House Speaker Mike Johnson has asked the Senate to avoid major revisions to ensure its passage in the lower chamber again.
President Donald Trump said he is open to the Senate making “fairly significant” changes to the reconciliation package that narrowly passed the House, which may complicate Speaker Mike Johnson’s (R-La.) effort to preserve what he called a “very delicate” compromise.
“I want the Senate and the senators to make the changes they want, and we'll go back to the House and we’ll see if we can get them,” Trump
told reporters on May 25 in Morristown, New Jersey. “In some cases, the changes may be something I'd agree with, to be honest.
“I think they are going to have changes. Some will be minor and some will be fairly significant.”
The House passed the bill on May 22 by a 215–214 vote along party lines. Following the passage, Johnson urged the Senate to avoid major revisions, warning that too many changes could upend the narrow margin needed to get the bill through the lower chamber again.
“We’ve got to pass it one more time to ratify their changes in the House, and I have a very delicate balance here, a very delicate equilibrium that we’ve reached over a long period of time, and it’s best not to meddle with it too much,” Johnson
told CNN’s Jake Tapper on May 25 on “State of the Union.”
Trump’s greenlighting of Senate changes may be encouraging to hardline fiscal conservatives who criticized the bill for not going far enough to balance the budget.
“This bill falls profoundly short. It does not do what we say it does with respect to deficits,” Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas)
said before voting “present” to allow the bill to advance for a full vote. “What we’re dealing with here is tax cuts and spending a massive front-loaded deficit increase.”
House Freedom Caucus Chair Andy Harris (R-Md.) also voted “present” in the House floor vote in protest. The congressman took issue with, among other things, the bill’s Medicaid overhaul that includes new work requirements that won’t take effect until 2029 and more frequent eligibility checks,
calling it a “joke” that would do little to prevent fraud and abuse.
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), who calls for
a return to pre-pandemic spending levels, said on CNN’s “State of the Union” on May 25 that he believes that there is enough GOP opposition in the Senate to block the reconciliation bill.
“I think we have enough to stop the process until the president gets serious about spending reduction and reducing the deficit,” the senator
said.
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) also said he wouldn’t support the bill without addressing its proposed $5 trillion debt ceiling hike.
“I think the cuts currently in the bill are wimpy and anemic, but I still would support the bill, even with wimpy and anemic cuts, if they weren’t going to explode the debt,” Paul
said on Fox News Sunday.
“They’re going to explode the debt. The House’s [debt-limit increase] is $4 trillion. The Senate has actually been talking about exploding the debt by $5 trillion.”
For Trump, the Senate process could be an opportunity to pursue his policy goals left out of the House package.
For one, the House bill did not close what’s known as the carried-interest tax loophole, which allows private equity, venture capital, and hedge fund managers to pay a 20 percent long-term capital gains tax rate on the gains they receive from their investments that might otherwise be taxed as ordinary income at rates up to 37 percent.
Changing it could reduce the deficit by
$13 billion over 10 years, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
Another exclusion was Trump’s proposal to create a new top tax bracket for the nation’s highest earners. While the president wants to extend the tax cuts he signed into law in 2017, he has
proposed letting the current 37 percent top marginal rate expire and revert to 39.6 percent for individuals earning more than $2.5 million, or $5 million for married couples.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) has not set a timeline for the upper chamber to pass its version of the bill, although Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said he is
hoping that it would reach the president’s desk by July 4.
Due to the budget reconciliation process, the bill is not subject to the Senate filibuster and can pass with a simple majority.
With Republicans holding 53 seats, Thune can afford to lose three Republican votes and still pass the bill with Vice President JD Vance breaking the tie.
