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Fox News
7 days ago
- Business
- Fox News
One-on-One: Senator Markwayne Mullin
The Senate returned to Capitol Hill on Monday with a new mission at the top of their agenda: uniting behind President Trump's 'one big, beautiful bill.' It took Congress weeks to narrowly agree on the legislation, passing it with a thin 215-214 vote. Many Senate Republicans have been vocal that they will not support the bill as it currently stands. So, what will the major sticking points be for the Senate GOP? Will the modifications they make to the bill lead to it being sent back to the House? Senator Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) breaks down the Senate's main concerns with the bill, the challenges that come with navigating the Senate's budget reconciliation rules, and why he remains confidently optimistic that the Senate will pass a bill that aligns with President Trump's priorities. Follow Bret on X: @BretBaier
Yahoo
02-06-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
The week ahead: Hot button bills face lawmakers in final, regular week of business
The final week of regular business for the New Hampshire Legislature features showdown debates on many top issues, from parental rights and mandatory prison terms for drug dealers, to a 'bell-to-bell' ban on cellphone use in public schools and universal access to Education Freedom Accounts (EFAs). While much of the attention at the State House will be on the finishing touches to a proposed two-year state budget in the Senate, lawmakers face a Thursday deadline for final action on all other bills. Once they clear those decks, the closing weeks of the session will come down to the work of committees of conference to be named to thrash out differences between competing versions of the same bill. Gov. Kelly Ayotte has listed parental rights as a priority issue for her to achieve in 2025 and the House and Senate each have their own versions (HB 10 and SB 72) to debate this week. The real battle is in the House where House Child and Family Law Committee Chair Debra DeSimone, R-Atkinson, has crafted a compromise said to have the backing of Senate GOP leaders. DeSimone defended the most controversial provision that could prevent minors from being able to obtain contraception without parental consent. 'Disastrous consequences' 'No children should ever be prescribed any medical procedures or medication without parental consent to protect all children from undue and unnecessary harm by parental knowledge and information provided concerning family history,' DeSimone said. 'This bill is necessary to continue to build a strong, healthy society.' Rep. Heather Raymond, D-Nashua, said such a policy could have disastrous consequences. 'In states like Texas which now require parental permission for birth control, teen pregnancy rates have increased along with the rates of maternal and infant death,' said Raymond, noting that New Hampshire has the lowest teen birth rate in the U.S. House Criminal Justice and Public Safety Chairman Terry Roy, R-Deerfield, has reworked a bill (SB 14) that also has Ayotte's backing to impose longer minimum mandatory prison sentences for possessing large amounts of fentanyl or selling drugs that cause someone's death. 'It's time for New Hampshire to reclaim its place in New England as the state that dealers fear to tread,' Roy said. Roy's proposal would allow a judge to impose a more lenient sentence if the offender met several conditions including a clean record prior to this latest conviction. 'Under this bill, if a defendant is cooperative with law enforcement, not a leader in a drug dealing organization, does not have a recent conviction for the same thing, and the charges do not involve violence, a judge is free to use their discretion,' Roy said. Rep. Buzz Scherr, D-Portsmouth and an appellate law expert, said the bill is a political talking point, not an answer to dealing with deadly overdoses. 'Mandatory minimums for fentanyl continue to have a superficial political attraction as an easy solution, but, they always fail in practice,' Scherr said. 'We do not need to spend even more money on prisons for a solution that doesn't work.' Firearms training in public schools Roy championed another sweeping and controversial provision, adopting a mandatory one-hour firearms training course in K-12. A former police officer, Roy attached his provision as an amendment to an unrelated bill (SB 54) that would increase the penalty for someone accused of driving drunk who refuses to take a blood alcohol test. The House and Senate will each vote on two bills (SB 295 and HB 115) allowing all families regardless of income to receive a taxpayer-paid scholarship to help offset their student attending a private, religious, alternative public or home school program The House is likely to approve Ayotte's approach to cellphone use, which