U.S. Senate Majority Leader Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., left, listens as Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, center, speaks to reporters outside of the West Wing of the White House on June4, 2025 in Washington, D.C.  (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — U.S. Senate Republican Leader John Thune will spend a crucial next few weeks working behind the scenes with other top GOP senators to reshape the party’s “big beautiful bill” — a balancing test accompanied in recent days by incendiary exchanges between President Donald Trump and billionaire Elon Musk over whether the current proposals are so bad that Congress should just go back to the drawing board.

South Dakota’s Thune will need to gain support from deficit hawks, who want to see the mega-bill cut at least $2 trillion in spending, and moderates, who are closely monitoring how less federal funding for safety net programs like Medicaid and food assistance could harm their constituents and home-state institutions like rural hospitals.

Interviews by States Newsroom with Republican senators in early June showed many major elements of the package could change, including provisions that would put states on the hook for unanticipated costs. Arkansas Sen. John Boozman, for example, indicated the Senate may rewrite a proposal in the House-passed bill that would shift some of the cost of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which provides food aid to low-income people, to state governments.

“We can do whatever we want to do,” the Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee chairman said when asked by States Newsroom about amending that policy.

The final deal — intended to extend the 2017 tax cuts — cannot lose more than three GOP senators and still make it back across the Capitol to the House for final approval, since all Democrats are expected to oppose the bill. Thune only needs a majority vote in the Senate for the special process being used by Republicans.

Internal debates about just how to rework the Trump-backed tax and spending cuts measure began in the first week of June during meetings on Capitol Hill and at the White House, as GOP senators began critiquing the House-passed package line-by-line to ensure it complies with their strict rules for the complex reconciliation process and their policy goals.

Republicans said during interviews that several provisions in the House version likely won’t comply with the chamber’s Byrd rule, which could force lawmakers to toss out some provisions.

Complicating all of it was the very public back-and-forth between not just Trump but GOP leaders and former White House adviser Musk over the bill, which Musk on social media labeled “a disgusting abomination” and a “big, ugly spending bill” for its effect on the deficit and debt limit. “KILL the BILL,” Musk said on X, the platform he owns. Senate leaders so far have dismissed Musk’s criticisms.

Fragile House coalition

The talks, and whatever the legislation looks like after a marathon amendment voting session expected in late June, have already raised deep concerns among House GOP lawmakers, who will have to vote on the bill again in order to send it to Trump.

The extremely narrow majorities mean House Republican leaders cannot lose more than four of their own members if all the lawmakers in that chamber vote on the party-line bill.

Any changes the Senate makes could unbalance the fragile coalition of votes Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., cobbled together last month for a 215-214 vote. But GOP senators are adamant they will amend the legislation.

Complicating matters is a new report from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office that shows the proposed changes to tax law, Medicaid, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and higher education aid wouldn’t actually help to reduce deficits during the next decade but raise them by more than $2.4 trillion.

The numbers are the exact opposite for what Republicans hoped their sweeping tax and spending cuts package would accomplish.

Scrutiny begins

The first stop for the House-passed reconciliation package in the Senate appears to be the parliamentarian’s office, where staff have begun evaluating whether each provision in the current version of the bill complies with the upper chamber’s strict rules.

Boozman said staff on his panel have already begun meeting with the parliamentarian to go over the House provisions within its jurisdiction.

He expects that section of the package will have to change to comply with the strict rules that govern the reconciliation process in the Senate and to better fit that chamber’s policy goals.

“We can’t really decide exactly what we want to use in the House version until we know what’s eligible,” Boozman said. “We’ve got some other ideas too that we asked them about. But we need to know, of the ideas that we have, what would be viable options as far as being Byrd eligible.”

The Byrd rule, which is actually a law, requires reconciliation bills to address federal revenue, spending, or the debt limit. This generally bars lawmakers from using the special budget process to change policies that don’t have a significant impact on those three areas.

