Democratic Rep. Mark Pocan at a town hall meeting in Eau Claire, with a chair for Republican Rep. Derrick Van Orden who represents the 3rd Congressional District that includes Eau Claire. The chart behind Pocan shows most of the tax cuts passed by House Republicans go to those in the highest income brackets. | Photo by Frank Zufall/Wisconsin Examiner

“Is Derrick here?” asked U.S. Rep.  Mark Pocan, the Democratic congressman representing Wisconsin’s 2nd Congressional District, which includes  Dane County. Pocan was in Eau Claire, the 3rd Congressional District represented by Derrick Van Orden, a Republican, on Saturday, May 31, at a town hall organized by Opportunity Wisconsin, a coalition of grassroots groups, at the Pablo Center at the Confluence, Eau Claire’s performing arts center.

Van Orden was invited to attend the event but declined.

Pocan is one of several congressional Democrats who have begun holding town hall meetings in Republican districts where Republican representatives have been reluctant to meet their constituents who are upset about  budget cuts that threaten access to Social Security, Medicaid and federal food assistance. 

Pocan focused on what President Dondald Trump (R) has called “the Big Beautiful Bill” that was recently passed by the House of Representatives, and which  Pocan called “the worst bill I’ve ever seen introduced by anyone, by any political party.”

He chided Republican supporters for cutting  Medicaid benefits  for nearly 14 million Americans,  raising the premiums for the Affordable  Care Act (ACA), and cutting food assistance to 11 million mostly low-income children through Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).

The Republican budget reconciliation package  also extends  tax cuts passed in 2017 for America’s top earners, resulting in a nearly $5 trillion national deficit over 10 years.

A May 20 Congressional Budget Office (CBO) analysis of the GOP budget bill projects it would increase the national deficit by $3.8 trillion and decrease Medicaid spending by $698 billion and SNAP spending by $267 billion.

A May 22 CBO projection notes the bill would reduce SNAP participation by “roughly 3.2 million people in an average month over the 2025–2034 period.”

There are different projections on how many people would experience a Medicaid cut, with estimates ranging from 7.5 to 10 million.

Van Orden sent out a release after Pocan’s appearance in Eau Claire:

“What Mr. Pocan is doing is absolutely despicable – continuing to fearmonger our vulnerable populations, including seniors, veterans, hungry children, individuals with disabilities and pregnant women. This bill protects Medicaid and SNAP for those most in need and prevents a 25% tax hike on Wisconsin families. Anyone telling you anything different, including Mr. Pocan, is lying to you.”

Van Orden also disputes  the CBO’s analysis, stating that the CBO has been wrong in the past and tends to be overly critical of Republican-sponsored legislation.

“There are not cuts to Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security, veteran benefits, SNAP and WIC (Women, Infants and Children program) are not being cut,” Van Orden told a local TV station after the House passed the bill.

But Pocan said Van Orden has been corrected even by other Republicans who admit the bill would reduce spending on Medicaid.

“83% of the benefit goes to the top 1% of the people,” Pocan said of the tax cuts, “so they are taking from the pockets of pretty much everyone in this room and putting it into the pockets of Elon Musk and Donald Trumps and others.”

Pocan added that  only 5% of the tax cuts in the bill will go to working people, including those who won’t have to pay taxes on tips,  seniors and to offset interest payments on car loans. And, he noted, those cuts will  sunset, while the much larger tax cuts for top-earners, which account for  83% of the cost of the bill, are permanent.

“The single largest cut to health care in American history is in this bill, 13.7 million people are estimated would lose access to health care because of the cuts to Medicaid,” Pocan said. “But what doesn’t get as much coverage is they also cut some of the premium assistance for the Affordable Care Act. So it’s a $700 billion cut to Medicaid, but also a $300 billion cut to the Affordable Care Act. We don’t even have the estimates of the numbers yet, but millions more will pay increased premiums.”

Pocan said Republicans have said the Medicaid cuts are really about setting work requirements in exchange for benefits and not a straight cut.

“Two-thirds of the people who get Medicaid are working poor,” Pocan said. While they shouldn’t be affected by the new work requirements, the red tape involved in proving their work history will help push people off Medicaid.

 “It’s not about trying to have any accountability,” he said. “It’s to just make it harder for people to get health care.” Pocan pointed to a state work requirement for Medicaid recipients in  Arkansas, where people who lost coverage were actually eligible for care. The work requirements did not boost employment, researchers found and many of those who lost coverage had trouble accessing the online reporting system. 

Pocan also noted that the projected increase in the deficit under the House proposal would trigger a sequestration requirement, resulting in automatic cuts to Medicare of nearly $500 billion.

SNAP cuts would mean a loss of $314 million for Wisconsin.

 Pocan also criticized Trump’s “on again, off again” practice of announcing tariffs, which had created a climate of uncertainty for businesses.

“Not only did Donald Trump not reduce costs like he promised in November, but the tariffs are actually a tax on all of us,” he said.

Pocan criticized Van Orden for not coming to town hall meetings to defend his vote for the Republican budget bill.

Van Orden has said he prefers telephone town halls where the meeting isn’t dominated by people he describes as leftwing critics, and he also has said that his family has received death threats and is vulnerable in an in-person setting.

Pocan acknowledged death threats should be taken seriously, but also stated he and many others in Congress have received death threats, and he criticized Van Orden’s telephone town halls for only allowing his supporters to talk.

Pocan also criticized Van Orden for going back on his promise never to cut Medicaid or reduce SNAP.  Van Orden has claimed  the bill doesn’t reduce Medicaid and that Medicaid and  SNAP payments will continue as usual for recipients if they meet the new work requirements.

A registered nurse who attended the town hall in Eau Claire said many of her clients are on Medicaid and Medicare, with several living in nursing homes, and she asked what would happen to them if the House budget bill became law.

State Sen. Jeff Smith (D-Brunswick) who came to the town hall with Pocan,   said approximately 55% of people in long-term care in Wisconsin are on Medicaid and if Medicaid funding is cut it will also impact the other 45-50% who have private insurance  because facilities will close due to lack of funding.

Pocan also responded to questions about cuts to Social Security Administration staff, saying, “When you cut thousands of people who work for Social Security, you make it harder for people to get access to their money.”

Speaking more generally of federal cuts under Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, he added, “They fired the people who worked on avian flu, bird flu, which was affecting us greatly recently, and they had to rehire them at the Department of Health and Human Services.” 

Pocan said he believed Trump won in November because the cost of living was high and noted that in other countries incumbents  also lost because of a backlash caused by global  inflation.

“So that was the No. 1 thing going for Donald Trump in November, but today it’s the No. 1 thing that’s taking him down the polls, because he said he would address it. He’s done nothing,” said Pocan.

