Congress

The next megabill Congress needs to worry about

Published

11 months ago

July 5, 2025

Thursday’s historic vote passing President Donald Trump’s megabill ended a monthslong process of negotiation, infighting and compromise. It also started a countdown until Congress has to do it all over again.

That’s because the super-sized domestic policy legislation includes a sharp cliff for tax cuts and deep safety-net restrictions — teeing them up to be the subject of fierce political battles in the 2026 midterms and the 2028 presidential election.

The most politically explosive cuts to Medicaid and the nation’s largest food program, for instance, are set to take effect in 2028. Meanwhile, Trump’s most popular tax cuts and a key deduction prized by blue-state Republicans are set to sunset in 2028 and 2029, respectively.

It’s not escaping the notice of Democrats. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries spent much of his marathon floor speech before the vote Thursday calling out GOP moderates in battleground seats, many of whom had swallowed their misgivings after expressing deep concern with the safety-net cuts set to be enshrined in law.

“How is it that so many of our Republican colleagues … had principled opposition to Donald Trump’s one big, ugly bill … and now seem prepared to fold on the floor of the House of Representatives?” asked Jeffries.

Jeffries read letters from constituents appealing to their Republican representatives up for re-election in swing districts — including Reps. John McGuire of Virginia, Derrick Van Orden of Wisconsin and Ryan Mackenzie of Pennsylvania — to vote against cuts to Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.

“All we need is four Republicans to show John McCain levels of courage,” Jeffries said before the vote, referring to the Arizona senator who famously prevented the GOP’s repeal of the Affordable Care Act in 2017.

Only two Republicans targeted by Democrats in 2026 — Maine Sen. Susan Collins and Pennsylvania Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick — voted against the bill. Now the structure of the GOP’s marquee legislation ensures that the most politically perilous provisions in the bill will remain a hot potato — and an opportunity for moderates — for years to come.

For instance, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) — who ultimately voted for the sweeping domestic policy package — pledged to ensure that cuts to state taxes that fund Medicaid would never take effect.

The Senate cut deeply into states’ ability to levy those taxes. But it also delayed those cuts until 2028 after intense lobbying by Hawley and other moderates and after Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) warned that the cuts would prove disastrous in the midterms. Now, the reductions to medical provider taxes used to leverage federal funding begin in three years, with the rates dropping from the current level of 6 percent incrementally down to 3.5 percent.

“Unless changes are made … you’re going to see Medicaid reductions in my state,” Hawley told reporters last week. “I think that is a huge mistake.”

Sixteen House moderates similarly urged Speaker Mike Johnson in a letter in June to revert the Senate’s language. They all ended up voting for the bill, but at least some were also thinking that there was an opportunity to revisit the deep cuts in the future.

“Any of the changes in the provider tax don’t go into effect until ’28, so he’s right, there’s time,” Rep. Dan Newhouse (R-Wash.) said about Hawley’s comments, though he added that the system does “have to be reformed” and that “we’re on the right track.”

The benefit cuts could figure as a major issue in the 2028 presidential race, too, with likely candidate Vice President JD Vance emerging as a key salesman for the “big, beautiful bill” and a key defender of the administration’s approach. Democrats are already seeking to yoke to with the bill’s least popular provisions.

Meanwhile, lawmakers in virtually every state will face pressure in 2028 as provisions kick in requiring most states to shoulder part of the costs of federal food aid for the first time. Under the GOP’s sweeping bill, states with SNAP payment error rates above 6 percent would have to start paying 5 to 15 percent of the food benefit costs.

According to an analysis of data going back to 2003 by the left-leaning Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, only one state has ever had an error rate low enough to avoid the new cost-sharing arrangement.

On the flip side, Trump’s signature campaign promises to cut taxes for tipped wages, overtime work and seniors are set to sunset at the end of 2029. And blue-state Republicans who fought viciously for an increase to the state-and-local-tax deduction for their constituents are already eyeing making the boosted SALT break permanent down the road.

The boost of the deduction from $10,000 to $40,000 was crafted by House Republicans to grow with inflation through 2033 and be permanent after that. But Senate Republicans revised the proposal so the bigger deduction would stay in place for only five years, cutting more than $100 billion from the cost of their tax package.

It will be a central issue for lawmakers in swing districts such as Reps. Young Kim (R-Calif.) and Nick LaLota (R-N.Y.) in their 2026 re-election campaigns — but also for Democrats running for the same seats and in other districts with high property, income and other local taxes.