Alabama Sen. Tommy Tuberville, who is campaigning to become his home state’s next governor, said pushing some of the cost of the nutrition program to states may be problematic.

“We’re trying to send more costs to the states. Most states can’t afford that, so we want to take care of people, but we need people to go back to work,” Tuberville said. “It’s not a forever entitlement. It’s for part-time, you know, take care of yourself until you get a job, go back to work and let people that need it really, really get it.”

Rural hospitals on edge

Senate GOP leaders will have to navigate how best to reduce federal spending on Medicaid, the state-federal health program for lower-income people and some with disabilities, that is relied on by tens of millions of Americans, many of whom are loyal Republican voters.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office projects that 7.8 million people would lose access to Medicaid during the next decade if the House’s policy changes are implemented as written.

There are also concerns among GOP lawmakers about how losing the revenue that comes with treating Medicaid patients would impact rural health care access and hospitals.

Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley said under no circumstances would he vote for a bill that cuts benefits to Medicaid recipients and is worried about how provisions in the House package would affect rural hospitals.

“They’re very concerned about it, rightly so,” Hawley said, referring to conversations he’s had with health care systems in his home state.

“This is something that we need to work on. I don’t know why we would penalize rural hospitals,” he added. “If you want to reduce health care spending, then cap the price of prescription drugs. I mean, that’s the way to do it. If you want to get major savings in the health care sector, don’t close rural hospitals, don’t take away benefits from working people. Cap the costs, cap the price that (the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services) is going to pay for prescription drugs.”

West Virginia Sen. Shelley Moore Capito said she’s not yet come to a decision about whether to keep, amend, or completely scrap some of the House changes to Medicaid.

“I talked to a lot of our hospitals when I was home to see what the impacts would be, because we have a very high Medicaid population,” Capito said. “I want to see it work and be preserved, but I want it to be there for future generations. And it’s just getting way out of control on the spend side. So right now, we’re looking at everything.”

Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy — chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee — said he doesn’t expect all of the health care provisions in the House bill make it through the “Byrd bath” with the parliamentarian. But he declined to go into detail.

“Some of it is more regulatory, that’s all I can say,” Cassidy said.

West Virginia’s Sen. Jim Justice said he is in favor of requiring some Medicaid enrollees to work, participate in community service, or attend an educational program at least 80 hours a month to stay on the program, a sentiment shared by many of his GOP colleagues.

“I’m good with every bit of that,” he said. 

But Justice expects the Senate will make its own changes to the package and that it will be “proud of their own pond.”

“Any frog that’s not proud of your own pond’s not much of a frog,” Justice said.

He did not go into detail on what those changes would entail.

SALT shakers

The state and local tax deduction, or SALT, represents another tightrope  for Thune, who is no fan of the changes made in the House. But he has said repeatedly this week he understands altering that language too much could mean a Senate-amended version of the bill never makes it back through the House to actually become law.

Thune said outside the White House following a June 4 meeting with Trump and others that there will very likely be changes to SALT.

“There isn’t a single Republican senator who cares much about the SALT issue,” Thune said. “It’s just not an issue that plays.” States that are most affected generally don’t elect Republicans to the Senate.

The House tax-writing panel originally proposed raising the SALT cap from $10,000 to $30,000, but Johnson had to raise that to $40,000 in order to secure votes from House Republicans who represent higher tax states like California, New Jersey and New York. The revised cap would benefit more high-income taxpayers in their states.

“In 2017, that was one of the best reforms we had in the bill,” Thune said. “But we understand it’s about 51 and 218. So we will work with our House counterparts and with the White House to try to get that issue in a place where we can deliver the votes and get the bill across the finish line.”

Republicans hold 53 seats in the Senate, but can rely on Vice President J.D. Vance to break a tied vote if necessary.

At least 218 House lawmakers must vote to pass bills when all 435 seats are filled. But with three vacancies at the moment, legislation can move through that chamber with 216 votes. The GOP has 220 seats at the moment, meaning Johnson can afford four defections on party-line bills.