Asked how Democrats could encourage younger people to vote, Pocan said, “The good news is younger people absolutely agree with more progressive public policy and not conservative policy.” But people “want to fight back, you want something to happen,” he added.

He encouraged Democratic leaders to hold more town hall meetings in Republican districts.

 “We should be going into many more Republican districts,” he said.

Pocan also encouraged attendees to meet Van Orden whenever he is in Eau Claire and ask to talk to him directly, and invite the press to be there for the interaction.

He encouraged the crowd of 100-plus to become active.

“You happen to be in this very unique position of having a member that is in a purple district,” Pocan  said of Van Orden, who  won in 2024 by one of the smallest majorities for a Republican in Congress. He “could lose his seat if he doesn’t listen to you.” 

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At a farm market in St. Petersburg, Florida, SNAP recipients were able to use their Electronic Benefits Transfer cards for food. (Photo by Lance Cheung/USDA).

The massive tax and spending bill passed by U.S. House Republicans would likely result in 3.2 million people losing food assistance benefits, and saddle states with around $14 billion a year in costs, according to a new analysis from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

Democrats have argued the bill, which the House passed, 215-214 early Thursday without any Democrats in support, would cut programs for the needy to fund tax breaks for high earners.

The CBO document, issued late Thursday, responded to a request to the office from the top Democrats on the Senate and House Agriculture committees, Sen. Amy Klobuchar and Rep. Angie Craig, both of Minnesota, and somewhat bolsters that claim. The panels oversee federal food aid programs.

“This report is truly devastating,” Craig said in a Friday statement to States Newsroom. “As a mother and someone who at times relied on food assistance as a child, these numbers are heartbreaking. It is infuriating that Republicans in Congress are willing to make our children go hungry so they can give tax breaks to the already rich.”

A provision in the bill to tighten work requirements, including by excluding single parents of children older than 6 and by raising the age of adults to whom the work requirements apply, of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, would result in 3.2 million people losing access to the program in an average month, the CBO report said.

Of those, 1.4 million would be people who currently have a state waiver from work requirements that would be disallowed under the bill and 800,000 would be adults who live with children 7 or older, the report said.

In a Friday statement, Ben Nichols, a spokesman for the House Agriculture Committee led by Pennsylvania Republican Glenn ‘GT’ Thompson, said the proposed change would be more fair to the people SNAP is supposed to help and noted the program is the only state-administered entitlement program that is paid fully by the federal government.

“No one who is able-bodied and working, volunteering, or training for 20 hours a week will lose benefits,” Nichols wrote.

Republicans want to use the legislative package to extend the 2017 tax law and its cuts, increase spending on border security and defense by hundreds of billions of dollars, overhaul American energy production, restructure higher education aid and cut spending.

Toll on states

The cost-share changes, which would require states for the first time to pay for a portion of SNAP benefits, would also limit participation and add a massive line item to state budgets, according to the CBO.

Starting in 2028, states would be responsible for paying 5% to 25% of SNAP benefits, with a state’s share rising with its payment error rate. The federal government currently pays for all SNAP benefits.

Under the House bill, which will likely undergo substantial changes as the Senate considers it in the coming weeks, states collectively would be responsible for just less than $100 billion from 2028 to 2034, about $14 billion per year.

States would respond in a variety of ways, CBO Director Phillip Swagel wrote, including potentially dropping out of the program.

“CBO expects that some states would maintain current benefits and eligibility and others would modify benefits or eligibility or possibly leave the program altogether because of the increased costs,” he wrote.

The office took a “probabilistic approach to account for a range of possible outcomes” to determine what the effect on households would be and estimated that 1.3 million people would lose benefits because of state responses to the new cost-share.

Nichols, with the House Agriculture Committee, disputed the CBO’s estimate regarding the cost share change. The lowest state cost-share of 5% would be available for states with error rates below 6%. Every state has hit that mark at some point in the last decade, he said.

With that favorable of a cost-share, the Republican committee members did not believe states would drop out of the program, he added.

“We reject the hypothetical assumption that some states may not chip into 5 percent of a supplemental nutrition program,” Nichols wrote. “Every state is capable of paying for a portion SNAP… Federal policy should encourage states to administer the SNAP program more efficiently and effectively, and this bill does just that.” 

CBO’s forecasters determined the impacts of the work requirements and cost-share provisions separately, meaning some people potentially losing benefits could have been counted in both categories.

Move to the Senate

The House vote Thursday sent the measure to the Senate, where the debate over SNAP benefits may fall along similar party lines.

Republicans who hold control in that chamber are planning to employ the budget reconciliation process, which allows them to skirt the Senate’s usual 60-vote requirement for legislation.

During the House Agriculture Committee’s debate over its portion of the legislation, Republicans on the panel said the work requirement and state cost-share measures were needed reforms to SNAP that would protect the program for those it was meant to serve, while limiting the costs associated with benefits to adults who were able and unwilling to work or in the country illegally.

In a Friday statement, Sara Lasure, a spokeswoman for Senate Agriculture Committee Chair John Boozman, an Arkansas Republican, also said the panel would seek reforms to the program but did not offer specifics.

“The Senate Agriculture Committee is in the process of crafting its budget reconciliation package and will work as good stewards of taxpayer dollars to make commonsense reforms to SNAP that encourage employment,” she wrote in an email.

Klobuchar, in a statement after House passage Thursday, blasted the House bill and indicated she would oppose efforts to cut SNAP benefits.

“House Republicans are pulling the rug out from under millions of families by taking away federal assistance to put food on the table,” she said. “They’re doing that even as President Trump’s tariff taxes raise food prices by more than $200 for the average family, all to fund more tax breaks for the wealthy. That’s so very wrong —and we will fight against it in the Senate.”

President Donald Trump arrives with Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., for a House Republican meeting at the U.S. Capitol on May 20, 2025 in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — The U.S. House Republicans who have yet to rally behind the party’s “big, beautiful bill” huddled in the speaker’s office Tuesday as different factions tried to hash out agreement on taxes, Medicaid and a few other outstanding issues.

Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., told reporters before those meetings began there were “a number of loose ends to tie up” with deficit hawks and members from high-tax states, who are pressing to raise the state and local tax deduction, also known as SALT.

“We got some hours ahead of us to work this out, and I’m very confident we will,” Johnson said. “I’m going to have a series of meetings that will begin right now in my office to try to tie up the final loose ends. This is a 1,100-page piece of legislation. We’re down to a few provisions so we are very confident, very optimistic we can get this done and stay on our timetable.”

Johnson hopes to pass the legislation this week, though he didn’t appear to have the votes as of Tuesday afternoon.

Trump pays a House call

The smaller meetings followed a closed-door huddle between all the chamber’s GOP lawmakers and President Donald Trump earlier in the day that didn’t quite have the intended effect of immediately convincing holdouts to vote for the bill.

