Latest news with #Crapo
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Senate GOP leader faces pushback after members blindsided by Trump bill
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) is facing strong pushback from members of the GOP conference over the Finance Committee's piece of President Trump's tax and spending bill, which largely ignores GOP senators' concerns about Medicaid cuts and the quick phaseout of clean-energy tax credits. Senate Republicans who raised red flags over Medicaid spending cuts the House passed say they were blindsided by the Senate's version of the bill, which would cut Medicaid by several hundred billion dollars beyond what the House proposed. They are warning that the Finance Committee's language will cause dozens of rural hospitals to close in their home states, require lower-income Americans to pay more for medical procedures and shift costs onto the states. 'I had no idea that they were going to completely scrap the House framework like this. This totally caught me by surprise. And I've talked to other senators, and that's what I've heard consistently from everybody I've talked to,' said Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), who has repeatedly warned about the impact of Medicaid cuts on his constituents and rural hospitals. 'No one was expecting this entirely new framework,' he said. Hawley and other Republicans have complained for weeks that the House cuts to Medicaid went too far and called for changes, but those warnings appeared to have little impact on Thune or Senate Finance Committee Chair Mike Crapo (R-Idaho). Instead, Thune and Crapo sided with conservatives, such as Sens. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) and Roger Marshall (R-Kan.), who called for deeper spending cuts than what the House passed. GOP lawmakers and aides ascribed Thune's decision to add even bigger spending cuts in the bill to his sensitivity to the broad desire within the Senate Republican conference for more deficit reduction. Some Senate GOP sources note that Thune won his contested race to become Senate majority leader in November by picking up more support from conservatives than his chief rival, Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas). But perhaps a more important factor in Thune's decision to move in the direction of deeper Medicaid spending cuts is that one of his top priorities is to make several corporate tax cuts in the bill permanent. Making those tax breaks permanent requires finding hundreds of billions of dollars in spending cuts to offset the cost and comply with the Senate's Byrd rule, which does not allow provisions passed under the special budget reconciliation process to add to the deficit outside the 10-year budget window. The Senate bill would permanently restore immediate deductions for research and development expenses, the 100 percent bonus depreciation for investments, and the EBITDA-based limitation on business net interest deductions. But now Thune has to find a way to get Republicans who are balking over the Medicaid cuts to support the bill. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) told reporters Tuesday she has major problems with the Medicaid language Crapo unveiled. 'I'm still not satisfied with where we are on Medicaid,' Murkowski said, calling it a 'priority' she wants to address. Murkowski has also voiced concern over language in the Senate bill to impose stricter work requirements for Medicaid beneficiaries, according to colleagues familiar with her objections to the bill. She has questioned whether states like Alaska will have enough time to implement sweeping changes, such as a requirement that adults with dependent children older than 14 show that they work, attend school or perform community service for 80 hours a month. Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) on Tuesday flagged changes to states' use of health care provider taxes as a major concern for her home state. Collins said she wants to see 'many changes' made to the bill before it comes to the floor. 'This is still a work in progress,' she said. 'I'm still asking for many, many changes.' The Center for Healthcare Quality and Payment Reform reported last month that 10 of Maine's 24 rural hospitals are in danger of closing. Hawley on Tuesday warned that nearly half of Missouri's rural hospitals would face closure if the Senate bill passes without major changes. 'It's very bad policy, and it hurts poor people,' he said. 'It's not just the right thing to do to shut down a bunch of rural hospitals to pay for tax cuts, or in this case, it's tax subsidies in the form of Green New Deal subsidies that go to private equity and hedge funds.' The objections of these senators to the bill's Medicaid provisions poses a serious challenge to Thune, who already has two 'no' votes in his conference against the bill from Sens. