While the House is in recess this week, Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-South Dakota) is facing strong pushback from members of the GOP conference over the Finance Committee’s piece of President Donald Trump’s tax and spending bill, which largely ignores Republican senators’ concerns about Medicaid cuts and the quick phaseout of clean-energy tax credits. Senate Republicans who raised red flags over Medicaid spending cuts the House passed say they were blindsided by the Senate’s version of the bill, which would cut Medicaid by several hundred billion dollars beyond what the House proposed. They are warning that the Finance Committee’s language will cause dozens of rural hospitals to close in their home states, require lower-income Americans to pay more for medical procedures and shift costs onto the states. But perhaps a more important factor in Leader Thune’s decision to move in the direction of deeper Medicaid spending cuts is that one of his top priorities is to make several corporate tax cuts in the bill permanent. Making those tax breaks permanent requires finding hundreds of billions of dollars in spending cuts to offset the cost and comply with the Senate’s Byrd rule, which does not allow provisions passed under the special budget reconciliation process to add to the deficit outside the 10-year budget window. The Senate bill would permanently restore immediate deductions for research and development expenses, the 100 percent bonus depreciation for investments, and the EBITDA-based limitation on business net interest deductions. Leader Thune also faces challenges from other Republicans who aren’t happy about the quick phaseout of clean energy tax breaks, which could threaten tens of billions of dollars in investments in Republican-represented states making passage of the package look difficult before the promised July 4th goal.
For today, the Senate will consider Confirmation of Executive Calendar #99, Olivia Trusty, of Maryland, to be a Member of the Federal Communications Commission for a term of five years from July 1, 2025 as well as Confirmation of Executive Calendar #130, Rodney Scott, of Oklahoma, to be Commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Department of Homeland Security.
The Senate will not be in session the rest of the week for the Juneteenth Holiday tomorrow.