Trump, however, appeared to declare victory before leaving the Capitol.

“I think we have unbelievable unity. I think we’re going to get everything we want,” Trump said after the morning meeting. “And I think we’re going to have a great victory.”

House Republicans have an extremely thin 220-213 majority, requiring nearly every GOP lawmaker to support the 1,116-page package in order for it to reach the Senate.

Getting SALT-y

The reconciliation bill currently proposes lifting the SALT cap from $10,000 to $30,000 for married couples filing jointly, with a phase-down for those earning $400,000 or more, but that’s not enough for Republicans from states most impacted by the aspect of tax law.

New York Republican Rep. Nick LaLota told reporters in the early afternoon that he would likely lose reelection if he can’t secure a better SALT agreement than what was on the table.

“If I do a bad deal, I would expect my constituents to throw me out,” LaLota said. “If I did a deal at $30,000, my own mother wouldn’t vote for me.”

LaLota said Republicans leaders should prioritize a deal that benefits swing voters to avoid the party losing centrist members and possibly the House majority in the 2026 midterms.

“If we win that one issue, they’ll have a much easier November of 2026. And thus we’ll be able to keep the House and do other fiscally responsible things for the next couple of cycles here, if we get this one issue right,” LaLota said. “Conversely, you get this issue wrong — you vote for a bad bill and you keep the cap low — those folks are getting thrown out of office, we lose the majority, and then we have an open border, then we have an impeached president, and then we have all the other things that America voted against.”

LaLota said later Tuesday, after GOP leaders proposed different SALT cap numbers, that there was still “no accepted deal, yet the parties are talking a little more with an understanding of each other’s position.”

“Leadership understands better what our pain threshold is,” LaLota said. “We clearly rejected the $30,000 number that’s in the Ways and Means bill.” 

He declined to say if the SALT Caucus was prepping a counteroffer for leadership, but said that staff were conducting “some research on some of the mixes of income caps and what SALT cap there would be and how much that would be valued at relative to the entire $4 trillion package.”

‘Bad faith negotiation’

Rep. Mike Lawler, a staunch supporter of raising the SALT cap for his constituents north of New York City, would not comment to reporters outside the speaker’s office about a specific dollar amount but said there’s an “improved offer” on the table.

“We’re waiting on more details. We’ll have more to say later,” Lawler said.

Speaking to Fox News in the hallway, he said, “I’m not going to sacrifice my constituents and throw them under the bus in a bad faith negotiation, which is what this has been by leadership and Jason Smith,” he said referring to the chair of the House Committee on Ways and Means.

“We need to come to an agreement. We need to provide real and lasting tax relief, and that’s what I’m fighting for, for my constituents. I respect the president … but I’ll respectfully disagree,” Lawler said.

Trump urged House Republicans Tuesday morning that raising the SALT cap benefits Democratic governors.

Conservatives still unhappy

Complicating negotiations, some far-right House Republicans remain opposed to the bill, saying it does not go far enough.

Rep. Chip Roy of Texas, who did not support the bill during a committee vote Sunday night, told States Newsroom Tuesday afternoon that his “concerns and problems still exist.”

Roy argues the massive reconciliation deal does not reduce deficit spending enough, particularly with respect to Medicaid and clean energy tax credits.

When asked whether lawmakers were approaching an agreement, Roy said “Not sure. We’re still talking. We’ve had literally like five meetings today already.”

Thune predictions

The House passing the package this week would only be one of many steps in the long, winding process.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said during a press conference Tuesday afternoon, just after Johnson spoke during a closed-door lunch, that changes to the package are expected in the upper chamber.

Thune said one of the major questions for GOP senators is whether the legislation holds “sufficient spending reforms to get us on a more sustainable fiscal path.”

“I think most of our members are in favor of a lot of the tax policy and particularly those portions of the tax policy that are stimulative, that are pro-growth, that will create greater growth in the economy,” Thune said. “But when it comes to the spending side of the equation: This is a unique moment in time and in history where we have the House and the Senate and the White House, and an opportunity to do something meaningful about government spending.”

Thune said that GOP senators would likely make “tweaks” to the tax provisions once the House sends over a package, especially around how long certain tax policy lasts.

“They have cliffs and some shorter-term timeframes when it comes to some of the tax policies,” Thune said. “We believe that permanence is the way to create economic certainty and thereby attract and incentive capital investment in this country that creates those good-paying jobs, and gets our economy growing and expanding, and generates more government revenue.”

The U.S. Capitol is pictured on Feb. 25, 2025. (Photo by Jennifer Shutt/States Newsroom) 

WASHINGTON — U.S. House Republicans on the Budget Committee moved the “one big, beautiful” reconciliation bill a step closer to the chamber floor in a rare Sunday night vote after a handful of conservatives blocked the bill Friday. 

The massive deal squeaked through on a 17-16 vote, with four far-right panel members voting “present.” They were Reps. Josh Brecheen of Oklahoma, Andrew Clyde of Georgia, Ralph Norman of South Carolina and Chip Roy of Texas. All four voted no on the bill Friday.

Rep. Lloyd Smucker of Pennsylvania flipped his Friday vote of “no” to support the massive budget reconciliation deal that cuts safety net programs to pay for extending, and expanding, President Donald Trump’s 2017 tax law — at a cost of $3.8 trillion over the next decade.

Smucker, the panel’s vice chair, switched his vote Friday because of committee procedural rules that allowed him to propose reconsideration of the measure.

Brecheen, Clyde, Norman and Roy voted “no” on Friday after demanding work requirements for some Medicaid recipients begin prior to the bill’s stated date of 2029, and that clean energy tax credits phase out at a faster pace.

Roy wrote on social media Sunday night that he changed his vote “out of respect for the Republican Conference and the President to move the bill forward” but that the bill “does not yet meet the moment.”

Other details on why the members changed their votes to “present” were unclear. 

When asked by Democrats on the panel whether anything had changed in the bill, Budget Committee Chair Jody Arrington said negotiations were “fluid.”

“Deliberations continue at this very moment. They will continue on into the week, and I suspect right up until the time we put this big, beautiful bill on the floor of the House,” said Arrington of Texas.

Ranking Member Brendan Boyle of Pennsylvania said his side of the aisle wanted “transparency.”

“If the bill has changed and there’s been some side agreement reached, I think it’s important that all the members have the full details on that in advance of any vote,” Boyle said.

Massive bill

The committee’s tense Sunday night meeting began nearly 30 minutes late.

House Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana told reporters on Capitol Hill shortly beforehand that talks were going “great” and that “minor modifications” had been made over the weekend.

The 1,116-page bill package that includes bills from 11 separate committees will now need to clear the House Committee on Rules to advance to a full House vote. House members are set to leave for Memorial Day recess on Thursday.