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Ron Johnson (R-Wis.). Paul says he won't vote for the package as long as it includes language to raise the debt ceiling by $5 trillion — a core component of the legislation. Johnson says the legislation doesn't do nearly enough to cut the federal deficit and slammed language drafted by the Finance Committee to limit the deduction for pass-through businesses to 20 percent instead of the House bill's more generous 23 percent deduction. Thune on Tuesday said he's willing to work with Collins, Murkowski, Hawley and other Republican colleagues who are asking for changes to the Medicaid spending cuts. 'We are in conversations with all of our members,' he told reporters. He said that the proposed restrictions on health care provider taxes are 'important reforms.' But he said 'we continue to hear from our members specifically on components or pieces of the bill that they would like to see modified or changed or have concerns about, and we're working through that.' He said the 'math that I'm working with' is to get 51 votes in the Senate. If Paul and Johnson vote 'no' as they're threatening, Thune could afford only one other Republican defection and still pass the bill. He controls 53 seats in the chamber. Thune also faces challenges from other Republicans who aren't happy about the quick phaseout of clean energy tax breaks, which could threaten tens of billions of dollars in investments in Republican-represented states. Sen. Shelley Moore Capito ( said she's not happy about language in the bill that would terminate the clean hydrogen production tax credit for projects that are not under construction by Dec. 31. That threatens significant federal support for the Appalachian Regional Clean Hydrogen Hub in West Virginia. 'I'm concerned, I'm just going to grab Crapo in there right now,' Capitol said while heading into a Republican lunch meeting Tuesday. 'I think I'm concerned about it.' Capito is the chair of the Senate Republican Study Committee and a member of the GOP-elected leadership. She said she wanted to hear more from constituents in West Virginia about how the Medicaid cuts would affect them. 'We're talking to the governor and others in office to see what kind of impacts this will have,' she said. Sen. Jim Justice ( told reporters Tuesday he also has concerns about the bill's changes to health care provider taxes and would not be a 'rubber stamp' for the legislation. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
The Hill
3 days ago
- Business
- The Hill
Senate GOP leader faces pushback after members blindsided by Trump bill
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) is facing strong pushback from members of the GOP conference over the Finance Committee's piece of President Trump's tax and spending bill, which largely ignores GOP senators' concerns about Medicaid cuts and the quick phaseout of clean-energy tax credits. Senate Republicans who raised red flags over Medicaid spending cuts the House passed say they were blindsided by the Senate's version of the bill, which would cut Medicaid by several hundred billion dollars beyond what the House proposed. They are warning that the Finance Committee's language will cause dozens of rural hospitals to close in their home states, require lower-income Americans to pay more for medical procedures and shift costs onto the states. 'I had no idea that they were going to completely scrap the House framework like this. This totally caught me by surprise. And I've talked to other senators, and that's what I've heard consistently from everybody I've talked to,' said Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), who has repeatedly warned about the impact of Medicaid cuts on his constituents and rural hospitals. 'No one was expecting this entirely new framework,' he said. Hawley and other Republicans have complained for weeks that the House cuts to Medicaid went too far and called for changes, but those warnings appeared to have little impact on Thune or Senate Finance Committee Chair Mike Crapo (R-Idaho). Instead, Thune and Crapo sided with conservatives, such as Sens. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) and Roger Marshall (R-Kan.), who called for deeper spending cuts than what the House passed. GOP lawmakers and aides ascribed Thune's decision to add even bigger spending cuts in the bill to his sensitivity to the broad desire within the Senate Republican conference for more deficit reduction. Some Senate GOP sources note that Thune won his contested race to become Senate majority leader in November by picking up more support from conservatives than his chief rival, Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas). But perhaps a more important factor in Thune's decision to move in the direction of deeper Medicaid spending cuts is that one of his top priorities is to make several corporate tax cuts in the bill permanent. Making those tax breaks permanent requires finding hundreds of billions of dollars in spending cuts to offset the cost and comply with the Senate's Byrd rule, which does not allow provisions passed under the special budget reconciliation process to add to the deficit outside the 10-year budget window. The Senate bill would permanently restore immediate deductions for research and development expenses, the 100 percent bonus depreciation for investments, and the EBITDA-based limitation on business net interest deductions. But now Thune has to find a way to get Republicans who are balking over the Medicaid cuts to support the bill. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) told reporters Tuesday she has major problems with the Medicaid language Crapo unveiled. 'I'm still not satisfied with where we are on Medicaid,' Murkowski said, calling it a 'priority' she wants to address. Murkowski has also voiced concern over language in the Senate bill to impose stricter work requirements for Medicaid beneficiaries, according to colleagues familiar with her objections to the bill. She has questioned whether states like Alaska will have enough time to implement sweeping changes, such as a requirement that adults with dependent children older than 14 show that they work, attend school or perform community service for 80 hours a month. Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) on Tuesday flagged changes to states' use of health care provider taxes as a major concern for her home state. Collins said she wants to see 'many changes' made to the bill before it comes to the floor. 'This is still a work in progress,' she said. 'I'm still asking for many, many changes.' The Center for Healthcare Quality and Payment Reform reported last month that 10 of Maine's 24 rural hospitals are in danger of closing. Hawley on Tuesday warned that nearly half of Missouri's rural hospitals would face closure if the Senate bill passes without major changes. 'It's very bad policy, and it hurts poor people,' he said. 'It's not just the right thing to do to shut down a bunch of rural hospitals to pay for tax cuts, or in this case, it's tax subsidies in the form of Green New Deal subsidies that go to private equity and hedge funds.' The objections of these senators to the bill's Medicaid provisions poses a serious challenge to Thune, who already has two 'no' votes in his conference against the bill from Sens. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Ron Johnson (R-Wis.). Paul says he won't vote for the package as long as it includes language to raise the debt ceiling by $5 trillion — a core component of the legislation. Johnson says the legislation doesn't do nearly enough to cut the federal deficit and slammed language drafted by the Finance Committee to limit the deduction for pass-through businesses to 20 percent instead of the House bill's more generous 23 percent deduction. Thune on Tuesday said he's willing to work with Collins, Murkowski, Hawley and other Republican colleagues who are asking for changes to the Medicaid spending cuts. 'We are in conversations with all of our members,' he told reporters. He said that the proposed restrictions on health care provider taxes are 'important reforms.' But he said 'we continue to hear from our members specifically on components or pieces of the bill that they would like to see modified or changed or have concerns about, and we're working through that.' He said the 'math that I'm working with' is to get 51 votes in the Senate. If Paul and Johnson vote 'no' as they're threatening, Thune could afford only one other Republican defection and still pass the bill. He controls 53 seats in the chamber. Thune also faces challenges from other Republicans who aren't happy about the quick phaseout of clean energy tax breaks, which could threaten tens of billions of dollars in investments in Republican-represented states. Sen. Shelley Moore Capito ( said she's not happy about language in the bill that would terminate the clean hydrogen production tax credit for projects that are not under construction by Dec. 31. That threatens significant federal support for the Appalachian Regional Clean Hydrogen Hub in West Virginia. 'I'm concerned, I'm just going to grab Crapo in there right now,' Capitol said while heading into a Republican lunch meeting Tuesday. 'I think I'm concerned about it.' Capito is the chair of the Senate Republican Study Committee and a member of the GOP-elected leadership. She said she wanted to hear more from constituents in West Virginia about how the Medicaid cuts would affect them. 'We're talking to the governor and others in office to see what kind of impacts this will have,' she said. Sen. Jim Justice ( told reporters Tuesday he also has concerns about the bill's changes to health care provider taxes and would not be a 'rubber stamp' for the legislation.
