Thune's big, bold bill has rattled House Republicans
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Majority Leader John Thune pressed Senate Republicans over the last 48 hours to go big or go home on the "big, beautiful bill." But over the next 24 hours, he'll learn if he broke the House's spirit in the process.
Why it matters: The Senate's spending cuts are deeper, the tax cuts are longer and the debt ceiling is steeper.
- Thune (R-S.D.) lost three of his own members on his way to a 51-50 win, and he has left House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) with a "non-starter," Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.) told reporters.
- One GOP lawmaker told Axios' Andrew Solender that Johnson is short "well over 20" votes.
Driving the news: It was an aggressive and risky move for a new majority leader, and it wasn't the light touch House leaders wanted.
- "Failure is not an option," Thune himself declared outside the West Wing just a month ago.
- But failure is a real possibility on Wednesday, with Johnson pronouncing himself "not happy with what the Senate did to our product."
Zoom out: All reconciliation bills eventually turn into a power struggle between the House and Senate.
- In the first inter-chamber conflict of 2025, Thune actually lost the procedural battle. President Trump sided with the House and decreed that there would be one bill and not two separate ones.
- But if the current Senate bill prevails, Thune will end up winning on three much more consequential issues: baseline policy, permanence for the business tax cuts, and the scope of entitlement reform.
Zoom in: For months, Thune and Senate Finance Chair Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) insisted that the Senate parliamentarian should use baseline policy to determine how much tax proposals will cost. This will have implications for future Congresses.
- That accounting change, which gives Congress a pass on counting the cost of extending tax cuts that are on the books, allowed Crapo to make Trump's business tax cuts permanent, which was one of his top priorities.
- Senate Republicans are convinced that will spur the kind of investment the economy will need to achieve 3% growth.
- In all, the tax and spending cuts in the Senate amount to $3.3 trillion in deficit spending, compared to $2.8 trillion in the House, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
Between the lines: On the trickiest part of the Senate debate, lowering the threshold for the Medicaid provider tax, Thune maintained an aggressive and ideological posture.
- "This is the first time we've done anything meaningful on entitlement reform," he told reporters.
- With Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) demanding a smaller debt ceiling increase, Thune was forced to negotiate with his old friend Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) for the 50th vote. Vice President Vance got him to 51.
- Murkowski extracted changes to allow Alaska to keep more SNAP benefits and helped secure a $50 billion fund for rural hospitals.
The bottom line: Democrats are outraged by the cuts to the social safety net.
- But the cuts were important enough to Thune and Senate conservatives to lose Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), who announced his retirement last weekend, and Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), the only GOP senator representing a state Kamala Harris won.
