“I met with the Senate Republicans, all my colleagues over there last week … and I encouraged them, you know, to do their work, of course, as we all anticipate, but to make as few modifications to this package as possible,” Speaker Mike Johnson told CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday morning.
“We’ve gotta pass it one more time to ratify their changes in the House, and I have a very delicate balance here — very delicate equilibrium,” the speaker added with a laugh, referring to his three-seat majority. “It’s best not to meddle with it too much.”
Republican senators don’t seem to care what the speaker has to say, however.
On the same Sunday program, the New York Sun reported Senator Ron Johnson said the spending levels in the bill were “immoral” and “wrong” because of the increased deficit spending included in it.
“My campaign promise in 2010 and every campaign after that was to stop mortgaging our children’s future. It’s immoral, it’s wrong, it has to stop,” Senator Johnson said. “I’m extremely worried about that. That is my primary goal [in] running for Congress.”
“This is our moment,” he added, calling on his colleagues to crack down on federal spending now rather than at some future unknown date. “This is our only chance to reset that to a reasonable pre-pandemic level of spending.”
Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky also said that he cannot vote for the legislation in its current form, not only because of the cuts to spending levels — which he calls wimpy” and “anemic” — but because of the inclusion of a debt limit hike in the reconciliation package.
“There’s gotta be someone left in Washington who thinks debt is wrong, deficits are wrong, and wants to go in the other direction,” Mr. Paul said on “Fox News Sunday” about his objections to the House legislation.
“Somebody has to stand up and yell, ‘The emperor has no clothes!’ and everybody’s falling into lockstep on this,” Senator Paul said. He confirmed that if the debt limit provision was stripped from the bill, he would “consider” voting for the legislation, though he also made it clear that he would not enjoy doing so if he got to that point.
“Conservatives do need to stand up and have their voice heard. This is a problem we’ve been facing for decades now, and if we don’t stand up on it, I really fear the direction the country is going,” he added.
To further complicate things, several moderate Republicans have said the spending cuts and reforms to Medicaid have already gone too far in the House version of the bill.
The usual suspects, Senators Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins, said their states rely heavily on Medicaid for rural health programs and hospitals which must be protected. But in a surprising development Senators Josh Hawley and Jerry Moran also opposed reducing Medicaid spending, with the usually conservative Hawley calling any effort to cut Medicaid “morally wrong and politically suicidal.”
- Big Beautiful Bill
- Freedom Caucus
- Conservative Holdouts
- Rep. Chip Roy
- Art of the Deal
- Josh Brecheen,
- Andrew Clyde,
- Ralph Norman,
- Lloyd Smucker (Pa.)
- Committee Review
- SALT tax
- Blue State taxes
- Medicaid cuts
- illegal immigrants eligibility
- Rep. Ken Calvert
- Senator Josh Hawley
- Energy subsidies
- Work requirements