is to direct school boards to adopt policies that restrict access throughout the school day (SB 206). Both the House and Senate have passed versions of a more lenient reform that would give school boards more latitude on when they would be accessible. Democrats on the House Finance Committee oppose this latest idea because Republicans rejected their attempt to carve out an exemption for any teacher who wanted to incorporate cellphone use into a specific lesson plan. In other actions: • Mandatory mask policies (HB 361): The Senate is likely to pass this House-endorsed bill to block school districts from requiring mask wearing; former Gov. Chris Sununu vetoed an identical bill last year; • Capital budget (HB 25): The Senate will vote on its version of a two-year budget for public works projects financed by state, federal and fee-backed bonds. • Risk pools (SB 297): Secretary of State David Scanlan opposes and HealthTrust, the largest risk pool, supports this bill to allow either regulation by Scanlan or the Insurance Department of these programs that offer health, property or liability insurance to governmental units. klandrigan@
The Hill
01-06-2025
- Business
- The Hill
6 Senate Republicans who could hold up Trump's ‘big, beautiful bill'
Senate Republicans will take control of the party's mammoth tax and domestic policy bill when they return to Washington on Monday — and seek to win over a diverse group of GOP lawmakers agitating for changes to the legislation. Members are staring down a key four-week stretch to hammer out provisions of the bill, with their Fourth of July goal in sight and pressure mounting to complete President Trump's top domestic agenda priority. The bill narrowly passed the House last month after Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) struck a fragile compromise with different factions of his conference. But there are still Senate Republicans who could gum up the works as Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) works to shepherd the legislation through the upper chamber with only three votes to spare. Here's a look at a half-dozen of those lawmakers to watch in the coming weeks. Murkowski, one of the foremost Senate GOP moderates, is atop the list of the members Thune and his leadership team will have to win over, and she has already indicated she has a number of concerns. Although Murkowski voted for the Senate GOP's budget resolution — which served as the blueprint for the bill — in early April, she told reporters she was worried about three items. Among those is the impact of potential Medicaid work requirements, as she believes her state will have trouble implementing them due to its outdated payment systems for the program. 'There are provisions in there that are very, very, very challenging if not impossible for us to implement,' Murkowski said. She has also expressed worries about what the Medicaid changes could mean for tribal communities in her state, which are heavily reliant on Medicaid for health coverage. On top of that, she and three of her colleagues have expressed concerns with language in the House bill that would nix wind, solar and geothermal energy tax credits that were put in place by the Inflation Reduction Act. He's not a name that usually ends up on these lists, but Hawley has been perhaps the most vocal member of the Senate GOP conference about potential cuts to Medicaid benefits. He has maintained that the Medicaid cuts are a red line for him in backing the final package — even as conservatives in the House have shown an interest in taking a hatchet to the health care program. And he has a key player in the entire effort seemingly on his side. 'We ought to just do what the president says,' Hawley told reporters last month after the House passed the bill. Two days earlier, Trump had told House Republicans in a closed-door meeting to 'leave Medicaid alone.' Hawley added that he spoke with Trump about the state of play. 'His exact words were, 'Don't touch it, Josh,'' Hawley told reporters. 'I said, 'Hey, we're on the same page.'' Hawley has also shown a willingness to take that stand on the floor. During the chamber's first vote-a-rama in February, Hawley sided with Democrats on an amendment that would have prevented tax cuts for wealthy Americans if Medicaid funding is slashed. Any cuts to Medicaid beneficiaries would hit the Show Me State hard in particular given that 21 percent of Missourians rely on the program or the Children's Health Insurance Program, the companion insurance program for lower-income children. Collins stands out as one of only two Republicans — along with Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) — to vote against the party's budget resolution in April, though she is the far more likely of the two to vote 'aye' when push comes to shove on final passage. The Maine Republican has continuously expressed opposition to reductions in federal Medicaid funding and shifting costs to the states, sounding the alarm on the effect doing so would have on her state's rural hospitals. Maine's rural hospitals intensely rely on the health care program, and cuts could deal a crippling blow, she argues. Collins cited that issue in her vote against the budget blueprint, and she has kept up the drumbeat. 