North Dakota Sen. John Hoeven told reporters this week that he’d like to see GOP senators rework the SALT section of the bill, even if that causes challenges for Speaker Johnson’s ability to pass a final version.

“Let’s talk about SALT, for example. The House has a very large SALT number. The Senate is probably going to take a look at that,” Hoeven said. “There’ll be a lot of areas we can look at. There’ll be other things we’re going to look at. We’d like to get to $2 trillion in savings.”

Ohio Sen. Bernie Moreno joined in putting his House colleagues on notice that they likely won’t get the agreement they struck with the speaker in the final version of the bill.

“I think we’re going to make common-sense changes. For example, the SALT cap, by the way, something that definitely helps very wealthy people in blue states,” Moreno said. “I think that cap, the 400% increase, is too much, so we’re going to work on tweaking that.”

Hawley, of Missouri, speaking more generally about the tax provisions, said he would like the Senate to make sure middle-class Americans benefit from the tax changes, just as much as companies.

“I want to be clear, I’m in favor of additional tax relief for working people. So my view is this corporate tax rate, which they lowered in 2017, they made that permanent back then. I know some workers that would like permanent tax relief,” Hawley said. “So I think it’s imperative that we do some addition to tax relief for workers. So I think that’s important.”

A new $4 trillion debt limit

Deficit hawks in the Senate have also voiced objections to raising the nation’s debt limit by $4 trillion, arguing that GOP leaders haven’t done enough to assuage their concerns about the nation’s fiscal trajectory.

Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul argued that the debt limit increase is more about next year’s midterm elections than good governance.

“​​This is really about avoiding having to talk about the debt during election times because people like to go home and talk to the Rotary or the Lions Club and tell them how they’re fiscally conservative and they’re against debt,” Paul said. “It’s embarrassing to them to have to vote to keep raising the debt. But they’re unwilling to have the courage to actually look at all spending.”

Paul suggested that House Republicans created problems by inflating some of the spending levels in their package, including to continue construction of a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. Paul is chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

“The $46.5 billion for the wall is eight times higher than the current cost of the wall. If you’re going to do 1,000 miles, you can actually do it for $6.5 billion. They want $46.5 billion,” Paul said. “We can’t be fiscally conservative until it comes to the border, and then we’re no longer fiscally conservative.”

The border wall has been a constant focus for Trump, who made it a central part of his 2016 presidential campaign, when he said repeatedly that the United States would build it and Mexico would pay for it.

South Carolina’s Lindsey Graham, chairman of the Budget Committee, hinted during a brief interview that Congress can only cut so much spending without going near programs like Social Security, which accounted for $1.5 trillion in expenditures last year, or Medicare, which spent $865 billion. Both are normally considered untouchable.

“I think we’re going to make some changes to try to find more spending reductions. I think that’s a fair criticism of the bill, but you can’t do Social Security by law,” Graham said, referring to one of the many rules that govern the reconciliation process. “Nobody’s proposed anything in the Medicare area.”

Graham added that “trying to make the bill more fiscally responsible is a good thing, but we need to pass it.” 

From left to right, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, President Donald Trump and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth attend a Cabinet meeting at the White House on April 30, 2025, in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump released a budget request Friday that would dramatically slash some federal spending, the initial step in a monthslong process that will include heated debate on Capitol Hill as both political parties work toward a final government funding agreement.

The proposal, for the first time, details how exactly this administration wants lawmakers to restructure spending across the federal government — steep cuts to domestic appropriations, including the elimination of dozens of programs that carry a long history of bipartisan support, and a significant increase in defense funding.

Trump wants more than 60 programs to be scrapped, some with long histories of assistance to states, including Community Services Block Grants, the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, the National Endowment for Democracy, the National Institute on Minority and Health Disparities within the National Institutes of Health, and the Sexual Risk Avoidance and Teen Pregnancy Prevention programs.

