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Yahoo
03-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Trump ramps up criticism of Republican senators who could stall his funding bill
President Donald Trump is ramping up his criticism of Republican senators who are threatening to complicate the passage of the "One Big Beautiful Bill Act," which advances his legislative agenda. On Tuesday, he railed against Sen. Rand Paul in a social media post after the Kentucky Republican publicly criticized the House-passed megabill. Paul opposes the bill because of a debt ceiling increase in it that he said would "explode deficits." Paul said at an event in Iowa last week that the cuts in the bill are "wimpy and anemic" and called for slashes to other entitlements, which Trump has made clear are a red line for him. MORE: Trump's funding bill runs into Senate GOP fiscal hawks "Rand Paul has very little understanding of the BBB, especially the tremendous GROWTH that is coming. He loves voting 'NO' on everything, he thinks it's good politics, but it's not," Trump said in a post on his conservative social media platform Tuesday morning. In a separate post, Trump said Paul "never has any practical or constructive ideas." Over the weekend, Trump said that if Paul votes against the bill, "the GREAT people of Kentucky will never forgive him!" Trump is working the phones and having meetings with senators to try to get his sweeping agenda passed by Congress. The legislation extends Trump's 2017 tax cuts and boost spending for the military and border security -- while making some cuts to Medicaid, SNAP and other assistance programs. It will also add about $3.8 trillion to the federal government's $36.2 trillion in debt over the next decade, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO). Trump met with Senate Majority Leader John Thune at the White House on Monday, according to a White House official. The meeting comes as Thune faces the Herculean task of moving this House-backed bill through the Senate as expeditiously as possible. Thune has so far not made clear what his strategy will be for moving this package through the upper chamber. But as things currently stand, Thune can only afford to lose three of his GOP members to pass the package, and right now, he has more members than that expressing serious doubts about the bill. The president's outreach so far has targeted a number of senators who have publicly expressed a need to see substantive changes to the House-backed bill. Trump met with Republican Sen. Rick Scott on Monday to discuss the bill, sources confirmed to ABC News. Scott is among a group of Senate hardliners who wants to see larger cuts to government spending in this bill. Republican Sen. Ron Johnson -- who also received a call from Trump on Monday, according to the White House -- has also been vocal about his concerns that the bill doesn't go nearly far enough to slash federal spending. But anyone wishing to change the bill will have to balance the desire for spending cuts from hardliners against the calls from others in the conference who are insisting there be no cuts to Medicaid. Changes to Medicaid are one of the key ways the House bill slashes spending levels. Trump seems to be targeting this part of the GOP conference as well, speaking with Republican Sen. Josh Hawley by phone, a White House official confirmed. Hawley, who has said he opposes potential cuts to Medicaid benefits, said in a post on X after that call, that Trump "said again, NO MEDICAID BENEFIT CUTS." Trump put pressure on Republican senators to fall in line in a post on his social media site on Monday night, emphasizing that he wants the GOP tax megabill on his desk before the Fourth of July holiday. "I call on all of my Republican friends in the Senate and House to work as fast as they can to get this Bill to MY DESK before the Fourth of JULY," Trump wrote. MORE: Senate parliamentarian will have final say on some provisions in Trump's funding bill Echoing sentiments from Trump, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt on Monday suggested that Republican senators who vote against Trump's megabill will have a price to pay. "Their voters will know about it. That is unacceptable to Republican voters and all voters across the country who elected this president in a Republican majority to get things done on Capitol Hill," Leavitt told reporters. Despite expressing some displeasures about the large tax bill last week, Leavitt said Trump was keen on keeping the bill largely in-tact. "Those discussions are ongoing, but the president is not going to back down from those key priorities that he promised the American public, and they are expecting Capitol Hill to help him deliver," Leavitt said.
