Senate Republicans are on schedule to pass President Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” on Monday, but whether enough votes exist to do so is a nail-biter.
At least half a dozen Republicans have not committed to supporting the massive tax and spending package, and two are solidly in the “no” camp.
That’s a lot of fence sitters when Republican leaders can afford just three defections with Vice President J.D. Vance available to break a tie.
Republicans are using the filibuster-proof budget reconciliation process to advance the bill without needing votes from Democrats.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, South Dakota Republican, has kept his cool. He predicts that enough Republicans will ultimately decide not to let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
“Fifty-three members will never agree on every detail of legislation, let’s face it,” Mr. Thune said in a floor speech Saturday. “But Republicans are united in our commitment to what we’re doing in this bill: securing our border, strengthening our national defense, growing our economy, unleashing American energy, cutting waste, fraud and abuse, and preventing tax hikes on hardworking Americans.”
Senate leaders typically don’t bring bills to the floor without knowing whether they have the votes to pass, but Republicans are staring down a fast-approaching, self-imposed Fourth of July deadline.
Mr. Trump would like to sign the bill on the 249th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence as a “gift to the nation,” but he acknowledged Sunday that he didn’t know whether his preferred timeline would hold.
It would require the Senate to pass the bill Monday, or Tuesday at the latest, and the House to quickly approve the changes without further negotiating. Neither outcome is guaranteed.
Senate Republicans narrowly voted 51-49 to start debate on the bill late Saturday night. Republican Sens. Thom Tillis of North Carolina and Rand Paul of Kentucky joined all Democrats in opposition.
Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer, New York Democrat, then forced Senate clerks to read the bill aloud on the floor, which took almost 16 hours.
The Senate spent Sunday debating the bill. When debate concludes Monday morning, the chamber will begin unlimited votes on amendments, a process called “vote-a-rama.”
A final passage vote will follow, likely Monday, but senators could offer enough amendments to push the vote into Tuesday if they have enough stamina.
Mr. Tillis, who opposes the bill’s Medicaid cuts, and Mr. Paul, who objects to a $5 trillion increase in the debt limit, have said they will vote against the legislation on final passage.
Both have drawn the ire of Mr. Trump.
On Saturday night, Mr. Trump posted on social media that he would be meeting with Republicans who want to run a primary campaign against Mr. Tillis. The next day, Mr. Tillis announced he would not run for reelection in 2026.
That kind of heavy-handed political maneuvering could scare some other fence sitters.
Only two other Republicans up for reelection in 2026, Sens. Susan M. Collins of Maine and Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, are undecided on how they will vote on final passage.
Mr. Cassidy has already drawn primary challengers who say he has not sufficiently supported the Trump agenda. The political dynamics in Maine would make it difficult for a further-right Republican to unseat Ms. Collins.
Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, Mike Lee of Utah and Rick Scott of Florida are also uncommitted to supporting the bill and are not up for reelection in 2026.
Ms. Collins and Ms. Murkowski, and Mr. Cassidy to a lesser degree, said the Senate bill goes too far in cutting Medicaid and other benefit programs. The other three want the opposite: further cuts in federal spending.
The Saturday procedural vote to begin debate on the bill was held open for nearly four hours as some of the holdouts negotiated with Republican leaders.
Mr. Scott, Mr. Johnson and Mr. Lee, along with Sen. Cynthia M. Lummis, Wyoming Republican, persuaded Senate Republican leaders to support an amendment to the bill that would reduce the 90% federal contribution to Medicaid for the 40 states and the District of Columbia that expanded the program under Obamacare to include low-income, able-bodied adults without dependents earning up to 138% of the poverty level.
The change in the Federal Medical Assistance Percentage (FMAP) formula would drop the federal share for covering new beneficiaries enrolled under the expansion, starting in 2031, to the same rates states get for the base Medicaid population – vulnerable populations, like people with disabilities, pregnant women, and low-income parents with minor children.
The 90% share for existing expansion beneficiaries would continue as long as they’re enrolled.
“We think it’s really good policy, and yeah, I think a lot of us are going to be supporting it,” Mr. Thune told reporters Sunday.