“I listened to Hakeem Jeffries pontificate about this. He got exactly zero changes when Democrats had complete control. We delivered on a promise that I made when I first ran, and this is a big win,” Rep. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.) said after the House vote. “It’s the single biggest tax cut in the bill.”

When asked whether New Yorkers would push to make sure that the SALT cap doesn’t go back to $10,000 after 2029, Lawler responded, “Of course.”

The fact that various Republicans are already looking at punting their spending cuts while extending the temporary tax cuts raises questions about the real cost of the legislation. Senate Republicans scaled down many of Trump’s priorities in order to make room for expensive business tax cuts, and the final bill would add $1.1 trillion more to the debt than the initial House-passed plan, according to the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.

“I prefer permanence. I prefer not to create cliffs,” said Senate Finance Chair Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), the architect of the Senate’s tax bill, who has said that he didn’t have the fiscal room to make Trump’s latest tax proposals permanent. “There are terminating provisions, and all I can say is that I prefer not to do that anymore than we have to.”

Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) told reporters Sunday that policy sunsets are “common” with these kinds of sprawling packages. But other lawmakers readily acknowledged that the tax cuts could be extended down the road, potentially adding to the megabill’s costs.

“You can’t limit or change what other legislative bodies in the future see as appropriate at that time,” Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) said in a brief interview. “You’re looking at a 10-year window. They’ll have to look at a 10-year window. They’ll play the same game, and once again, they may have different priorities.”

Congress

House Republicans clear $70B go-it-alone immigration enforcement package

Published

12 minutes ago

June 9, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

The House passed a nearly $70 billion package Tuesday to fund Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol for three years, capping off a four-month partisan standoff.

That bill is now on its way to President Donald Trump’s desk following a 214-212 vote, proving Republicans can ignore Democratic demands to crack down on the administration’s immigration policies and still pump unprecedented funding to the agencies carrying them out.

Following the collapse of negotiations to restrict the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement tactics, Republicans harnessed the party-line budget reconciliation process to pass legislation funding ICE and Border Patrol without any Democratic votes. Those faltered talks began after immigration agents fatally shot two U.S. citizens in Minnesota in January.

The end result is the enactment of supercharged budgets for both agencies — and the guarantee that they will be funded beyond the end of Trump’s presidency.

“Hallelujah — they can’t shut them down now,” Rep. Greg Steube (R-Fla.) said in an interview Tuesday, referring to Democrats.

On top of the more than $140 billion Republicans gave ICE and Border Patrol as part of last summer’s tax and spending megabill, the legislation cleared Tuesday will pile on about $65 billion more — plus another $5 billion for Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin to dole out at his discretion.

The annual budgets for those two agencies total about $17 billion combined under the regular government funding process.

“We are asking ICE to not cause chaos and decrease public safety in our neighborhoods. They already got a huge lump sum of money,” Rep. Grace Meng (D-N.Y.), a senior House appropriator, said in an interview. “So I think it’s more than fair that we ask for reforms before we give them another penny.”

The monthslong ordeal to fully fund DHS after a 76-day lapse ran adjacent to a major personnel shakeup, with the March ouster of then-Secretary Kristi Noem and subsequent installation of Mullin.

The new secretary told lawmakers this month that DHS agents are now seeking judicial warrants to enter private residences, unless agents are already in the midst of pursuing an individual who then enters a home. Mullin also said that, starting in July, DHS will begin requiring 72 days of training for new immigration officers rather than the 42-day accelerated program the Trump administration has been using.

But Mullin refused to commit to following court orders and dismissed allegations of inhumane treatment at immigration detention centers, after shutting down the independent DHS watchdog last month tasked with investigating abuses at immigrant holding facilities.

He also accused Democrats of hampering months of bipartisan talks around new immigration enforcement policies to save face with liberal voters ahead of the midterm elections.

“You would never get to ‘yes,’ and so we walked away and did reconciliation,” Mullin told Democratic appropriators during a hearing this month.

Defending his party’s posture, Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) said in an interview this week that DHS has “refused to rein in a lawless ICE operation” and noted that he publicly pressed Mullin on why DHS has not been cooperating with local authorities investigating the killings in Minnesota.

Despite what is ostensibly a victory Tuesday for the GOP, not every Republican sees it that way. House Republicans initially revolted against the plan, which originated in the Senate, to clear funding for ICE and Border Patrol through the party-line process while separately joining with Democrats to pass a bill to fund the rest of DHS.

One of those House skeptics said Tuesday that the months of work it took to fund the immigration agencies is testament to the foolhardiness of the plan Senate Republicans embraced.