'Medicaid is a critically important program for Maine's health care system and a vital resource for many seniors, low-income families, disabled patients, and those who cannot work,' Collins said in a statement at the time. 'I cannot support proposals that would create more duress for our hospitals and providers that are already teetering on the edge of insolvency.' She said last week, on the eve of the House passing the measure, that 'we're still trying to figure out what the provider tax reforms are, but I'm very worried about our rural hospitals in Maine.' Collins was also the only other Senate Republican to vote with Hawley and Democrats for the vote-a-rama Medicaid amendment in February. Her up-in-the-air standing is nothing new for the GOP, especially on a single-party effort. Eight years ago, Collins was a split decision on the GOP's two reconciliation bills. She voted alongside Murkowski and the late Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) against the party's plan to repeal the Affordable Care Act. Months later, though, she backed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. The GOP's current tax agenda would likely make those 2017 cuts permanent. If there's one Republican senator who is the most likely to oppose the package at the end of the day, it's Paul. The Kentucky Republican has been a loud critic of the bill over its inclusion of a debt ceiling hike and lack of deficit reduction. Paul has made clear that his red line for any bill is a debt ceiling increase. But Republicans on both sides of the Capitol are seemingly intent on following through on Trump's wishes to include it and help the party avoid giving Democratic concessions in any possible negotiation. This means that without any changes, Paul will be a 'no,' and Senate GOP leaders have less breathing room than they had hoped, capping their votes at 52 in the process. 'I've told them if they'll take the debt ceiling off of it, I'll consider voting for it,' Paul said last week after the House vote about his talks with GOP leadership. 'It's not conservative; I can't support it.' 'The spending reductions are imperfect, and I think wimpy, but I'd still vote for the package if I didn't have to vote to raise the debt ceiling,' he added. Senate GOP leaders have long had to worry about the concerns of moderates, but it's Johnson and his fellow conservatives who are making their complaints known over what they view as unacceptable levels of cuts. Johnson has not gone nearly as far as Paul in saying he is prepared to oppose a final bill, but he has hinted that conservatives may throw their weight around. 'We need to be responsible, and the first goal of our budget reconciliation process should be to reduce the deficit,' Johnson told CNN last weekend. 'This actually increases it.' 'I think we have enough [senators] to stop the process until the president gets serious about the spending reduction and reducing the deficit,' Johnson added. Johnson has been vocal about his desire to see greater spending reductions, pointing to the roughly $4 trillion the bill would add to the deficit in its current form. He has voiced a preference to move toward pre-COVID spending levels, arguing that this is the U.S.'s last chance to do so. Tillis, a moderate-leaning senator eyeing what could be a close reelection race in 2026, has aired multiple points of concern, headlined by the axing of energy tax incentives in the bill. He has told colleagues that the swift termination of the credits enacted by the Inflation Reduction Act will cause major harm to numerous companies in North Carolina and force them to scramble after years of planning. He pointed specifically to former President Biden's abrupt killing of the Keystone XL Pipeline four years ago and how it has left investors second-guessing whether to back similar projects. 'A wholesale repeal, or the termination of certain individual credits, would create uncertainty, jeopardizing capital allocation, long-term project planning, and job creation in the energy sector and across our broader economy,' Tillis, Murkowski and Sen. John Curtis (R-Utah) wrote to Thune back in early April. Adding to the drama for Tillis, he is staring down one of the two most contentious Senate races on the 2026 map, forcing him to shore up potential weak points as Democrats look to pounce — and giving leadership an incentive to hand him a win for his voters back home.
Yahoo
14-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Ron Johnson is threatening to tank the GOP megabill. He's been here before.