When The Washington Times asked whether he promised the holdouts their amendment would pass, Mr. Thune said, “I don’t think you can ever promise that, but obviously, we’re going to do what we can to support the effort.”
Mr. Johnson reportedly said Mr. Trump was also committed to helping whip support for the FMAP amendment.
However, the president told Maria Bartiromo on Fox News Channel’s “Sunday Morning Futures” that Republicans should avoid further spending cuts and instead rely on economic growth to help reduce the deficit.
“I can cut lots of things, but they won’t do it. And I don’t want them to do it because you’ll never get elected,” Mr. Trump said. “We’re going to make it through growth. We’re going to make it so big.”
Later on social media, he reemphasized the message by telling cost-cutting Republicans, “Don’t go too crazy!”
It’s not just the cost-cutters trying to amend Mr. Trump’s agenda bill.
Ms. Collins said she would propose reducing the top tax rate for the highest income earners to 39.6%. The Senate proposal extends the current 37% top individual rate and lowers rates for taxpayers of all income levels enacted during Mr. Trump’s first administration in 2017.
If the One Big Beautiful Bill Act squeaks through the Senate, it faces additional hurdles in the House. Several House Republicans have threatened to vote against the latest version for varying and often opposing reasons.
A group of 16 House Republicans, led by Rep. David Valadao of California, warned Republican leaders in a letter that they oppose the Senate’s Medicaid overhaul and want to keep the House’s “more pragmatic and compassionate” approach.
One of the big changes the Senate made was further cracking down on Medicaid provider taxes, which Republicans say states use as a “money laundering scheme.”
The House froze state provider taxes at current rates, which vary by state. The Senate measure went further.
The Senate bill would force states that expanded Obamacare to lower provider tax rates to no more than 3.5% if they want to use the revenue to pay for increased Medicaid payments to the same providers, which would inflate the cost of their Medicaid programs and the share the federal government must contribute.
The phaseout of the “safe harbor” limit, currently 6%, would not begin until fiscal 2028, with 0.5% annual reductions until it reaches 3.5% in fiscal 2032.
“I will not support a final bill that eliminates vital funding streams our hospitals rely on, including provider taxes and state-directed payments, or any provisions that punish [Medicaid] expansion states,” Mr. Valadao said in a statement Saturday.
Meanwhile, fiscal hawks, mainly in the House Freedom Caucus, want to further cut Medicaid and fully repeal clean energy credits from President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, among other changes to slash spending.
“The Senate BBB has a deficit problem,” Rep. Chip Roy, Texas Republican, posted on social media Sunday.
The Congressional Budget Office estimated that the Senate version of the bill would add nearly $3.3 trillion to the deficit over 10 years, compared with $2.4 trillion for the House version.
However, the Senate is using an alternative baseline known as “current policy” that would assume any tax cuts already in law will continue permanently past their expiration dates, meaning they are not factoring in the $4 trillion cost of extending Mr. Trump’s first-term tax cuts.
The CBO’s estimate under the current policy baseline projects that the Senate bill would reduce the deficit by $508 billion.
The Freedom Caucus posted figures on social media using CBO’s traditional baseline but factoring in economic growth projections and long-term interest costs on the debt. According to their calculations, the House would add $72 billion to the deficit, while the Senate would add $1.3 trillion.
Mr. Trump has previously brought Republicans together through seemingly irreconcilable differences, but he told Ms. Bartiromo on Sunday that he doesn’t know whether Congress will meet its Independence Day deadline.
“I can’t tell you that,” he said. “I hate to say yes. I’d like to say, yes. But the problem is if we’re two days late or five days late, everybody says, ‘Oh, you had a tremendous failure.’”
Although Mr. Trump clearly wants to avoid such labeling, he signaled that he would be happy as long as the bill passes.
“It’s very important. If we don’t have it, there’s a 68% tax increase,” he said, referring to the looming expiration of his first-term tax cuts that the bill would permanently extend.
“The debt-ceiling extension is very important,” the president said. He added that a $5 trillion debt limit hike in the bill is needed to ensure the government can continue paying its bills beyond August. “You never want to violate your debt covenants.”