WASHINGTON — Senate Republicans will be working through the weekend to try to pass their “big beautiful” tax-and-spending megabill, even as last-minute deals on provisions are still being worked out and holdouts remain.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) announced Friday that an “aspirational” vote Saturday at noon would kick off debating the revised multitrillion-dollar bill, after supporters were delivered a setback with the culling of hundreds of billions of dollars in Medicaid spending reforms earlier this week.
The bill, which could pass with a simple majority through a process known as budget reconciliation, makes portions of President Trump’s 2017 tax cuts permanent, ends taxation on tips and overtime, boosts border security funding and scraps green-energy tax credits passed in the last administration.
But it will have to raise the debt ceiling by roughly $5 trillion in order to cram all the provisions in.
With a 53-47 majority in the upper chamber, the GOP can only afford to lose three votes and still pass the package with a tie-breaking ballot cast by Vice President JD Vance.
A final copy of the proposed legislation has yet to be released.
A version of it passed the House by a single vote May 22. But the lower chamber will have to vote on the bill again after the Senate finalizes its changes to it.
Trump had been hoping the bill would pass both chambers and reach his desk for signing by July 4.
“The Great Republicans in the U.S. Senate are working all weekend to finish our ‘ONE, BIG, BEAUTIFUL BILL,'” the president posted on his Truth Social on Friday.
“The House of Representatives must be ready to send it to my desk before July 4th – We can get it done,” he also said, adding later: “We can go longer, but we’d like to get it done by that time, if possible.”
GOP momentum screeched to a halt Thursday as the Senate’s “parliamentarian,” Elizabeth MacDonough — the “referee” of the chamber who ensures proposed legislation abides by the rules — threw out line items that would have eliminated health-care coverage for non-citizens.
The provisions had run afoul of the so-called “Byrd Rule” — named for former Senate Majority Leader Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.) — which requires bills passed under reconciliation to only focus on changes to spending and revenue levels rather than policy.
Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) called for MacDonough’s firing in response, posting on X: “This is a perfect example of why Americans hate THE SWAMP.
“The WOKE Senate Parliamentarian, who was appointed by Harry Reid and advised Al Gore, just STRUCK DOWN a provision BANNING illegals from stealing Medicaid from American citizens,” he fumed.
McDonough, a career civil servant, was appointed to her post by Democrats in 2012.
Some of the health-care spending reforms have posed an issue for centrist Sens. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and Susan Collins (R-Maine) as well as GOP Sens. Josh Hawley (Missouri) and Jerry Moran (Kansas).
The libertarian-minded Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) have also criticized the bill’s impact on the national deficit: as much as $3 trillion over the next decade, according to projections provided by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO).
The House-passed bill also increases the state and local tax (SALT) deduction from $10,000 to $40,000 over a five-year period, though that line item had been contested by some in the Senate until recently.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) told reporters Friday morning that progress had been made on the SALT issue at a Thursday night meeting of Treasury officials and SALT Republicans.
“No one will be delighted about it, but that’s kind of the way this works around here,” Johnson said. “But the other issues, I think, will be resolved, hopefully today, and we can move forward.”
Additional reporting by Kendall White