce fraud. Justice said, “There is real savings there.” “But then we should stop.”
“We are eating ourselves,” Justice said. “We don’t want to hurt children and hurt our families.”
The most uneasy rule would transfer 5% of administrative expenses to the situation where state administers food stamps are called supplemental nutrition assistance programs or Break. States with high error rates in the program will have to bear a higher percentage of federal costs.
North Dakota Sen. John Hoeven, also a former governor, said the senators are working to get feedback from the current governor and may come up with some “reward-oriented ideas” rather than fines for high error rates.
“We don’t know if the states have actually seen some of these impacts,” Hoeven said.
Tuberville, who runs for Alabama Governor next year, said the plan should be reformed rather than lowering costs.
“I know what our budget is, what we can afford, we can’t start the federal program and say, ‘Oh, let’s send it back to the United States and let them put in a lot of effort,'” Tuberville said. “I mean, that’s not the way we do that.”
Moderate
Thun needs to bring Republican moderates into the bill, including Maine Sen. Susan Collins and Alaska Sen. Lisa Merkowski. Both retain Medicaid cutting, etc.
Collins said she wanted to review how the snapshot changes would affect her status. Murkowski questioned the Affordable Care Act’s expiration subsidies and whether people need them if they are initiated.
Last month, Murkowski said she wanted to make sure people don’t have a negative impact on the bill, “So we are looking at the lens of Medicaid and energy.”
Merkowski and Tom Tillis of North Carolina, John Curtis of Utah and Jerry Moran of Kansas also support itEnergy Tax CreditThis will be quickly phased out under House bills. Four senators believe that the rapid abolition of businesses will bring uncertainty to businesses and may increase consumer prices.
Right side
Sens, Kentucky. RandPaul, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, Mike Lee of Utah and Rick Scott of Florida argued the legislationNot saving enough moneyand threatened to vote against it.
Paul is considered the least likely to support the measure. He said he would not vote if the debt ceiling was raised, a key priority for Republican leaders in the House and Senate. The parcel will riseNational debt limitAs stated by the Ministry of FinanceNeed to improveBy mid-July.
Johnson has been opposing the legislation since the House unveiled, believing that it has hardly reduced government spending over time. He brought those arguments to Trump last week at a meeting between the president and members of the Senate Finance Committee.
After the meeting, Johnson said he would continue to argue that the bill would need to do more money to cut costs. But he said that when Trump puts political pressure on Republicans to get them through political pressure, he must recognize that he needs to be “more positive.”
“The road to bending the deficit is a long way, but I know it takes time,” Johnson said. “The truth is, there are a lot of good things in this bill that I absolutely support. I hope it succeeds.”
This story was originally fortune.com