Ron Johnson is no stranger to being a squeaky wheel inside the Senate GOP. Now he's asking for trillions of dollars worth of grease. The frequently cantankerous Wisconsin senator is pushing his fellow Republicans to deliver huge spending cuts as part of their party-line domestic policy bill — and vowing to block President Donald Trump's top legislative priority if his demands, which are shared by a small cadre of fiscal hawks, aren't met. As the megabill moves through the House, Johnson's increasingly vocal warnings are an early indicator for Senate GOP leaders and the White House that they've got major headaches awaiting across the Capitol. Senate Republicans can only afford three defections on the expected party-line vote. 'I think there's enough of us that would say, 'No, that's not adequate,'' Johnson said in an interview where he described his insistence on returning the federal government to 'pre-pandemic' level of spending. The math issue that creates for Republicans is stark: The House GOP is struggling to hit $1.5 trillion in spending cuts, while Johnson and his allies want to go much, much further. Returning to the level of federal expenditures that predates multiple rounds of pandemic stimulus, a major infrastructure bill and the Democrats' own domestic-policy megabill would, by Johnson's own estimation, require more than $6 trillion in cuts. GOP leaders might laugh off such an audacious demand if Johnson didn't have a history of getting what he wants. The last time Republicans wrote a party-line tax bill, in 2017, he vowed to oppose the package as he pushed for better treatment of so-called 'pass-through' businesses, which comprise most privately held companies. Formerly an executive for a Oshkosh plastics manufacturer, Johnson argued that the bill needed to benefit smaller businesses as much as it would benefit large corporations that were in line to get a major rate cut. His hardball tactics paid off big time: Republicans ultimately included a new 20 percent deduction rate for pass-through business income, an estimated $414 billion line item in the $1.5 trillion Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. Now, with key TCJA provisions expiring, he's asking for roughly 10 times the fiscal impact, and his colleagues have learned not to brush him off. 'He's as serious as a heart attack," said Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.), who credited Johnson for driving a hard bargain back in 2017. But he also suggested any Republican would have a hard time standing in the way of the party's top legislative priority: "Sometimes when confronted with a binary choice people compromise a little more." While Johnson is setting his sights in the multi-trillion-dollar range, he's hinting that a substantially smaller settlement might be possible: He suggested in an interview that lawmakers could enshrine a chunk of the overall cuts in the pending GOP bill while also setting up a bicameral commission to find the rest by going 'line-by-line' through the federal budget. 'Elon Musk is showing us how to do this right?' he said. 'You expose, 'Whoa, what are we doing spending money on that?'' he said. But Johnson hasn't yet found buy-in for that idea from colleagues who have been burned by one too many deficit-cutting commissions that ultimately sputtered. The response he's gotten, he said, is 'we don't have time to do it.' 'Well, okay then, I don't have the support for the bill,' Johnson said. GOP leaders believe they have a strategy to navigate around Johnson, which goes back to their decision to bundle together wildly disparate parts of their domestic agenda — tax cuts, border security upgrades, deportation funding, energy incentives, Pentagon plus-ups and more. That, they believe, will make it too big to fail. But Johnson had a less optimistic metaphor as he gaggled with reporters on Wednesday, saying it instead 'might be like the Titanic and may be going down." Johnson has instead repeatedly floated breaking up the bill into two or three or more pieces — something that would force GOP leaders in both chambers to abandon a hard-fought budget blueprint and go back to the drawing board. He's no stranger to playing the skunk-at-the-garden-party role inside the Senate GOP. Abandoned by national party committees during his 2016 Senate run, he has long felt unusually free to chart his own path and sometimes critique his own party's leadership. He's used his leadership posts on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee to pursue matters top GOP leaders would otherwise just leave alone — most recently conspiracy theories related to the 9/11 terror attacks. Johnson's not the only potential Senate Republican holdout GOP leaders are dealing with on the 'big, beautiful bill.' Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky is all but guaranteed to be a 'no' after opposing the budget blueprint. Several others are viewed as potential swing votes, including Republican Sens. Josh Hawley of Missouri, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine. Asked about the House bill, Murkowski quipped, 'It's not beautiful yet.' Senators are expected to make changes to the House bill, if and when it comes over, meaning Johnson will have an opportunity to put his stamp on the legislation. He's a member of the Finance Committee, which has broad jurisdiction over both taxes and health care, where the GOP is looking to reap most of the savings. Senate Majority Leader John Thune, another Finance member who put a big stamp on the 2017 bill, said Republicans are looking to end up with spending cuts on the 'north end' of the $1.5 trillion to $2 trillion range. "We take all our members seriously,' Thune said about Johnson. 'I know it's a huge priority for him, which is why I've suggested all along that [the House] prioritize spending cuts in the package.' Republicans, of course, are also betting that Trump can ultimately force the fiscal hawks, who are typically more MAGA-aligned than moderates like Collins and Murkowski, to stand down. That's what happened earlier this year when the budget plan was teetering, and Johnson was invited with other fiscal hard-liners on the Budget Committee to meet with Trump at the White House. Johnson was among them, and he, too, eventually fell in line. Now, he says, he's determined to make good on campaign promises to get the nation's fiscal house in order that date back to his first run as a tea-party-influenced political outsider in 2010. 'I'm trying to lead,' he told reporters Wednesday, adding, 'When I talk to Trump about it, he agrees with my approach.'