“The deal in the beginning to split out ICE and Border Patrol should have never happened,” Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.) said in an interview. “I knew it when it happened, and this proved it.”

To win enough GOP support for the gambit, House Republican leaders had to convince many of their members that they will get a chance to pass a third party-line package later this year. There’s no consensus GOP agenda for that bill, but groups of Republicans are counting on it to cut taxes, bolster military funding, crack down on fraud in safety net programs and boost programs that bring down costs for Americans ahead of the midterms.

But many Republicans doubt GOP leaders will be able to pull off enactment of another reconciliation package in the coming months, considering the House is only scheduled to be in session for nine weeks before Election Day and Speaker Mike Johnson is increasingly struggling to whip enough support for major legislation with a narrow majority.

Johnson had to make another deal with conservative hard-liners on Tuesday, when he promised a floor vote on legislation codifying Trump’s border policies in order to muscle through a procedural vote on the immigration enforcement package, according to three people with knowledge of the conversations.

Johnson promised the holdouts the vote would take place before July 4 — which is just 11 legislative days away.

Meredith Lee Hill contributed to this report.

Congress

Raphael Warnock meets with Mike Johnson after questioning speaker’s Christian faith

Published

1 hour ago

June 9, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Sen. Raphael Warnock met Tuesday with Speaker Mike Johnson after the Republican leader requested the Democratic senator privately discuss comments Warnock made regarding Johnson’s faith in a recent interview.

Warnock was asked in the New York Times Q&A about Johnson praying ahead of the passage last year of the GOP megabill that included tax cuts and reductions in social-service programs and how he “understands that.”

Warnock, the pastor of a prominent Atlanta church, responded that he is a “Matthew 25 Christian,” referencing the chapter of the Gospel where Jesus describes the responsibility of the faithful to treat the hungry, sick and foreign with compassion.

“I don’t understand how you read that, say a long prayer, hold hands with your fellow legislators, and then cut a trillion dollars — $1 trillion — out of Medicaid calling it waste, fraud, and abuse,” Warnock said.

Leaving the meeting in Johnson’s office, Warnock said he raised the very same point personally to the speaker on Tuesday.

“We talked about the policy, and we agreed to disagree,” he said. “But we also talked about our faith and our upbringing, and that, for me, was important because I think just at a human level it would help around this place if we had more authentic conversations across our differences.”

“The stakes are too high for us to be engaged in political fencing around here and not have authentic conversations at a human level about why you believe what you believe,” he continued. “And so I left hopeful that we might have more of that kind of conversation.”

Johnson struck a similar note in a statement: “I was happy to meet with Senator Warnock today and have a positive, fruitful discussion about matters of faith and our different opinions regarding public policy. Such dialogue is important because it is always more productive to have these conversations face to face.”

Warnock and a spokesperson for the speaker both confirmed Johnson requested the meeting after the Times interview was published.

Warnock described the tone of the approximately 30-minute meeting as “honest, candid” and “respectful.” He said that the two men exchanged phone numbers and agreed to stay in touch.

Johnson, a devout evangelical Christian, often talks about his faith as he navigates his slim majority and near-constant GOP infighting. He often cites the Bible and advised President Donald Trump earlier this year to take down a photo from his Truth Social account that depicted Trump as Jesus.

“I think there are people gathered in this building every week who go to church on Sunday,” Warnock said after the meeting. “And I just sometimes wonder what their preacher is preaching about. The gospels that I preach center the poor.”

Congress

Trump not expected to act on Pulte after Johnson meeting

Published

3 hours ago

June 9, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

A key U.S. spy law remains on track to expire at the end of the week after Speaker Mike Johnson met with President Donald Trump Tuesday about the future of a key section of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

Trump indicated in the private White House that he’s not inclined to appease Democrats and pave the way for a FISA extension by nominating a permanent director of national intelligence to succeed Bill Pulte, the acting director he installed last week, according to three people briefed on the conversation who were granted anonymity to describe it.

Most Democrats are refusing to move forward with any FISA extension so long as Pulte, a close political ally of the president with no national security experience, remains in the intelligence post. Some Republicans have been hoping a new Trump nomination could provide an off-ramp ahead of the quickly approaching FISA deadline.

But the people briefed on the meeting were left with the impression it didn’t go very well as Trump continues to push back on any suggestion that he needs to placate Democrats to pave the way for a FISA extension.

Johnson told reporters Tuesday the meeting went well but declined to discuss specifics. He added that “Democrats have taken a hostage” and that the Senate would need to quickly figure out a path forward.