As written, the bill cuts more than $600 billion over the next decade from Medicaid, the government health program for low-income individuals as well as those with disabilities.

Credit downgrade

Sunday night’s vote came just two days after Moody’s Ratings downgraded the U.S. government’s credit rating, citing a gloomy outlook for U.S. debt and interest burdens.

“Successive US administrations and Congress have failed to agree on measures to reverse the trend of large annual fiscal deficits and growing interest costs,” a Friday statement from the investment rating service read. “We do not believe that material multi-year reductions in mandatory spending and deficits will result from current fiscal proposals under consideration.”

The reconciliation package could add up to $3.3 trillion to the national debt through 2034, reaching $5.2 trillion if temporary provisions are made permanent, according to analysis by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. The Congressional Budget Office has not yet released scores for all parts of the megabill.

The far-right House Freedom Caucus board released a statement shortly after Sunday night’s vote, saying the bill continues to increase deficits “with possible savings years down the road that may never materialize.”

“Thanks to discussions over the weekend, the bill will be closer to the budget resolution framework we agreed upon in the House in April, but it fails to actually honor our promise to significantly correct the spending trajectory of the federal government and lead our nation towards a balanced budget,” according to the statement posted on social media.

Members of the caucus who do not serve on the Budget Committee made similar public statements.

“America faces the reality of financial insolvency and looming bankruptcy. For 9 years, I have remained faithful to principles that include an end to the continuous growth of FedGov deficit spending. I will not support a federal budget that increases federal deficit spending,” GOP Rep. Clay Higgins of Louisiana wrote on his X profile Sunday.

Republican Rep. Mark Green of Tennessee wrote on the social media site, “The Moody’s downgrade is yet another wake up call. We need to decrease spending immediately!”

Thin margins

As expected, and following Friday’s same result, Democrats on the panel voted unanimously against the package.

Republicans hold a slim 220-213 margin in the House, meaning that if more than three Republicans vote with Democrats — who are all expected to vote against the package — the bill would fail on the floor.

Republicans swiftly voted down several last-ditch efforts by Democrats on the panel to protect low-income health care and food assistance programs, as well as clean energy and manufacturing tax credits.

Johnson must also contend with a parallel — and expensive — fight among his conference on the state and local taxes, or SALT, deduction. Republicans who represent high-income, high-tax blue states like California and New York, are demanding a more generous cap on the amount they can deduct. 

Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas shakes hands with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman following a hearing of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation on Thursday, May 8, in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

A footnote in a budget bill U.S. House Republicans are trying to pass before Memorial Day is the first major signal for how Congress may address artificial intelligence legislation, as they seek to create a moratorium on any AI laws at the state level for 10 years.

The measure, advanced Wednesday, May 14, as part of the House Energy & Commerce Committee’s budget reconciliation proposal, says a state may not enforce any law or regulation on AI models and systems, or automated decision-making systems in the next 10 years. Exceptions would include laws that “remove legal impediments to, or facilitate the deployment or operation of” AI systems.

“No one believes that AI should be unregulated,” said California Rep. Jay Obernolte, a Republican member of the Subcommittee on Communications and Technology, during a markup Wednesday. But he said he believes that responsibility should fall to Congress, not the states. 

The AI law moratorium was packaged with a budget line item proposing to spend $500 million modernizing federal IT programs with commercial AI systems through 2035.

This move by House Republicans is not really out of left field, said Travis Hall, director for State Engagement at tech policy and governance organization Center for Democracy and Technology. Many have been itching to create a preemptive federal law to supersede AI legislation in the states.

At a Senate Commerce Committee session earlier this month, Chairman Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican, said it was in his plans to create “a regulatory sandbox for AI” that would prevent state overregulation and promote the United States’ AI industry. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, once open to AI regulations, testified that the country’s lack of regulation is what contributed to his success.

“I think it is no accident that that’s happening in America again and again and again, but we need to make sure that we build our systems and that we set our policy in a way where that continues to happen,” Altman said.  

As the language of the bill stands, Congress would prohibit enforcement of any existing laws on AI and decision-making systems, and nullify any potential laws that could be put forth over the next decade, Hall said. Though they discussed AI research last year, Congress has not put forward any guidelines or regulations on AI.

“I will say what feels very different and new about this particular provision … both in terms of conversations about artificial intelligence and in terms of other areas of tech and telecom policy, is the complete lack of any regulatory structure that would actually be preempting the state law,” Hall said.

States have been developing their own laws around AI and decision-making systems — software that helps analyze and sort data, commonly used for job applications, mortgage lending, banking and in other industries — over the last few years as they await federal legislation. At least 550 AI bills have been introduced across 45 states and Puerto Rico in 2025, the National Conference of State Legislatures reported.

Many of these state laws regulate how AI intertwines with data privacy, transparency and discrimination. Others regulate how children can access these tools, how they can be used in election processes and surround the concept of deepfakes, or computer-generated likenesses of real people.

While lawmakers from both sides of the aisle have called for federal AI legislation, Hall said he thinks industry pressure and President Donald Trump’s deregulated tech stance won’t allow Congress to effectively act on a preemptive law — “states are stepping into that vacuum themselves.”

On Friday, 40 state attorneys general signed a bipartisan letter to Congress opposing the limitation on state AI legislation. The letter urged Congress to develop a federal framework for AI governance for “high risk” systems that promotes transparency, testing and tool assessment, in addition to state legislation. The letter said existing laws were developed “over years through careful consideration and extensive stakeholder input from consumers, industry, and advocates.”

“In the face of Congressional inaction on the emergence of real-world harms raised by the use of AI, states are likely to be the forum for addressing such issues,” the letter said. “This bill would directly harm consumers, deprive them of rights currently held in many states, and prevent State AGs from fulfilling their mandate to protect consumers.”  

A widesweeping AI bill in California was vetoed by Gov. Gavin Newsom last year, citing similar industry pressure. Senate Bill 1047 would have required safety testing of costly AI models to determine whether they would likely lead to mass death, endanger public infrastructure or enable severe cyberattacks.

Assemblymember Rebecca Bauer-Kahan, a Bay Area Democrat, has found more success with the Automated Decisions Safety Act this year, but said as a regulatory lawyer, she would favor having a federal approach.

“We don’t have a Congress that is going to do what our communities want, and so in the absence of their action, the states are stepping up,” she said.

The moratorium would kill the Automated Decisions Safety Act and nullify all of California’s AI legislation, as well as landmark laws like Colorado’s which will go into effect in February. State Rep. Brianna Titone, a sponsor of Colorado’s law, said people are hungry for some regulation.

“A 10 year moratorium of time is astronomical in terms of how quickly this technology is being developed,” she said in an email to States Newsroom. “To have a complete free-for-all on AI with no safeguards puts citizens at risk of situations we haven’t yet conceived of.”