Axios
4 days ago
- Business
- Axios
Senate picks fight with House GOP on the "big, beautiful bill"
Senate Finance Chair Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) has picked a big intra-GOP fight on SALT, Medicaid and clean energy — all but ignoring some of the House's most delicate budget compromises. 🥊 Why it matters: Neither the House nor the Senate wants to go to a formal conference, but the Senate text released Monday afternoon showed just how extensive, and contentious, the conference-like negotiations will be. "That would be a big mistake," Majority Leader John Thune told Axios about an actual conference between the House and Senate. "That would drag this thing out." Zoom in: Members of the House SALT caucus were outraged that the limit was reduced from $40,000 to $10,000 in the Senate text. "Everyone knows this 10K number will have to go up. And it will," Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) said on X. 💰 To help pay for his priorities, Crapo cut deeper on Medicaid and reopened the debate on the provider tax. The House wanted to cap the provider tax threshold at 6% for Medicaid expansion states, but the Senate version plans to gradually lower the threshold to 3.5% in 2031. Crapo also put limits on how much can be deducted for President Trump's key priorities — no tax on tips, no tax on overtime and no tax on seniors. On energy tax credits, Crapo wants to allow more projects to claim them before the credits sunset. Crapo also reduced the child tax credit from the House-passed $2,500 to $2,200. 🏈 Even the House's Trump-supported provision to strip sports team owners of a lucrative tax break was ignored. And on the so-called "revenge tax" on foreign subsidiaries, the Senate watered down the House language and delayed its implementation until 2027. The first test will be getting 51 senators on board, and just a few hours after the text came out, it was already on shaky ground in the Senate. "We're further away than we were before," one GOP senator told us after leaving a meeting tonight with the rest of the conference to discuss the bill. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) said he's a "no." Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) blasted the changes to Medicaid. Other Republicans were eerily quiet or said they needed time for review. Between the lines: For Democrats, the deeper cuts to Medicaid and scaled-back child tax credit are ready-made to blast the GOP.
Politico
4 days ago
- Business
- Politico
Senate Republicans cool to Finance Committee's tax plan
Senate GOP leaders are facing early pushback over a key plank of their 'big, beautiful bill' just hours after rolling it out, underscoring the work that remains to bring the legislation to the floor next week. Signs of discontent within the Republican Conference came as Senate Finance Chair Mike Crapo privately briefed his colleagues Monday night on his portion of the megabill central to enacting key elements of President Donald Trump's domestic agenda. Crapo's committee is responsible for some of the most politically consequential components of the party-line package, including changes to Medicaid, the fate of clean-energy energy tax credits and the state-and-local tax deduction that is important to high-tax state House Republicans. The briefing Monday was designed to explain the panel's rationale, answer questions and alleviate any anxieties. But immediate reaction from lawmakers across the ideological spectrum upon that meeting's conclusion indicated leadership has a ways to go — especially as Republicans still hope to meet their self-imposed July Fourth deadline for clearing the larger bill for Trump's signature. 'We're not doing anything to significantly alter the course of the financial future of this country,' Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) told reporters Monday evening, adding that the current Senate Finance proposal 'does not meet the moment' and that he would vote no if it came to the floor as is. Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), who has drawn public red lines over any overhauls to Medicaid resulting in potential losses in benefits, described himself as 'alarmed' by the committee's new plan, which would go further than the House bill on making changes to the health care safety net program. 'This needs a lot of work. It's really concerning and I'm really surprised by it. … I'd be really interested to see what the president thinks of it,' said Hawley, who has previously said that Trump personally told him the bill should not cut Medicaid benefits. Senate Republicans agreed to nothing in the Monday night meeting, according to attendees, with Senate Majority Leader John Thune and Crapo both emphasizing that Republicans were engaged in an ongoing negotiation — both among themselves and with their House counterparts, who passed their version of the megabill last month. Thune afterward summed up his message to the conference as: 'We gotta get this done.' Sen. John Hoeven (R-N.D.), in describing Crapo and Thune's messaging at the briefing, said, 'They're really patient. They are listening to everyone's ideas. And they're still working on it — it's still a work in progress.' Crapo's bill would, among other things, scale back some of Trump's campaign promises on creating new tax breaks for tips and overtime. He is also seeking to soften the House-passed bill's endowment tax hike and include a smaller increase on the Child Tax Credit. Senators also pitched Crapo and Thune at the Monday meeting on their own ideas about what they still want to see in the bill. Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.), a member of leadership, said the meeting 'wasn't hostile' but lawmakers told Crapo and Thune, 'I've got questions.'' Lankford added, 'Some people were like, 'I want to go even more.' … But somebody else would step up and say, 'that's already farther than I want to be able to go.'' Thune wants to put the bill on the floor next week, when he can only lose three GOP senators and still ensure the measure's passage. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) is widely expected to vote 'no.' And based on the early reaction to both the tax portion of the megabill, Thune still has work to do to shore up his whip count elsewhere, too. Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), who shares Johnson's concerns about spending too much and not reducing the deficit enough, said he also doesn't believe the emerging Senate megabill framework goes far enough on Medicaid. Scott suggested that lawmakers should reconsider attaching a provision to the bill that would scale back the 90 percent of Medicaid expansion costs covered by the federal government. This policy change would yield major savings to offset the legislation's heavy price tag, but was deemed too politically toxic to follow through on in the House. 'The only way this is going to get fixed is — we've got to say the 90-10 match doesn't make any sense,' Scott said after the closed-door meeting. Elsewhere in the conference, Hawley and other Senate Republicans are squeamish about the Senate Finance plan to draw down the provider tax and how that would impact funding for rural hospitals. Many states use this tax to help fund their Medicaid programs. Sen. Susan Collins of Maine largely declined to comment as she left the meeting, but asked if she still had concerns about the provider tax, she said: 'Yes, I do.' And while she credited leadership with consulting closely with her as they drafted the Finance draft text, conceded they didn't heed her on every demand: 'Sometimes yes, sometimes no.' The Senate Finance Committee text released Monday also would soften the House version's phaseout of Biden-era clean-energy tax credits, where members of the House Freedom Caucus won eleventh-hour concessions from leadership to pursue more aggressive rollbacks of the green incentives. The Senate panel's proposed language would constitute its own concession to some purple-state and moderate Republicans who have warned that the House bill would undercut businesses that have already made investments based on certainty around the climate law subsidies. But GOP leadership's attempts to find a middle ground sparked public pushback from Sen. Mike Lee, with the Utah Republican writing on X, 'Extending these subsidies beyond the Trump administration effectively makes them permanent Who else did *not* vote for that?' Complicating matters: It's not just Senate Republicans who are crying foul over details of the Senate Finance proposal. House Republicans are warning, too, that the committee's initial draft text that put the SALT dedication cap at $10,000 is a nonstarter in their chamber, where Speaker Mike Johnson cut a deal to raise it to $40,000. Republicans tried to mollify their House counterparts Monday by noting that their initial offer was just a stand-in as they continue discussing a different cap all sides could live with. Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) said that he had also been in touch that very day with Rep. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.), who panned the Senate proposal as 'dead on arrival.' 'That was just a placeholder,' Mullin said. 'I talked to Mike about it. We understand.' House Ways and Means Chair Jason Smith (R-Mo.), in a social media post late Monday, offered congratulations to Crapo on his chamber's opening bid. 'We've worked closely together for months to reach agreement on key provisions, while understanding the work that remains to be done to achieve consensus between both chambers of Congress and get this bill on the President's desk,' said the House's chief tax writer. 'We will thread that needle to respect the needs of both bodies in the days ahead. Benjamin Guggenheim contributed to this report.
Politico
4 days ago
- Business
- Politico
Senate Finance unveils committee's portion of GOP megabill
Senate Finance Committee Chair Mike Crapo on Monday unveiled changes to how the GOP's 'big, beautiful bill' would execute a major tax revamp and Medicaid cuts — two of the thorniest policy fights in the sweeping legislation. The release comes after closed-door negotiations between Crapo and his colleagues over how to the version of the megabill mmigration, energy and defense legislation approved late last month by the House. Senate Republicans are under pressure to make minimal changes, given their party's thin hold of the other chamber. But that could be difficult for some senators eager to put their own imprint on the legislation, and who have long viewed House tax bills as little more than first drafts in need of heavy editing.
