{"id":10578,"date":"2025-06-24T12:02:03","date_gmt":"2025-06-24T12:02:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/capitol-agenda-thunes-48-hour-megabill-scramble\/"},"modified":"2025-06-24T12:02:03","modified_gmt":"2025-06-24T12:02:03","slug":"capitol-agenda-thunes-48-hour-megabill-scramble","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/capitol-agenda-thunes-48-hour-megabill-scramble\/","title":{"rendered":"Capitol agenda: Thune\u2019s 48-hour megabill scramble"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Senate GOP leaders want to start voting on the \u201cbig, beautiful bill\u201d in just two days. Right now, they\u2019re scrambling to rewrite critical pieces of it<\/a> while major policy disputes remain unresolved.<\/p>\n

Catch up quick: Sens. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Rick Scott (R-Fla.) met separately with Donald Trump at the White House Monday as the president ramps up pressure on fiscal hawks to fall in line. Trump told Scott he wants a repeal of green credits under the Biden-era climate law and supports a balanced budget, the Florida senator said. The trio relayed Trump\u2019s message to House Freedom Caucus members Monday night, but were publicly mum on other details.<\/p>\n

Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) signaled progress in closing the chasm between chambers over the state-and-local-tax deduction, suggesting the Senate could keep the $40,000 cap negotiated in the House but change the income threshold. The rub: That combination was publicly rejected by the House\u2019s SALT Republicans days ago.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Senate GOP leaders are floating a fund to help offset<\/a> the effects of Medicaid changes on rural hospitals \u2014 a major pain point among \u201cMedicaid moderates\u201d balking at Senate Finance\u2019s push to slash the provider tax.<\/p>\n

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) told reporters he\u2019s \u201cabsolutely happy with a rural fund\u201d but cautioned, \u201cI don\u2019t know\u201d if it will solve the issue. House GOP leaders are also warning it won\u2019t pass their chamber.<\/p>\n

GOP senators also have to keep in mind the 38 House Republicans who recently warned that Senate Majority Leader John Thune must adhere to a strict linkage<\/a> between spending cuts and tax cuts in the bill. House Freedom Caucus Chair Andy Harris (R-Md.) told Blue Light News Monday he thinks Senate Republicans are already straying from the House-passed plan.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt looks like right now, with some of the scoring, it\u2019s not working out,\u201d Harris said. \u201cIf it should pass the Senate in its current rumored form, it probably would have trouble in the House.\u201d<\/p>\n

What to watch Tuesday: Committees will finish holding meetings with parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough. Her last rulings on what can skirt the filibuster are expected as soon as Wednesday. Final text will follow once that process \u2014 known as the Byrd bath \u2014 wraps up.<\/p>\n

Those Byrd droppings have multiple committees racing to redraft their portions of the megabill. Senate Agriculture Republicans believe they can salvage their cost-sharing plan for food aid<\/a>. Senate Banking Republicans are reworking a proposal to cut funding<\/a> for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.<\/p>\n

And Lee is now floating a narrower version of his plan<\/a> to sell millions of acres of public lands after MacDonough deemed his initial proposal \u2014 which had drawn fierce opposition from a quartet of western-state GOP senators \u2014 noncompliant. Lee\u2019s effectively halving his old proposal by removing Forest Service lands.<\/p>\n

Thune still hopes to hold an initial vote on the megabill Thursday, but acknowledged the parliamentarian\u2019s process is \u201ctaking a little bit longer\u201d than anticipated. The raft of unresolved policy disputes have some senators openly doubting he can pull it off, with some predicting the first vote could slip to Friday.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll eventually pass something,\u201d Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) told reporters Monday. \u201cI just can\u2019t tell you when.\u201d<\/p>\n

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

\u2014 Dem Oversight election: <\/b>Democrats will vote Tuesday morning to decide the top Democrat on the Oversight committee. Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) is the frontrunner after the Californian clinched a majority of votes from the steering committee on the first ballot.<\/p>\n

\u2014 War powers resolutions: <\/b>Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) told Speaker Mike Johnson that he will no longer advance a resolution seeking to block<\/a> U.S. involvement in the Iran-Israel conflict if the ceasefire that Trump announced holds. But in the Senate, Tim Kaine (D-Va.) said he\u2019s forging ahead with forcing a vote on a similar resolution regardless of the ceasefire, and expects a vote sometime between Wednesday and Friday<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Cassidy\u2019s latest vaccine push: <\/b>Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) criticized the top vaccine advisers<\/a> of HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Monday for lacking experience and urged the agency to delay a scheduled meeting with them. Cassidy said a meeting with the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices scheduled for Wednesday should not proceed \u201cwith a relatively small panel, and no CDC Director in place to approve the panel’s recommendations.\u201d<\/p>\n

Garrett Downs, Nicholas Wu, Hailey Fuchs and Kelly Hooper contributed to this report.<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Senate GOP leaders want to start voting on the \u201cbig, beautiful bill\u201d in just two days. Right now, they\u2019re scrambling to rewrite critical pieces of it while major policy disputes remain unresolved. Catch up quick: Sens. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Rick Scott (R-Fla.) met separately with Donald Trump at the White House […]<\/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-10578","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\/10578","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=10578"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10578\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10578"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10578"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10578"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}