Hall is skeptical that this provision will advance fully, saying he feels legislators will have a hard time trying to justify this moratorium in a budget bill relating to updating aging IT systems. But it’s a clear indication that the focus of this Congress is on deregulation, not accountability, he said.

“I do think that it’s unfortunate that the first statement coming out is one of abdication of responsibility,” Hall said, “as opposed to stepping up and doing the hard work of actually putting in place common sense and, like, actual protections for people that allows for innovation.”

The U.S. House Budget Committee votes on Friday, May 16, 2025 on a massive reconciliation package. The vote failed, 16-21. (Screenshot from House webcast)

WASHINGTON — Republicans suffered a major setback to their “big, beautiful bill” on Friday, when amid conservative objections the U.S. House Budget Committee failed to approve the measure, a crucial step in the process.

In a 16-21 vote, Reps. Andrew Clyde of Georgia, Josh Brecheen of Oklahoma, Ralph Norman of South Carolina, Chip Roy of Texas and Lloyd Smucker of Pennsylvania broke from their GOP colleagues to block the bill from moving toward the floor, demanding changes to several provisions.

The breakdown over the 1,116-page bill marks an escalation in the long-running feud between centrist Republicans, who have been cautious about hundreds of billions in spending cuts to safety net programs, and far-right members of the party, who argue the changes are not enough.

The committee is scheduled to reconvene Sunday at 10 p.m. Eastern. House Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana has said he wants the package on the floor prior to the Memorial Day recess.

Speedier work requirements

Norman said he remains a “hard no” until new work requirements for Medicaid recipients phase in more quickly. As the bill is written, the requirements won’t begin until 2029.

“To phase this in for four years — We’re telling a healthy-bodied, a healthy American that you got four years to get a job. No, your payment stops now,” Norman said.

Brecheen criticized the bill for not going far enough to repeal wind and solar energy tax credits, which he contends are “undermining natural gas jobs.”

“We have to fix this,” he said.

Clyde denounced the measure for not adhering to President Donald Trump’s promise of “right-sizing government,” as Clyde described it. The Georgia Republican also pleaded for lower taxes on firearms and stronger cuts that would put Medicaid on a “sustainable path.”

“Unfortunately, the current version falls short of these goals and fails to deliver the transformative change that Americans were promised,” Clyde said.

Smucker initially voted ‘yes,’ but then joined his four colleagues to oppose the measure.

Trump wrote on his social media platform shortly before the committee voted that “Republicans MUST UNITE behind, ‘THE ONE, BIG BEAUTIFUL BILL!’”

“We don’t need ‘GRANDSTANDERS’ in the Republican Party. STOP TALKING, AND GET IT DONE! It is time to fix the MESS that Biden and the Democrats gave us. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”

‘A wrecking ball to Medicaid’

Democrats, who as expected unified in voting no against the bill, slammed it as “ugly,” “cruel” and a “betrayal.”

“This bill takes a wrecking ball to Medicaid, on which 1 in 5 Americans and 3 million Ohioans depend for medical care — children, seniors in nursing homes,” said Rep. Marcy Kaptur, who represents northern Ohio. “Please come with me to visit the nursing homes. … Perhaps too many on the other side of the aisle have not had to endure a life that has major challenges.”

Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota said the proposed cuts to safety net programs would be “devastating.”

“Their changes will kick millions of Americans off their health care and nutrition assistance. That means more untreated illnesses, more hungry children, more preventable deaths,” she said.

Republican-only bill

Republicans are using the complex reconciliation process to move the package through Congress with simple majority votes in each chamber, avoiding the Senate’s 60-vote legislative filibuster, which would otherwise require bipartisanship. 

Reconciliation measures must address federal revenue, spending, or the debt limit in a way not deemed “merely incidental” by the Senate parliamentarian. That means the GOP proposals must carry some sort of price tag and cannot focus simply on changing federal policy.

Republicans are using the package to extend the 2017 tax law, increase spending on border security and defense by hundreds of billions of dollars, overhaul American energy production, restructure higher education aid and cut spending.

The 11 House committees tasked with drafting pieces of the legislation have all debated and approved their measures along party lines.

The Agriculture Committee, Energy and Commerce Committee and Ways and Means Committee all completed their work earlier this week, amid strong objections from Democrats.

Proposed changes to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, could shift considerable cost-sharing onto states for the first time, presenting challenges for red-state lawmakers who need to explain the bill back home.

More than $600 billion in federal spending cuts to Medicaid during the next decade could also cause some difficulties for moderate Republicans, some of whose constituents are likely to be among the millions of Americans expected to lose their health insurance.

Republicans also have yet to reach an agreement on the state and local tax deduction or SALT, a priority for GOP lawmakers from blue states like California, New Jersey and New York.

The Budget Committee’s role in the process was to package together all of the bills and then send the one massive bill to the Rules Committee, the last stop before floor debate for major legislation.

That won’t be able to happen until after GOP leaders get nearly all the Republican lawmakers on the panel to support the package. 

A measure passed by the U.S. House Ways and Means Committee allows individual taxpayers such as waiters and waitresses to deduct qualifying tips earned throughout the year, a tax break that would end in 2028. (Getty Photos)

WASHINGTON — House Republicans advanced the tax portion of the “one big, beautiful” reconciliation package early Wednesday, a step forward in permanently extending, and in some cases expanding, the 2017 tax law and temporarily handing President Donald Trump a win on campaign promises like no tax on tips.

The House Committee on Ways and Means voted along party lines to pass the measure, 26-19, after nearly 18 hours of debate that went through the night. Republicans rejected numerous amendments offered by Democrats, including protecting tax credits meant to combat climate change enacted under Democrats’ own 2022 budget reconciliation law, the Inflation Reduction Act.

The marathon debate occurred as the House Committee on Energy and Commerce debated overnight and into Wednesday afternoon over deep budget cuts, including some to Medicaid assistance for low-income individuals, to pay for the cost of tax provisions.

As of now, the massive tax package is estimated to add $3.8 trillion to the budget deficit over 10 years, according to the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.

If any temporary expansions in the bill are eventually made permanent, it would add roughly $5.3 trillion to the deficit over the next decade, according to the CRFB. The official congressional budget score has not yet been released.

Overall the bill is “a very, very big tax cut,” said Howard Gleckman, senior fellow at the Tax Policy Center, part of the left-leaning Brookings Institution and Urban Institute. “Much of the benefit will go to higher income people.”

Tax brackets, business breaks would continue

The bill permanently extends the underlying tax provisions passed in 2017 under the GOP-backed bill titled the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which is set to expire in 2025.