Congress will ultimately decide how much funding to provide to federal programs, and while Republicans hold majorities in both chambers, regular funding bills will need Democratic support to move through the Senate’s 60-vote legislative filibuster.

White House budget director Russ Vought wrote in a letter that the request proposes shifting some funding from the federal government to states and local communities.

“Just as the Federal Government has intruded on matters best left to American families, it has intruded on matters best left to the levels of government closest to the people, who understand and respect the needs and desires of their communities far better than the Federal Government ever could,” Vought wrote.

The budget request calls on Congress to cut non-defense accounts by $163 billion to $557 billion, while keeping defense funding flat at $893 billion in the dozen annual appropriations bills.

The proposal assumes the GOP Congress passes the separate reconciliation package that is currently being written in the House, bringing defense funding up to $1.01 trillion, a 13.4% increase, and reducing domestic spending to $601 billion, a 16.6% decrease.

Many domestic cuts

Under Trump’s request many federal departments and agencies would be slated for significant spending reductions, though defense, border security and veterans would be exempt. 

The cuts include:

• Agriculture: – $5 billion, or 18.3%
• Commerce: – $1.7 billion, or 16.5%
• Education: – $12 billion, or 15.3%
• Energy: – $4.7 billion, or 9.4%
• Health and Human Services: – $33 billion, or 26.2%
• Housing and Urban Development: – $33.6 billion, or 43.6%
• Interior: – $5.1 billion, or 30.5%
• Justice: – $2.7 billion, or 7.6%
• Labor: – $4.6 billion, or 34.9%
• State: – $49.1 billion, or 83.7%
• Treasury: – $2.7 billion, or 19%

Increases include:

• Defense: + $113 billion, or 13.4% with reconciliation package
• Homeland Security: + $42.3 billion, or 64.9% with reconciliation package
• Transportation: + $1.5 billion, or 5.8%
• Veterans Affairs: + $5.4 billion, or 4.1%

The budget request also asks Congress to eliminate AmeriCorps, which operates as the Corporation for National and Community Service; the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which provides some funding to National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting Service; the Institute of Museum and Library Sciences; and the 400 Years of African American History Commission.

What if Congress won’t act on the cuts?

Debate over the budget proposal will take place throughout the summer months, but will come to a head in September, when Congress must pass some sort of funding bill to avoid a partial government shutdown.

A senior White House official, speaking on background on a call with reporters to discuss details of the budget request, suggested that Trump would take unilateral action to cut funding if Congress doesn’t go along with the request.

“Obviously, we have never taken impoundment off the table, because the president and myself believe that 200 years of the president and executive branch had that ability,” the official said. “But we’re working with Congress to see what they will pass. And I believe that they have an interest in passing cuts.”

The 1974 Impoundment Control Act bars the president from canceling funding approved by Congress without consulting lawmakers via a rescissions request, which the officials said the administration plans to release “soon.”

The annual appropriations process is separate from the reconciliation process that Republicans are using to pass their massive tax cuts, border security, defense funding and spending cuts package.

Huge boost for Homeland Security

The budget proposal aligns with the Trump’s administration’s plans for mass deportations of people without permanent legal status, and would provide the Department of Homeland Security with $42.3 billion, or a 64.9% increase.

The budget proposal suggests eliminating $650 million from a program that reimburses non-governmental organizations and local governments that help with resettling and aiding newly arrived migrants released from DHS custody, known as the Shelters and Services Program.

The Trump administration also seeks to eliminate the agency that handles the care and resettlement of unaccompanied minors within Health and Human Services. The budget proposal recommends getting rid of the Refugee and Unaccompanied Alien Children Programs’ $1.97 billion budget. The budget proposal argues that because of an executive order to suspend refugee resettlement services, there is no need for the programs.

A federal judge from Washington state issued a nationwide injunction, and ruled the Trump administration must continue refugee resettlement services.

The budget proposal also calls for axing programs that help newly arrived migrant children or students for whom English is not a first language.