Yahoo
12-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Unprecedented Florida government shutdown not ‘out of the realm of possibility'
Florida could be headed towards a state government shutdown. Concerns over what would be an unprecedented failure to reach a budget agreement before the July 1st deadline come after the House and Senate announced Friday that they had scrapped a budget framework deal they'd been working towards. The Florida House is set to vote to extend the 2025 legislative session through June 30th on Tuesday. 'It's an unfortunate day. It's sad, it's disheartening,' said House Speaker Daniel Perez (R-Miami). >>> STREAM ACTION NEWS JAX LIVE <<< [DOWNLOAD: Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks] Speaker Perez pins the blame on Governor Ron DeSantis, who vowed to veto any budget that includes the House-backed permanent sales tax cut. DeSantis has suggested it could jeopardize his plan to cut or eliminate property taxes, which would have to be approved by voters in the next election. 'Here's what we care about in the House. We want to cut wasteful spending. We want to make sure it's in a recurring manner, not one time,' said Perez. UNF political science professor Dr. Michael Binder noted, while there is still time to strike a deal before the new budget year, we're likely headed for a nail-biter with lawmakers starting over from scratch this late in the year. 'This is, you know, something that isn't actually out of the realm of possibility,' said Binder. Read: US and China reach a deal to slash sky-high tariffs for now, with a 90-day pause In the event of a shutdown, everything from state parks to the DMV and schools could be impacted. Even if a deal is potentially struck before July 1st, the delay in budget certainty will likely pose challenges for school districts, local governments and state agencies as they look to craft their upcoming budgets. 'They can't even agree on a top line number of what the ultimate budget should be, before you start dividing it up and saying you get this piece, this gets that piece. We're really far away from something here,' said Binder. Speaking Monday, Governor DeSantis suggested he remains optimistic a deal will be reached in time. He argued causing a government shutdown would be 'politically really, really dumb'. 'All you have to do is just copy and paste what's been done. Yeah, do little flourishes on it of course, but this is not like you're having to reinvent the wheel,' said DeSantis. And as Dr. Binder noted, the true deadline to reach a budget deal is June 27th, as lawmakers have to wait 72 hours after publishing the budget before they can take a final vote on it. Read: $95M Apple settlement deadline looms; how you can get your slice from the Siri recording case Read: Miami LB Adarius Hayes released from hospital following car crash that left 3 people including 2 children dead [SIGN UP: Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter] Click here to download the free Action News Jax news and weather apps, click here to download the Action News Jax Now app for your smart TV and click here to stream Action News Jax live.
Boston Globe
26-03-2025
- Business
- Boston Globe
House revisits prescription drugs but drops Healey tax plans
'I'm not a doctor ... but I subscribe to the Hippocratic Oath. I do no harm, first. That's why in our House budget coming out, we won't include any taxes on prescription drugs in our budget. That means no arbitrary taxes tied to a drug's list price, or on our consumers filling prescriptions,' Mariano said Wednesday. Advertisement Mariano told reporters after his speech that the House has looked at similar ideas in the past and decided against them, and at least once voted against an amendment to a bill that was similar to the governor's pharmacy assessment. 'It doesn't help,' he said. 'We're concerned about competitiveness and people residing and staying in Massachusetts, and adding two dollars to a prescription just based on the fact that you have to have a prescription — it was not something we wanted to do. It's the wrong message.' Asked if those concerns around competitiveness influence how he is looking at Healey's other tax proposals in the fiscal 2026 budget, Mariano responded, 'Yes, absolutely.' The speaker's declarations came midway through public hearings on the governor's budget, and weeks before a House Ways and Means Committee redraft of the bill is due to be released. Advertisement The governor recommended newly applying the sales tax to candy for an estimated $20 million in revenue, applying tobacco taxes to synthetic nicotine pouches, and capping how much taxpayers could claim under a charitable deduction, which officials say is worth up to $164 million. General tax collections outside of the income tax on high earners have slowed, returning to pre-pandemic levels of growth, while spending appetites remain high — and budget writers are looking for creative ways to find revenue to support spending. 'The interesting thing is for some of them, we have a history, and it's not good. We've never supported, I know at least twice we've voted down the sugar tax, so you can extrapolate from that,' Mariano responded. The speaker's announcement during his speech that the House would not pursue the new taxes on prescription drugs was met with applause from the audience. Representative Ann-Margaret Ferrante, the number-two Democrat on the House Ways and Means Committee, expressed concerns about the governor's proposal this month at a budget hearing, and asked how the state could avoid the charges being 'transferred onto the consumer by Big Pharma.' Administration and Finance Secretary Matthew Gorzkowicz replied that the pharmaceutical tax on manufacturers for exceeding cost growth benchmarks would allow prescription drug prices to grow at the same rate as inflation, but not to exceed inflation. 'I think that, in itself, provides a constraint that protects consumers. Again, this is in the case where we have excess drug pricing,' he said. 'In an ideal world, there'd be no penalties and there'd be no charges.' Mariano on Wednesday also announced his chamber would revisit some House-backed initiatives that didn't make it into the pharmaceutical law lawmakers hammered out late last year. Advertisement