This means:

• Individual taxpayers would remain in the same tax brackets that were lowered in 2017, and they would continue to see the doubled standard deduction — two of the most costly measures. Additionally, taxpayers will receive a boost up to $2,000 on the standard deduction through 2028.
• Individual brackets would remain at 10%, 12%, 22%, 24%, 32%, 35% and 37%, though the proposal would change how inflation adjustments are calculated, meaning income would be taxed less over time, except for those in the 37% bracket.
• The $2,000 child tax credit, per child, would remain permanent but temporarily increase to $2,500 through 2028. The refundable portion of the credit — meaning how much money taxpayers can get back — would be increased to $1,400, but the amount remains subject to income thresholds, meaning lower income households would receive less of a refund.
• The child tax credit would now only be accessible if the parent submits a Social Security number, as well as a spouse’s if legally married, in addition to the already required Social Security number of each qualifying child.
• On the business side, the corporate tax rate would stay at 21%.
• Business owners who run sole proprietorships, partnerships and S-corporations would see an increase, to 23% up from 20%, in the amount of business income they can deduct from their federal returns, otherwise referred to as the pass-through income deduction.
• Expensing for research and development would be restored through 2029, as well as deductions available to businesses for certain investments, including equipment purchases.

No tax on tips, but only for a few years

Trump promised on the campaign trail to eliminate taxes on tips, Social Security and car loan interest. House Republicans handed him a win in their bill, but only a limited one.

The bill allows individual taxpayers to deduct qualifying tips earned throughout the year, a tax break that would end in 2028. And like the new child tax credit requirement, taxpayers could only take advantage of the deduction by including a Social Security number on their federal tax return as well as their spouse’s SSN, if married.

No taxes on car loan interest would also go into effect through 2028, though taxpayers could only claim it for automobiles that received final assembly in the United States.

Senior citizens with incomes of $75,000 or less, or $150,000 for a married couple, would receive an extra $4,000 discount on taxable income, with the amount decreasing as incomes increase. The tax break would also expire in 2028. The bill does not specify an age for “seniors.”

Highly taxed states still unhappy 

House Republicans raised the cap on the amount of state and local taxes, or SALT, that can be deducted, but not enough to please both GOP and Democratic lawmakers who represent highly taxed states like New York and California.

Under the bill the committee advanced Wednesday morning, taxpayers could deduct up to $30,000 — three times the $10,000 ceiling in the 2017 law — from their federal taxable income. The full cap would apply to those making $400,000 or less in annual income but phases down for higher earners.

Raising the cap is costly and unpopular with lawmakers representing lower tax states.

Republican Reps. Mike Lawler and Nick LaLota of New York, and Rep. Young Kim of California, are threatening to vote no on the House floor if the cap isn’t raised. The House GOP cannot lose more than a handful of votes if all Republicans are present.

House Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana told reporters Wednesday he didn’t want to “handicap” negotiations by sharing details publicly and that he was talking to the SALT caucus until 1:30 a.m.

“But I will tell you I’m absolutely confident we’re going to be able to work out a compromise that everybody can live with,” he said.

A ‘tragic indifference’ for poor families

The committee’s party-line approval of the bill drew praise and criticism across organizations representing varying interests of Americans.

Kris Cox, director of federal tax policy for the left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, wrote on social media that the temporary child tax credit bump does “zilch” for the roughly 17 million children whose parents do not earn enough money to receive a refund check from the credit.

“But it delivers an additional $500-per-kid to higher-income families,” Cox wrote.

The organization also slammed the bill for going “out of its way to take eligibility from 4.5 million US citizen kids who have at least one parent without an SSN.”

Kristen Crowell, executive director of the advocacy group Fair Share America, said in a statement Wednesday that the bill “shows a tragic indifference to the very real struggles of normal, working people.

“In order to save face in front of their constituents, Republicans are hiding behind misleading claims that everyone will see reductions in their taxes,” Crowell said.

The Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental protection advocacy organization, estimates that phasing out and altogether eliminating clean energy tax credits would result in higher electricity bills in several states, including Ohio and Pennsylvania, according to an emailed statement.

‘Unshackle the economy’ for businesses

Groups representing businesses across the U.S. praised the House bill as a way to bolster investment and growth opportunities.

Former Republican Ways and Means Chair Kevin Brady of Texas released a statement Wednesday on behalf of the Alliance for Competitive Taxation praising the bill as a path to “unshackle the economy from burdensome taxes and unlock new growth.”

“The bill reported out by the House Ways and Means Committee is an encouraging step in that direction and, if implemented with its major pro-growth proposals intact, will help American businesses and workers compete at home and abroad,” Brady said.

The alliance hailed the extension of the 21% corporate tax rate and urged lawmakers to make permanent the research and development expensing, and capital investment deductions.

Kristen Silverberg, president and chief operating officer of the Business Roundtable, said her organization “applauds Chairman Smith and members of the House Ways and Means Committee for advancing a comprehensive, pro-growth tax bill,” referring to GOP Rep. Jason Smith of Missouri.

“Today’s vote is a critical step forward in securing a more competitive tax system for American businesses and workers,” said Silverberg, whose organization represents 200 CEOs of U.S.-based companies.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries holds a press conference May 13, 2025, at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Shauneen Miranda/States Newsroom)

WASHINGTON — Democrats Tuesday criticized House Republicans for their efforts to pass “one big, beautiful” bill to extend Trump-era tax cuts that would require potential cuts to food assistance and Medicaid.

“The American people do not support this extreme and toxic bill, and we’re going to hold every single House Republican who votes for it accountable,” said House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, Democrat of New York, during a press conference.

As House Republicans push forward with the last three bills of their reconciliation package in committee this week, Democrats slammed the proposed work requirements for Medicaid, extending the 2017 tax cuts enacted during President Donald Trump’s first term and overhaul of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, in order to pay for the megabill.

The complex reconciliation process skirts the Senate filibuster and Republicans plan to pass the bill through a simple majority, meaning input from Democrats is not needed. 

Several House Democrats, such as Rep. Steven Horsford, Democrat of Nevada, called the legislation a “scam.”

Horsford, who sits on the Ways and Means Committee, said during a separate press conference with the advocacy group Popular Democracy that extending the 2017 Trump tax cuts would “gut Medicaid.”

Medicaid is the state-federal health care program for people with low incomes and certain people with disabilities, and has 71.3 million enrollees. 

“This would be the largest cut to health care in the history of our country,” Horsford said.

Rep. Judy Chu, Democrat of California, said only the ultra wealthy, such as billionaires, would benefit from reconciliation through tax cuts.

The cost of the tax proposal has not yet been released, but government deficit watchdogs estimated a wholesale extension would cost roughly $4 trillion over the next decade.

SNAP costs shifted in part to states

The House committees on Agriculture, Energy and Commerce and Ways and Means met Tuesday to debate and pass their bills.

The Agriculture panel seeks to hit as much as $290 billion in cuts by passing part of the costs of SNAP to states through a sliding pay scale, based on error rates.

