Because the Senate prepares to place its imprint on President Donald Trump’s One Massive Stunning Invoice Act this week, Republicans are grappling over the potential impression the megabill may need on the nationwide debt, which has ballooned to just about $37 trillion.
With a 10-year finances invoice, deficit hawks within the Senate like Rand Paul and Ron Johnson are drawing a purple line — pushing for deeper cuts than these within the invoice the Home despatched to them.
As lawmakers intention to ship a invoice to Trump by the Fourth of July, these calls for might complicate the Senate’s calculus for passage — the place Republicans can solely afford three defections.
On one hand, the One Massive Stunning Invoice Act reduces outlays by greater than $1.5 trillion in opposition to present baseline spending — in response to the nonpartisan Congressional Finances Workplace’s preliminary evaluation, assembly reconciliation’s goal for between $1.5 to $2 trillion in spending reductions.
Sen. Rand Paul speaks in opposition to the federal omnibus spending laws for FY 2023 that at a information convention with Sen. Rick Scott and Sen. Ron Johnson on the U.S. Capitol on December 20, 2022 in Washington, DC.
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Photographs
However, the invoice nonetheless provides about $3.1 trillion to the debt, in response to the CBO — although some Republicans like Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky predict it might add as much as $20 trillion to the debt over the subsequent decade.
At odds with the White Home
Paul and Johnson are instantly at odds with the White Home, which factors to an evaluation from the White Home Council of Financial Advisors that finds the laws will save $1.6 trillion over 10 years.
“There’s $1.6 trillion value of financial savings on this invoice,” White Home Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt mentioned throughout a Might 19 press briefing. “That is the biggest financial savings for any laws that has ever handed Capitol Hill in our nation’s historical past.”
In a press briefing on Thursday, Leavitt attacked the CBO and different scorekeepers, saying they used “shoddy assumptions and have traditionally been horrible at forecasting throughout Democrat and Republican administrations alike.”
The Senate is predicted to change the Home-passed proposal and among the Senate’s fiscal hawks have conditioned their assist on the implementation of even steeper cuts. However any cuts these members need applied should be balanced by Senate management in opposition to the wishes of moderates who want to protect key social security web packages, creating main challenges for hopes of offsetting the price of the bundle.
Sen. Josh Hawley speaks to reporters previous to the Senate Republicans weekly coverage luncheon, within the US Capitol on March 25, 2025 in Washington, DC.
Al Drago/Getty Photographs
Will the Home and Senate see eye-to-eye?
One other complication: any modifications to the invoice made by the Senate should be permitted by the Home, which narrowly despatched the invoice to the higher chamber by only one vote.
Speaker Mike Johnson, who guided the invoice by means of the Home over the objections from each fiscal hard-liners and moderates in his convention, declared “It isn’t going so as to add to the debt,” when requested if Trump would take possession of a rise of the deficit.
And he mentioned he and Trump has the identical considerations as Johnson and Paul.
“He is additionally involved as I’m, as Ron Johnson is, as Rand Paul is, as all of us are in regards to the nation’s debt, and he and I speak about this regularly, and he’s enthusiastic about altering that trajectory,” he mentioned on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
The invoice despatched to the Senate would additionally hike the federal debt restrict by $4 trillion {dollars}, one other sticking level with fiscal hawks.
“There’s nothing fiscally conservative about increasing the debt ceiling greater than we have ever finished it earlier than,” Paul mentioned after the invoice handed by means of the Home two weeks in the past. “This would be the best improve within the debt ceiling ever, and the GOP owns this now.”
Speaker of the Home Mike Johnson speaks to the media after the Home narrowly handed a invoice forwarding President Donald Trump’s agenda on the U.S. Capitol, Might 22, 2025 in Washington.
Kevin Dietsch/Getty Photographs
‘Wimpy and anemic’
At an occasion final week in Iowa, Paul repeated his disdain for the invoice, calling the present cuts “wimpy and anemic” and suggesting that further cutbacks might occur to entitlement packages like Medicaid and Social Safety — areas the place a line has been drawn by Trump and fellow GOP senators like Josh Hawley of Missouri, who known as constructing the invoice on slicing medical health insurance for the working poor “morally improper and politically suicidal.”
Paul advised CBS’ “Face the Nation” on Sunday that he thought there have been sufficient votes amongst his Senate Republican colleagues to dam the invoice.
“I believe there are 4 of us at this level, and I’d be very shocked if the invoice no less than will not be modified in route,” he mentioned.
Trump known as Paul out over the weekend, writing on his Reality Social platform that if the senator votes in opposition to the invoice, “Rand can be enjoying proper into the arms of the Democrats, and the GREAT individuals of Kentucky won’t ever forgive him!”
Speaking to reporters on Monday, Leavitt steered there can be a worth to pay for individuals who vote in opposition to it.
“Their voters will find out about it. That’s unacceptable to Republican voters and all voters throughout the nation who elected this president in a Republican majority to get issues finished on Capitol Hill,” she mentioned.
Finances reconciliation, the tactic congressional Republicans are utilizing to get the invoice handed, will not be topic to the filibuster, enabling the Republican majority to enact sweeping modifications with solely a easy majority.
However modifications to Social Safety and Medicare are exempt from the fast-track budgeting course of. Any modifications to these entitlements would require 60 votes and bipartisan cooperation from Democrats — a prospect Republicans usually are not entertaining as they go it alone on the invoice.
Paul known as for steeper spending cuts in order that elevating the debt restrict wouldn’t be a part of this invoice. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has known as on Congress to extend the statutory debt restrict by the tip of July to forestall the nation from defaulting on its debt obligations.
“I need [Trump’s 2017] tax cuts to be everlasting. However on the identical time, I do not wanna increase the debt ceiling 5 trillion,” he advised CBS on Sunday. “The GOP will personal the debt as soon as they vote for this.”
Sen. Johnson, a notable fiscal hawk, has additionally signaled strongly that he wouldn’t assist the invoice in its present type, on condition that it provides to the debt.
“It is so far off the mark. It is so unhealthy,” he advised reporters on the Capitol whereas the Home was nonetheless advancing the invoice by means of the Guidelines Committee. “I have been making an attempt to interject actuality. I have been making an attempt to interject information and figures. They’re on my aspect.”
President Donald Trump shakes arms with Home Speaker Rep. Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Chief John Thune after the Nationwide Prayer Breakfast in Statuary Corridor on the U.S. Capitol on February 06, 2025 in Washington, DC.
Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Photographs
Massive or lovely?
At a Newsmaker luncheon Wednesday in Milwaukee hosted by WisPolitics and the Milwaukee Press Membership, Johnson claimed there was “no quantity of strain” that Trump might place on him with a view to assist it in its present type.
Requested Sunday on Fox Information’ “Sunday Morning Futures” if he was keen to push as far as to explode Trump’s agenda, Johnson confused his loyalty was with the American individuals.
“I need to see [Trump] succeed. However once more, my loyalty is to the American individuals, to my children and grandkids. We can’t proceed to mortgage their future,” Johnson mentioned.
Trump adviser Elon Musk, who left the White Home on Friday after his position as a particular authorities worker reached its 130-day restrict, broke publicly with the president throughout an interview with CBS a pair days earlier during which he mentioned he was “upset” by the large spending invoice.
“I believe a invoice will be massive or it may be lovely,” Musk advised CBS Information, “however I do not know if it may be each. My private opinion.”
-ABC Information’ Isabella Murray and Kelsey Walsh contributed to this report.