For the Education Department, the budget proposal suggests eliminating $890 million in funding for the English Language Acquisition and $428 million for the Migrant Education and Special Programs for Migrant Students.

Key GOP senator rejects defense request

Members of Congress had mixed reactions to the budget request, with some GOP lawmakers praising its spending cuts, while others took issue with the defense budget.

Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Roger Wicker, R-Miss., outright rejected the defense funding level, writing in a statement that relying on the reconciliation package to get military spending above $1 trillion was unacceptable. 

“OMB is not requesting a trillion-dollar budget. It is requesting a budget of $892.6 billion, which is a cut in real terms. This budget would decrease President Trump’s military options and his negotiating leverage,” Wicker wrote. “We face an Axis of Aggressors led by the Chinese Communist Party, who have already started a trade war rather than negotiate in good faith. We need a real Peace Through Strength agenda to ensure Xi Jinping does not launch a military war against us in Asia, beyond his existing military support to the Russians, the Iranians, Hamas, and the Houthis.”

The senior White House official who spoke on a call with reporters to discuss details of the budget request said that splitting the defense increase between the regular Pentagon spending bill and the reconciliation package was a more “durable” proposal.

Maine Republican Sen. Susan Collins, chairwoman of the Appropriations Committee, wrote the panel will have “an aggressive hearing schedule to learn more about the President’s proposal and assess funding needs for the coming year.”

“This request has come to Congress late, and key details still remain outstanding,” Collins wrote. “Based on my initial review, however, I have serious objections to the proposed freeze in our defense funding given the security challenges we face and to the proposed funding cuts to – and in some cases elimination of – programs like LIHEAP, TRIO, and those that support biomedical research. 

“Ultimately, it is Congress that holds the power of the purse.”

Senate Appropriations Committee ranking member Patty Murray, D-Wash., wrote in a statement she will work with others in Congress to block the domestic funding cuts from taking effect.

“Trump wants to rip away funding to safeguard Americans’ health, protect our environment, and to help rural communities and our farmers thrive. This president wants to turn our country’s back on Tribes—and let trash pile up at our national parks,” Murray wrote. “Trump is even proposing to cut investments to prevent violent crime, go after drug traffickers, and tackle the opioids and mental health crises.”

A press release from Murray’s office noted the budget request lacked details on certain programs, including Head Start.

House Speaker Mike Johnson R-La, praised the budget proposal in a statement and pledged that House GOP lawmakers are “ready to work alongside President Trump to implement a responsible budget that puts America first.”

“President Trump’s plan ensures every federal taxpayer dollar spent is used to serve the American people, not a bloated bureaucracy or partisan pet projects,” Johnson wrote.

Spending decisions coming

The House and Senate Appropriations committees are set to begin hearings with Cabinet secretaries and agency heads next week, where Trump administration officials will explain their individual funding requests and answer lawmakers’ questions.

The members on those committees will ultimately write the dozen annual appropriations bills in the months ahead, determining funding levels and policy for numerous programs, including those at the departments of Agriculture, Defense, Education, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, Interior, Justice, State and Transportation.

The House panel’s bills will skew more toward Republican funding levels and priorities, though the Senate committee has a long history of writing broadly bipartisan bills. 

The leaders of the two committees — House Chairman Tom Cole, R-Okla., House ranking member Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., Senate Chairwoman Collins and Senate ranking member Murray — will ultimately work out a final deal later in the year alongside congressional leaders.

Differences over the full-year bills are supposed to be solved before the start of the new fiscal year on Oct. 1, but members of Congress regularly rely on a stopgap spending bill through mid-December to give themselves more time to complete negotiations.

Failure to pass some sort of government funding measure, either a stopgap bill or all 12 full-year spending bills, before the funding deadline, would lead to a partial government shutdown.

This round of appropriations bills will be the first debated during Trump’s second-term presidency and will likely bring about considerable disagreement over the unilateral actions the administration has already taken to freeze or cancel federal spending, many of which are the subject of lawsuits arguing the president doesn’t have that impoundment authority.