States with the lowest error rates for SNAP benefits would only pay for 5%, while other states with higher rates could pay as much for 25% of food benefits. More than 42 million people rely on SNAP, which is currently completely funded by the federal government.

The Energy and Commerce bill would cut federal spending by $880 billion, such as by instituting work requirements for Medicaid for some able-bodied adults ages between 19 and 65.

House committees have already signed off on eight of the 11 bills that will make up the sweeping reconciliation legislation before the Budget Committee rolls the bills into one package. If all Republicans get on board, the House is on track to approve the entire package before the end of May.

Warnings of rising premiums, hospital closings

Senate Democrats slammed potential cuts and changes to Medicaid.

“Not only will millions of Americans lose coverage — for many others, their premiums will skyrocket,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said at a press conference Tuesday.

“Hospitals — rural, urban and in between — will close,” the New York Democrat said. “Many, many people will lose their jobs, and many more will lose their health coverage. States will scramble with their budgets, and American families will be left out to dry.”

Oregon Democratic U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden also blasted the proposed cuts.

“What the Republicans do in their health care provisions in the reconciliation package is walk back health security for millions and millions of Americans,” he said.

“We’re for a tax code that gives everybody in America the chance to get ahead, that’s something that we’re going to battle for in this process,” said Wyden, the top Democrat on the U.S. Senate Committee on Finance.

Senate GOP

Some Republicans have also raised concerns about cuts to Medicaid, such as Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley, who wrote in an opinion piece in the New York Times that any cuts to Medicaid would be “both morally wrong and politically suicidal.”

But Senate Majority Leader, John Thune of South Dakota, said Tuesday that he feels “very good” about where House Republicans are on their bill and “where, ultimately, we are going to be on that bill as well.”

“We are coordinating very closely with our House counterparts at the committee level, at the leadership level, and we know they have to get 218 votes,” he said.

Thune said House Republicans will “do what it takes to get it done in the House, and when it comes over here, we will be prepared for various contingencies, obviously, one of which could be taking up the House bill and then offering a Senate substitute, but we’ll see what ultimately they’re able to get done.” 

The U.S. House will begin debate in committee this week on a bill that would cut Medicaid spending. (Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — U.S. House Republicans plan to debate and approve the three final pieces of their “big, beautiful bill” in committee this week, including the tax measure, major spending cuts to Medicaid that will change how states run the program and an agriculture bill.

At least $880 billion over the next 10 years would be slashed under the piece of the bill that covers energy and health care, including from Medicaid. Republicans would add new Medicaid work requirements for some able-bodied adults; seek to penalize the dozen states that allow immigrants living in the U.S. without legal status in the program; and require states to more frequently check Medicaid enrollees’ eligibility, among other changes.

An estimate was not yet available for exactly how much that would save in Medicaid spending or how many people enrolled might lose coverage. Earlier projections of various other scenarios by the Congressional Budget Office had placed the numbers of displaced enrollees in the millions, and Democrats predicted the same effect from the newest plan.

House panels have already signed off on eight of the 11 bills that will make up the sweeping reconciliation legislation. And if all goes according to plan, that chamber should approve the entire package before the end of the month.

Debate is expected to begin Tuesday in each of the panels and last hours, possibly into Wednesday. Democrats will offer dozens of amendments seeking to change the bills and highlighting their disagreement with GOP policy goals.

Internal Republican disputes between centrists and far-right lawmakers over numerous tax proposals and funding changes to Medicaid will also likely lead to debate on GOP amendments.

With paper-thin majorities in the House and Senate, nearly every Republican needs to support the overall package for it to move through both chambers and to President Donald Trump.

If Republicans fail to reach agreement during the next couple months, it would put nearly every aspect of their agenda in jeopardy. GOP leaders would also need to negotiate a bipartisan debt limit agreement before the August recess, should the reconciliation package fall apart, since they plan to include debt limit language as well.

GOP divided over Medicaid cuts

Kentucky Republican Rep. Brett Guthrie, chairman of the committee that oversees energy and Medicaid, wrote in a statement last week announcing the markup that his panel’s measure would “end wasteful government spending, unleash American energy and innovation, and strengthen Medicaid for mothers, children, individuals with disabilities, and the elderly.”

But the bill released this weekend might not have support from far-right members in the House and seems to be running into opposition from some GOP senators as well. 

Texas Republican Rep. Chip Roy, of the hard right, wrote on social media that he hoped “House & Senate leadership are coming up with a backup plan…. ….. because I’m not here to rack up an additional $20 trillion in debt over 10 years or to subsidize healthy, able-bodied adults, corrupt blue states, and monopoly hospital ceos…”

Missouri Republican Sen. Josh Hawley, who has voiced concern for months about potential cuts to Medicaid, wrote an op-ed published in The New York Times on Monday highly critical of a “contingent of corporatist Republicans” who support lower federal spending on the program.”

“This wing of the party wants Republicans to build our big, beautiful bill around slashing health insurance for the working poor,” Hawley wrote. “But that argument is both morally wrong and politically suicidal.”

The entire House package will be open to amendment if the legislation makes it to the Senate, where several GOP lawmakers are expected to rework or even eliminate entire sections.

Work requirements

The Energy and Commerce Committee’s bill is the one that would cut federal spending by at least $880 billion during the next decade including on Medicaid, the state-federal health program for lower income people.

The legislation would institute work requirements nationwide for able-bodied adults between the ages of 19 and 65, with several exceptions, including for pregnant people, enrollees with certain disabilities or serious medical conditions, and parents of dependent children.

People not exempted from the requirements would need to work, engage in community service, or enroll in an education program for at least 80 hours a month.

A staffer on the panel told reporters during a background briefing Monday that Republicans tried to learn from challenges certain states had in the past when they implemented work requirements.

After discussions with current and former state Medicaid directors, the staffer said the committee wrote a bill that they are confident “states will be able to implement effectively.”

The work requirements take into account various unexpected circumstances, like if someone were to be hit by a bus and unable to complete the 80-hours-per-month requirement on time because they were hospitalized, the staffer said.

“We did try to be very thoughtful about any kind of circumstance that could happen,” they said.

Immigrant coverage, eligibility checks

The Medicaid legislation also seeks to encourage states who include undocumented immigrants in their program to stop doing so or lose some federal funding.

The federal government currently pays 90% of the cost of covering enrollees who are eligible for Medicaid under the 2010 Affordable Care Act expansion. That would decrease to 80% for the expanded population if states choose to keep covering undocumented immigrants.

The committee staffer said this would impact California, Colorado, Connecticut, the District of Columbia, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Utah, Vermont and Washington states if they don’t change their policies regarding undocumented immigrants.

Additionally, states would need to check eligibility for all of their Medicaid enrollees every six months, instead of once a year for the expanded population. This likely would lead to some people being kicked out of the program.