Yahoo
05-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Senate Dems blast GOP over late-night passage of blueprint to protect Trump agenda
Senate Democrats on Saturday blasted their GOP colleagues after the upper chamber advanced a budget blueprint overnight seeking to protect President Trump's legislative agenda. The resolution passed in the upper chamber early Saturday morning by a 51-48 vote, after the upper chamber held an hours-long 'vote-a-rama' on a series of amendments. The blueprint outlines plans to beef up border security, extend Trump's 2017 tax cuts, expand oil and gas drilling and increase defense spending. Democrats took to social media to rail against the resolution. 'Just left the Senate after voting a hard NO on the 'one big, beautiful bill,'' Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.), wrote on social platform X, referring to the president's portrayal of the blueprint. 'I will never support a bill that uses Medicare, Medicaid or SNAP cuts to pay for tax cuts for billionaires,' Fetterman, who notably backed Republican's continuing resolution to prevent a government shutdown earlier this year, added. Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) echoed the sentiment, calling the resolution a 'terrible budget plan.' 'Republicans just rammed their terrible budget plan through the Senate,' Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) wrote Saturday on X. 'It's never been more clear: they are hell bent on passing a giant tax giveaway for billionaires like Elon Musk at the expense of everybody else,' he continued. 'We won't stop fighting.' The Maryland Democrat also criticized his Republican counterparts for blocking amendments that sought to protect social programs such as Social Security, Medicaid and school lunches. 'Republicans time and again voted down our amendments to protect the American public,' he said in a video alongside the post. Sen. Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.) came to the same conclusion, condemning the GOP for going after families. 'We tried to make changes to protect Medicaid, Medicare, food assistance, and even prevent higher costs for YOU – Republicans blocked them,' she wrote early Saturday on X. 'They've made their priorities clear: billionaires win, families lose.' Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) went a step further, pegging the passage as a bended knee to Trump. 'Donald Trump has betrayed the American people. And in voting for this budget bill, Senate Republicans sided with billionaires, against the middle class, in total obeisance to Donald Trump,' Schumer wrote online. In a subsequent X post, the Democratic leader pointed to the president's latest tariff announcement and experts' warnings of a potential recession in its wake in his argument against Trump's policies. 'The odds of a recession are surging because of Trump's tariffs. And with the bill [the] Senate GOP just passed, it's a brutal Republican pincer move against American families: Trump's tariffs raising costs on one side, and Senate GOP cutting Medicaid and pushing billionaire tax breaks on the other,' he wrote. 'They are chaining themselves to the MAGA anchor and leaping into the ocean,' he added in a third post — while also denouncing his colleagues votes against Democrats' amendments. Meanwhile, Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) called it a 'great night for billionaires — a bad night for everyone else.' Despite the pushback, Republicans in the upper chamber have largely taken a victory lap. 'Tonight, the Senate took one small step toward reconciliation and one giant leap toward making the tax cuts permanent, securing the border, providing much-needed help for the military and finally cutting wasteful Washington spending,' Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-S.C.) wrote in a post online. 'Well done,' he added. Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) also heralded the resolution's passage, showing his support for Trump's legislative priorities. 'President Trump wants to balance the budget and decrease our debt,' Cassidy said in a statement. 'I agree.' Still, the blueprint needs to be adopted by the House before negotiations can begin on a larger bill. If both chambers agree to a joint budget resolution, it will unlock the reconciliation process and give Republicans the ability to circumvent a potential Democratic filibuster. Thus far, the House has not shown support. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
