Senate Majority Leader John Thune announced Monday that Republicans want to tweak the House-passed One Big Beautiful Bill Act to find more tax cuts and savings before they send it to President Trump’s desk.
“A lot of our members are interested in permanence in some of the areas that the House made five-year windows,” Thune told reporters, referring to two business tax provisions in the bill. “We’ll be looking at some of those things.”
Thune, 64, insisted that he still wanted to get the package off Capitol Hill by the July 4 holiday, even though passing a separate Senate version of the bill would trigger intense negotiations on a compromise version of the bill, which would have to pass both houses of Congress again before the president could sign it.
Among the tax provisions of the One Big Beautiful Bill that expire after five years include a deduction for business research and development expenditures and a section that allows businesses to write off most of the cost of certain assets in the year after they were purchased rather than spreading it out over time.
Thune also noted that Republicans are going to attempt to find additional savings, something that Sens. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) and Rick Scott (R-Fla.), have all demanded to secure their support.
“There are different ideas, in some cases, with respect to some of the savings and whether or not we get to a higher level,” the South Dakotan said.
Republicans hold a 53-47 majority in the Senate and can only afford to lose three votes on the bill.
Also looming over the process are concerns about Medicaid reforms in the House version of the bill, which has prompted unease from Sens. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska).
“Just had a great talk with President Trump about the Big, Beautiful Bill. He said again, NO MEDICAID BENEFIT CUTS,” Hawley wrote on X Monday.
The House version of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act imposes work requirements on able-bodied beneficiaries aged 19 to 64 and makes a number of reforms to the federal health insurance program for low-income Americans that the Missourian previously lambasted.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has urged his Senate counterparts not to make too many modifications to the package in order to keep his small majority onside.
Meanwhile, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) has vowed to derail as much of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act as possible via the upper chamber’s rule process and procedural hurdles.
“What Senate Republicans will try to do this month is a travesty,” Schumer said on the Senate floor Monday. “They’re picking up right where House Republicans left off, trying to ram through this chamber Donald Trump’s so-called big, beautiful bill.”
“Senate Democrats will fight this bill in committee, on the floor and in the court of public opinion every step, every day and every possible way.”
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