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Yahoo
2 days ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
What to know as the Senate tries to pass Trump's agenda bill next week
It's go time in the Senate for President Donald Trump's 'big, beautiful bill.' After months of negotiations, Senate Republicans are gearing up for a potential vote next week on Trump's sweeping domestic policy bill. It will be a major test for Republican Leader John Thune and Trump's own hold on the upper chamber that aides say will be cast as a binary choice for the rank-and-file: you either are with the president or you aren't. Thune has predicted the Senate could begin consideration on the bill as early as the middle of next week. That would mean a massive sprint starting this weekend to draft final text, whip votes and iron out a series of major sticking points that will satisfy holdouts – without pushing the bill in such a different direction that it stalls out in the House of Representatives where it passed by a single vote. The bottom line is next week is crunch time and all the hard decisions that have been punted will need to be made in the next several days. Aides and members say that if everything goes according to plan (and that's far from certain), the 20-hour clock to debate the bill could start as soon as Wednesday. Republicans would yield a big part of their time back and vote-a-rama – an hours-long voting marathon – could begin Thursday evening into Friday. That could always get pushed into Friday evening, but right now the goal is to have this finished by the end of next week. Over the next several days, a myriad of technical work and hard-fought negotiations have to unfold in order to get the bill to a place where it is even ready for the floor. Some of these negotiations will be substantial, others will be a way to give members an off-ramp to vote 'yes' because members really do want to back the president here. One of those tasks is already underway and will continue this weekend: the Byrd Bath. Simply put, the Byrd bath is a critical process led by the Senate parliamentarian that ensures all the provisions of the bill comply with special Senate rules that allow Republicans to move this bill with a simple majority rather than being subject to the normal 60-vote threshold. Those rules are specific and nuanced, but the Budget Control Act set parameters that required provisions within a bill that is going to pass with a simple majority to have more than just an 'incidental' budget impact. The parliamentarian traditionally makes a call on whether a provision qualifies. It's named after the late Democratic Sen. Robert Byrd of West Virginia, who came up with the rule to stop either side from abusing the reconciliation process and trying to use it to just pass legislation that bypassed a filibuster. The way it works is Democrats and Republican staffers of each committee with jurisdiction in the bill privately meet with the parliamentarian and make their arguments for whether provisions meet the confines of the process. The Senate Finance Committee is expected to undertake this process Sunday evening, a critical step in moving forward because so many of the tax and health care provisions that are the heart of this bill are in Finance's purview. Several other committees have already begun, including the Senate Banking Committee, which Democrats say led to some of the provisions in that committee's jurisdiction from being ruled out of compliance with reconciliation. 'The Parliamentarian agreed that the funding cap for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), elimination of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB), gutting of the Office of Financial Research and Financial Stability Oversight Council, and slashing Federal Reserve staff salaries violate the Senate's Byrd Rule,' Sen. Elizabeth Warren's office announced in a statement. State and local tax deductions: This may be the biggest hurdle right now. Unlike in the House, where a number of swing district members hail from high-tax states, there is absolutely no interest in the Senate in investing hundreds of billions of dollars to raise the cap on how much constituents in New York, California, New Jersey and Illinois can deduct in state and local taxes on their federal taxes. The Senate bill currently keeps the cap frozen at $10,000, a placeholder that Senate leaders have indicated they may be willing to negotiate on. But the coalition of House Republicans who raised the cap to $40,000 for certain income thresholds under $500,000 aren't interested in renegotiating the hard-fought deal they cemented in the House. Sen. Markwayne Mullin, a Republican from Oklahoma and former House member, has been leading the talks over the issue, but so far there is no deal. There is some discussion, two sources say, over dialing back the income threshold for who qualifies for the $40,000 deduction but so far that's been a nonstarter for the group of House Republicans who got this concession in the House bill a few weeks ago. To say there is palpable frustration in the Senate with a handful of House members dictating the future of a provision in the Senate bill that no one in that chamber cares much about is putting it mildly. Medicaid: A number of Senate Republicans have made clear they could vote against the Senate bill if there aren't protections to ensure rural hospitals are protected from some of the changes to Medicaid in the bill, like the slash to how much hospitals can be held harmless when it comes to the provider tax. Led by Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, a group of these Republicans are pushing leadership to create a kind of stabilization fund that states could use. Aides close to the process say that it could go a long way to win over some skeptical Republicans, including people like Sen. Jim Justice of West Virginia and Missouri Republican Sen. Josh Hawley. The particulars of how the fund would be structured and how much it would cost are still being considered and it's important to note that the fund helps hospital but wouldn't do much for others who could lose coverage because of other changes to Medicaid, including new work requirements. Green energy tax credits: While the Senate bill takes a slower approach to phasing out some of the clean energy tax credits that were a key part of the Biden administration's environmental legacy, there are still some Republicans who have warned that some of the phaseouts may happen too quickly. Other conservatives have warned that they need to be eradicated more expeditiously, setting up a massive clash and one that could rear its head again if the Senate passes a bill that ultimately doesn't go as far as the House did. A last-minute negotiation is ultimately what got House conservatives to vote for the bill so any changes to the timeline could be an issue when the bill goes back to the House. Once the Senate passes its version of Trump's bill, it will go over to the House. There, Speaker Mike Johnson and his GOP conference will have to decide whether to back the new bill – or begin the drawn-out process of trying to negotiate. Do they swallow the Senate's big changes and allow the bill to move quickly to Trump's desk for a huge policy win? Or do they fight for their own version and begin the rigorous, and time-consuming, process of a conference committee, where both chambers will formally iron out their differences? Johnson and Trump are both hoping to avoid the latter option – but will the fractious House GOP conference agree?
