Senate careens towards Friday tax vote
Senate Republicans are steaming toward a Friday initial vote on their big tax cuts bill, despite having a metric ton of work to do to finish the package.
It's not totally inconceivable that negotiations continue past the vote to proceed to the bill and into the final amendment of the vote-a-rama — what's called a 'wraparound amendment' representing the final deal.
There's plenty of outstanding business: Republicans are still wrangling over the bill's potential effects on rural hospitals and the state and local tax deduction. Some Republicans want a rural hospital fund of about $10 billion; others want as much as $100 billion, according to two people familiar with the debate.
The parliamentarian has knocked out proposals to shift SNAP spending to states and sell public land — and while Republicans are rewriting them, they haven't been litigated yet. Republicans also haven't quite figured out how to handle an effort to stop state-level AI regulation.
Still, optimists exist: 'We're on track,' Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said after meeting with senators.
Senate Republicans are facing an acute time crunch, as they scramble to rewrite the bill after parliamentary rulings. Consider the SNAP provision: The parliamentarian struck down the proposal to shift some SNAP cots to states and has not reviewed the latest version. Once it's rewritten, Democrats will get the opportunity to challenge it again, a Democratic aide said.
There's no hint yet of a breakthrough on SALT, though Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., predicted one will come soon — and that House Republicans will be able to swallow what the Senate comes up with.
'My first responsibility is that we pass it in the Senate and at the same time we want a bill that can pass the House,' Mullin said. 'We're just going to make it, hopefully, easy enough' for them to pass it.
At the moment, it looks like Republicans could finish the bill sometime on Saturday. And Senate Majority Leader John Thune is bracing for the possibility that there 'could be' more than just Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., in opposition.
'We've got a lot of very independent-thinking senators who have reasons and things that they'd like to have in this bill that would make it stronger,' Thune said. 'When push comes to shove, you're looking at whether you're going to allow the perfect to be the enemy of the good.'
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