Axios Hill Leaders
June 17, 2025
1 big thing: 🥊 Senate picks a fight
Senate Finance Chair Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) has picked a big intra-GOP fight on SALT, Medicaid and clean energy — all but ignoring some of the House's most delicate budget compromises.
🥊 Why it matters: Neither the House nor the Senate wants to go to a formal conference, but the Senate text released this afternoon showed just how extensive, and contentious, the conference-like negotiations will be.
- "That would be a big mistake," Majority Leader John Thune told us about an actual conference. "That would drag this thing out."
Zoom in: Members of the House SALT caucus were outraged that the limit was reduced from $40,000 to $10,000 in the Senate text.
- "Everyone knows this 10K number will have to go up. And it will," Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) said on X.
💰 To help pay for his priorities, Crapo cut deeper on Medicaid and reopened the debate on the provider tax.
- The House wanted to cap the provider tax threshold at 6% for Medicaid expansion states, but the Senate version plans to gradually lower the threshold to 3.5% in 2031.
- Crapo also put limits on how much can be deducted for President Trump's key priorities — no tax on tips, no tax on overtime and no tax on seniors.
On energy tax credits, Crapo wants to allow more projects to claim them before the credits sunset.
- Crapo also reduced the child tax credit from the House-passed $2,500 to $2,200.
🏈 Even the House's Trump-supported provision to strip sports team owners of a lucrative tax break was ignored.
- And on the so-called "revenge tax" on foreign subsidiaries, the Senate watered down the House language and delayed its implementation until 2027.
The first test will be getting 51 senators on board, and just a few hours after the text came out, it was already on shaky ground in the Senate.
- "We're further away than we were before," one GOP senator told us after leaving a meeting tonight with the rest of the conference to discuss the bill.
- Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) said he's a "no."
- Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) blasted the changes to Medicaid.
Other Republicans were eerily quiet or said they needed time for review.
For Democrats, the deeper cuts to Medicaid and scaled-back child tax credit are ready-made to blast the GOP.
- "This could lead to even more than the 16 million people expected to lose health insurance and the hundreds of hospitals and health centers facing higher risk of closure," Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said of the bill on X.
— Hans Nichols, Stef Kight and Stephen Neukam
2. 🚨 Dems on Norton: "She's missing stuff"
As House Democratic leaders grapple with the party's battle over aging lawmakers, one longtime member is coming under particular scrutiny.
Why it matters: Eleanor Holmes Norton, the District of Columbia's delegate in the House, has long been a formidable presence in the halls of Congress despite her nonvoting status. Now 88 years old, Norton's presence has diminished considerably, some of her colleagues tell us.
- "She's missing stuff," a senior House Democrat said of Norton's apparent decline, telling us Democratic leadership's deliberations about her potential reelection bid are "delicate."
Zoom in: Lawmakers said Norton has been much less involved recently at critical moments for D.C., as Trump and his allies in Congress threaten to overturn the city's laws and squeeze its budget.
- "There was a time when she lobbied her colleagues to explain D.C.'s positions," one House Dem said. "She doesn't do that anymore."
The big picture: While she possesses a robust staff, Norton keeps her public appearances to a minimum. On rare occasions, she has talked to reporters this year, but her staff has twice walked back her answers.
- "She reads what her staff puts in front of her," said a fourth House Democrat.
The other side: Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-Mass.), the acting ranking member on the House Oversight Committee, said Norton has been "more visible than I've seen most members" as the panel has considered D.C.-related bills.
- "Last Congress, I successfully blocked nearly all of the 100+ federal legislative attacks on D.C.," Norton told us in a statement.
- Norton said her office "was on the phone with Republican leadership within minutes" about the D.C. budget issue.
— Andrew Solender and Axios D.C. co-author Cuneyt Dil
3. 🤠 GOP's Texas come to Jesus
4. 💸 Scoop: Warren challenges Bessent
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) is leading a Democratic effort to challenge Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on the victory he claimed last week on increasing tax revenue in April and May.
- Driving the news: In a letter to Bessent and IRS Commissioner Billy Long, Warren led Democrats in warning that IRS staff cuts will only plunge revenue in the coming years.
— Stephen Neukam and Hans Nichols
Axios Hill Leaders