Fox News
14-03-2025
- Business
- Fox News
DOGE joins budget battle on side of Defense Department
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth is trying to harness two seemingly untamable forces: the Pentagon and the Department of Government Efficiency. First, he ordered the military to reallocate 8% of its budget away from low-priority items like climate change to better align with President Donald Trump's "America First" programs. If implemented, the budget shift would result in a 40% adjustment toward funding Trump's priorities over DOD's standard five-year defense program. Hegseth emphasized that his directive is "not a cut." Instead, he is "refocusing and reinvesting existing funds into building the force." Second, Hegseth has acknowledged that DOGE had officially entered the Pentagon. DOGE, he explained, would "be incorporated" into DOD efforts "to find fraud, waste and abuse in the largest discretionary budget in the federal government." Hegseth is shrewdly attempting to leverage the power of DOGE and implement a much-needed comprehensive reform of the Pentagon budget. His reallocation plan assumes that savings from wasteful and unnecessary programs should be large enough to fend off pressure for more harmful cuts, potentially in areas essential for warfighting. His success will hinge on whether DOGE will embrace Hegseth's 8% budget reallocation plan or if it demands blanket cuts on the Pentagon. President Trump, who has indicated he will allow his cabinet secretaries to take the first crack at cuts instead of DOGE, will be the pivotal player in Hegseth's gambit. Hegseth's position is similar to another reform-minded Defense Secretary, Robert Gates. Fifteen years ago, Gates warned that after a decade of war in Iraq and Afghanistan "the gusher of defense spending" was over. With budget cuts looming, Gates reached an agreement with President Barack Obama that any efficiency and overhead savings he found could be reinvested back into force structure and modernization priorities — rather than used as an excuse to shrink the Pentagon budget. Gates found $100 billion in savings by reducing Pentagon contractors, canceling weapons programs like the Marine expeditionary fighting vehicle, and shuttering excess organizations like Joint Forces Command, but Obama reneged on his promise. He argued he could not justify real growth in the defense budget amid a debt crisis. Nine months later, Obama signed the Budget Control Act into law, with disastrous consequences for defense. In the 10 years after the BCA was enacted, the Pentagon's budget was cut by 14%, totaling nearly $1 trillion. Trump will determine whether his team repeats the same mistake as Obama and Gates. Unlike 2010, the stakes are even higher and there is a consensus in Washington that America needs a military buildup to confront China's unprecedented military modernization. Over the past two years, the PRC has enjoyed a 15% increase in its defense budget. This year China's defense budget growth will outpace China's economic growth, revealing where Xi's real priorities lie. Congress appears to be doing its part to help. The reconciliation process underway on Capitol Hill may add $150 billion in defense dollars over the next decade. Reconciliation is an opportunity to move beyond the perennially dysfunctional annual defense authorization and appropriation bills. The multi-year funding measure would allow the Pentagon to recapitalize an industrial base that has not seen an upgrade since the 1980s. Defense funding in a reconciliation measure is especially critical to these priorities because, as Hegseth warned, substantial defense increases may not be coming in the president's own budget request. That reality explains why Hegseth has said the Pentagon may have to make do with the resources already available and "make sure that every dollar goes further." Hegseth's order could reallocate at least $50 billion this fiscal year and nearly $250 billion over the life of the defense program. Internal efficiencies along the lines of what Gates found more than a decade ago combined with capital increases from a reconciliation measure could deliver transformative results: a leaner, more agile Pentagon now able to recapitalize the industrial base, deploy new technologies and catalyze other underfunded priorities like munitions production critical to a China fight. A predictable flow of capital would go a long way toward realizing Trump administration priorities like expanding shipbuilding capacity and the Golden Dome national missile defense system. Trump has declared "we will again build the strongest military the world has ever seen. We will measure our success not only by the battles we win but also by the wars we end — and perhaps most importantly, the wars we never get into.." Whether DOGE prunes away DoD's excess waste and inefficiencies or is an anvil that smashes through Pentagon programs – good and bad alike – is in President Trump's hands. He uniquely can prevent the mistakes of his predecessors and allow the Pentagon to reinvest in itself and carry out the goal outlined in his platform to "Strengthen and modernize our military, making it, without question, the strongest and most powerful in the world." Michael Stanton is a research assistant at the Reagan Institute.
