{"id":10364,"date":"2025-06-17T12:02:00","date_gmt":"2025-06-17T12:02:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/capitol-agenda-thunes-biggest-megabill-fires\/"},"modified":"2025-06-17T12:02:00","modified_gmt":"2025-06-17T12:02:00","slug":"capitol-agenda-thunes-biggest-megabill-fires","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/capitol-agenda-thunes-biggest-megabill-fires\/","title":{"rendered":"Capitol agenda: Thune\u2019s biggest megabill fires"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Senate Majority Leader John Thune has some \u201cbig, beautiful\u201d conflicts to resolve \u2014 and fast \u2014 if he wants to pass his party\u2019s tax-and-spending package next week as planned.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a look at the biggest fires Thune needs to put out to meet his deadline, some of which are newly raging following Senate Finance\u2019s release of long-awaited bill text:<\/p>\n

MEDICAID JITTERS \u2014<\/b> \u201cMedicaid moderates<\/a>\u201d are reeling after Republicans on the key committee proposed lowering the provider tax,<\/a>from 6 percent to 3.5 percent by 2031 for states that have expanded Medicaid offerings under the Affordable Care Act. Several states rely heavily on this tax to help fund their Medicaid programs.<\/p>\n

Republicans, including Sen. Josh Hawley (Mo.), were already rebelling against the House-passed megabill\u2019s move to find savings by freezing the provider tax. Now, Hawley is saying he\u2019s \u201calarmed\u201d that Senate Finance would go even further and that the plan \u201cneeds work.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know why we would defund rural hospitals in order to pay for Chinese solar panels,\u201d he told reporters Monday evening, in a nod to Senate Republicans\u2019 plan to ease some of the House GOP\u2019s deep cuts to clean-energy tax credits (more on that below).<\/p>\n

Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) also expressed concern about the provider-tax change, though she declined to elaborate as she left the closed-door meeting Monday night where Finance Chair Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) was briefing GOP senators on his proposal. But Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) said he doesn\u2019t think the plan would go far enough<\/i> in slashing spending on the safety-net program, suggesting senators should reconsider including a provision that would scale back the federal government\u2019s share of paying for states\u2019 Medicaid expansion.<\/p>\n

Expect this to be a topic of discussion when GOP senators meet with CMS Administrator Mehmet Oz Tuesday during the conference\u2019s weekly lunch.<\/p>\n

HOLD THE SALT \u2014<\/b> Blue-state House Republicans are seething as senators continue to haggle down their state-and-local-tax deduction cap. GOP senators included the current $10,000 deduction limit \u2014 rather than the $40,000 the House passed \u2014 as a placeholder in the draft bill text Senate Finance released Monday, giving space for talks to continue.<\/p>\n

Rep. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.) declared the Senate\u2019s proposal \u201cdead on arrival\u201d in the House. But Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.), who\u2019s been backchanneling with SALT Republicans including Lawler, insisted to reporters that the deduction is \u201cfully open for negotiating.\u201d Thune also told reporters Monday that senators are \u201cprepared to have discussions\u201d amongst themselves to \u201cfigure out a landing spot.\u201d<\/p>\n

LESS GUTTING FOR GREEN CREDITS \u2014<\/b> Senate Republicans are extending some of the House\u2019s aggressive phase-out dates<\/a> for credits benefitting \u201cbaseload\u201d energy technologies like nuclear, geothermal and hydropower, leaving one GOP proponent of the incentives, Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), \u201cgenerally satisfied.\u201d They are still making significant cuts to solar, wind and electric vehicle incentives in Democrats\u2019 2022 climate law, but that\u2019s not going to satisfy conservatives who want a full repeal of what they call the \u201cGreen New Scam.\u201d<\/p>\n

House Freedom Caucus members, who pushed for deep cuts to the green credits in order to get behind the megabill in their chamber last month, could fight the Senate\u2019s slower roll. One member, Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), declared on X<\/a> he \u201cwill not vote for this.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dive deeper into the long list of other Senate Finance megabill changes<\/i><\/a>.<\/i><\/p>\n

What else we\u2019re watching:<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

\u2014 Lawmaker safety after Minnesota shootings: <\/b>Senators have a classified security briefing with the chamber\u2019s sergeant at arms and Capitol Police this morning, where the question of resources for lawmaker safety could come up. Across the Capitol, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries is asking Speaker Mike Johnson to increase funding for members\u2019 security<\/a> as more elected officials learn they were potential targets of the man suspected of the shootings in Minnesota.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Senate\u2019s first major crypto overhaul: <\/b>The Senate is set this afternoon to pass landmark cryptocurrency legislation, one of Trump\u2019s biggest policy priorities outside the megabill. The bipartisan bill would create a regulatory framework for digital tokens known as stablecoins that are pegged to the value of the dollar. But the legislation faces a murky future in the House.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Gabbard, Ratcliffe on Blue Light News: <\/b>Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, CIA Director John Ratcliffe and NSA acting Director Lt. Gen. William Hartman will testify on behalf of the president\u2019s fiscal 2026 budget request for intelligence during a closed Appropriations subcommittee hearing.<\/p>\n

Jordain Carney, Brian Faler and Jasper Goodman contributed to this report.<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Senate Majority Leader John Thune has some \u201cbig, beautiful\u201d conflicts to resolve \u2014 and fast \u2014 if he wants to pass his party\u2019s tax-and-spending package next week as planned. Here\u2019s a look at the biggest fires Thune needs to put out to meet his deadline, some of which are newly raging following Senate Finance\u2019s release […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10364","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-congress"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10364","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10364"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10364\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10364"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10364"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10364"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}