{"id":10678,"date":"2025-06-27T12:17:04","date_gmt":"2025-06-27T12:17:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/capitol-agenda-how-trump-could-get-his-july-4-megabill\/"},"modified":"2025-06-27T12:17:04","modified_gmt":"2025-06-27T12:17:04","slug":"capitol-agenda-how-trump-could-get-his-july-4-megabill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/capitol-agenda-how-trump-could-get-his-july-4-megabill\/","title":{"rendered":"Capitol agenda: How Trump could get his July 4 megabill"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Republicans\u2019 \u201cbig, beautiful bill\u201d is in tatters. President Donald Trump still wants it on his desk by July 4. Here\u2019s everything that will have to go right to make that happen:<\/p>\n

GOP senators and staff now believe Saturday is the earliest voting will start on the bill. Senate Majority Leader John Thune acknowledged Thursday that parliamentarian rulings forcing Republicans to rewrite key provisions of the bill are throwing his timeline into chaos<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A Saturday vote would assume no more major procedural issues, but that is not assured: Republicans could run into trouble with their use of current policy baseline, the accounting tactic they want to use to zero out the cost of tax-cut extensions. Other adverse recommendations from Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough could force additional redrafts of Republicans\u2019 tax plans.<\/p>\n

Even if Republicans resolve every outstanding issue with the parliamentarian in the next 24 hours, Thune needs to firm up his whip count. The cap on state provider taxes remains among the thorniest issues, with senators threatening to block debate on the megabill until the Medicaid financing issue is resolved.<\/p>\n

If the Senate does<\/i> vote Saturday to proceed, expect Democrats to use the bulk of their 10 hours of debate time, while Republicans forfeit most of theirs. Then comes the main event \u2014 vote-a-rama \u2014 which would set up likely final passage for sometime Sunday.<\/p>\n

That starts the timer for the House. GOP leaders there have pledged to give members 48 hours\u2019 notice of a vote \u2014 and they have already advised the earliest that voting could happen is Monday evening. Republicans will have to adopt a rule before moving to debate and final passage.<\/p>\n

But the House\u2019s timeline depends wholly on what condition the megabill is in when it arrives from the Senate. Groups of House Republicans are already drawing red lines on matters ranging from SALT to clean-energy tax credits to public land sales. The hope is that the Senate will take care of those concerns in one final \u201cwraparound\u201d amendment at the end of vote-a-rama.<\/p>\n

If they don\u2019t, House GOP leaders are adamant that there will need to be changes \u2014 likely pushing the timeline deep into July, or perhaps beyond. For one, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise said Thursday the Senate\u2019s slower phase-out of clean-energy tax credits \u201cwill need to be reversed,\u201d or else.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf there are major modifications that we cannot accept, then we would go back to the drawing board, fix some of that and send it back over,\u201d Speaker Mike Johnson said Thursday. \u201cSo we should avoid that process, if possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

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

\u2014 Senate war powers vote:<\/b> Senators are expected to take an initial vote at 6 p.m. on Sen. Tim Kaine\u2019s (D-Va.) resolution that would bar the president from taking further military action in Iran without congressional approval. Kaine believes Republicans will support the measure but won\u2019t say who or how many.<\/p>\n

\u2014 House Iran briefing:<\/b> House members will receive a briefing on the Iran conflict from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Gen. Dan Caine and CIA Director John Ratcliffe in the CVC auditorium at 9 a.m. This comes as some House lawmakers are mulling two competing war powers resolutions, which Johnson could attempt to quash in advance using a rule.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Republicans\u2019 \u201cbig, beautiful bill\u201d is in tatters. President Donald Trump still wants it on his desk by July 4. Here\u2019s everything that will have to go right to make that happen: GOP senators and staff now believe Saturday is the earliest voting will start on the bill. Senate Majority Leader John Thune acknowledged Thursday that […]<\/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-10678","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\/10678","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=10678"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10678\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10678"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10678"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10678"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}