Committee staff members were unable to share exactly how each of the Medicaid provisions would affect the federal budget or how many people could lose access to the program if Congress were to implement the legislation as written.

But the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office wrote in a letter Monday that it estimates the Energy and Commerce Committee met its target of cutting at least $880 billion in spending “over the 2025-2034 period and would not increase on-budget deficits in any year after 2034.”

Staff on the committee said they don’t expect to have the full CBO score before the markup begins Tuesday and didn’t have an estimate for when that information will be out.

Energy and Commerce Committee Ranking Member Frank Pallone, D-N.J., wrote in a statement the GOP bill would lead to millions of people losing access to Medicaid.

“This is not trimming fat from around the edges, it’s cutting to the bone,” Pallone wrote. “The overwhelming majority of the savings in this bill will come from taking health care away from millions of Americans. No where in the bill are they cutting ‘waste, fraud, and abuse’—they’re cutting people’s health care and using that money to give tax breaks to billionaires.”

Repealing clean-energy funds

The Republican proposal would repeal more than a dozen sections of Democrats’ 2022 reconciliation law related to energy and environment programs.

The law, known as the Inflation Reduction Act, included hundreds of billions in tax credits for renewable energy and energy-efficiency measures. It was considered the largest investment by the United States in tackling climate change.

The House bill would repeal sections including the $27 billion Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, which helps finance clean-energy projects, and a $40 billion Department of Energy loan program meant to stimulate production of clean-energy infrastructure.

Sections targeting carbon emissions, air pollution, offshore wind transmission, and other programs would also rescind any unspent funds for those purposes appropriated in the Biden-era law.

The measure would allow pipeline builders to pay fees to bypass environmental review. Natural gas pipelines could pay $10 million to access an expedited approval process and liquified natural gas exports could pay $1 million for the Energy Department to deem them “in the public interest.”

Rep. Kathy Castor, the ranking member on the Energy and Commerce Energy Subcommittee, said the proposal would sabotage efforts to drive down prices for consumers.

“Cleaner, cheaper energy for consumers gets left behind,” the Florida Democrat wrote in a statement. “Dismantling our landmark Inflation Reduction Act will kill jobs, hurt businesses, and drive-up Americans’ energy costs.”

Tax cuts

The Ways and Means Committee released its 28-page starter bill late last week and the full 389-page version Monday afternoon, but Republicans on the panel could add to it during the Tuesday markup.

House GOP tax writers propose making permanent the underlying 2017 tax law provisions while temporarily expanding several of them, including the child tax credit and standard deduction.

The child tax credit would increase to $2,500, up from $2,000, until 2028. The refundable amount of the tax credit per child — meaning how much taxpayers could get back — would now reach up to $1,400. Taxpayers claiming the credit would now have to provide a Social Security number, as well as the SSN of a spouse.

The standard deduction for single and married joint filers would temporarily increase until 2029 up to $2,000, depending on filing status.

Trump’s campaign promises, including no tax on tips, also made it into the proposal, though only until 2028. Those claiming the tax break on tips will also need to provide a Social Security number as well as the SSN of their spouse, if married.

Trump’s promise to eliminate taxes on car loan interest, also set to expire in 2028, would not apply to any vehicle that was not finally assembled in the U.S.

Tax writers increased but ultimately left a cap on the amount of state and local taxes, commonly referred to as SALT, that households can deduct, an incredibly contentious issue for lawmakers with constituents in high tax areas like New York and California. GOP lawmakers increased the SALT cap to $30,000, up from $10,000.

That level, however, might not have the support needed among Republicans’ extremely thin majorities and will likely lead to heated debate during markup, or on the floor.

Republicans from higher-tax states have repeatedly said they will not vote for the entire package unless they feel their constituents will benefit from raising the SALT cap.

The dispute has spilled over several times already, including in a statement last week from four New York Republicans, who wrote, “The Speaker and the House Ways and Means Committee unilaterally proposed a flat $30,000 SALT cap — an amount they already knew would fall short of earning our support.”

“It’s not just insulting—it risks derailing President Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill,” they wrote. “New Yorkers already send far more to Washington than we get back—unlike many so-called ‘low-tax’ states that depend heavily on federal largesse.

“A higher SALT cap isn’t a luxury. It’s a matter of fairness.”

New York Republican Rep. Nick LaLota wrote on social media Monday afternoon: “Still a hell no.”

How much the tax proposal will cost has not yet been released, but government deficit watchdogs estimated a wholesale extension of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, without the enhancements, would cost north of $4 trillion over the next decade.

Erica York, vice president of federal tax policy at the Tax Foundation, said the proposal provides some certainty to individual taxpayers but it also adds complexity in many areas.

“You can clearly see the thinking here was probably just a straight-up extension (of the 2017 law), people wouldn’t feel like they got a tax cut because it’s just continuing. So they had to do something to make it feel like there’s a larger tax cut,” York said.

Ag cuts remain a mystery

The House Agriculture Committee, led by Pennsylvania Republican Glenn ‘GT’ Thompson, hadn’t released its bill as of Monday afternoon but was scheduled to begin the markup on Tuesday evening.

That panel is supposed to cut at least $230 billion in federal spending during the next decade, some of which will likely come from reworking elements of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP.

Committee leaders are also planning to include elements of the much overdue farm bill, though those provisions could run into issues in the Senate if they don’t have a significant impact on federal revenue or spending.

Republicans are using the complex reconciliation process to move the package through Congress with simple majority votes in each chamber, avoiding the Senate’s 60-vote legislative filibuster, which would otherwise require bipartisanship. 

Reconciliation measures must address federal revenue, spending, or the debt limit in a way not deemed “merely incidental” by the Senate parliamentarian. That means the GOP proposals must carry some sort of price tag and cannot focus simply on changing federal policy.

Jacob Fischler and Ashley Murray contributed to this report.

A U.S. Border Patrol official vehicle  is shown parked near the border. (Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — U.S. House Judiciary Republicans Wednesday worked in committee on a portion of a major legislative package that would help fund President Donald Trump’s plans to conduct mass deportations of people living in the United States without permanent legal status.

The Judiciary panel’s $81 billion share of the “one, big beautiful” bill the president has requested of Congress would provide $45 billion for immigration detention centers, $8 billion to hire thousands of immigration enforcement officers and more than $14 billion for deportations, among other things.

The border security and immigration funds are part of a massive package that wraps together White House priorities including tax cuts and defense spending boosts. Republicans are pushing the deal through using a special procedure known as reconciliation that will allow the Senate GOP to skirt its usual 60-vote threshold when that chamber acts.

House Republicans returning from a two-week recess kicked off their work on reconciliation Tuesday, approving three of 11 bills out of committees on Armed Services, Education and Workforce and Homeland Security.

On Wednesday, lawmakers continued work on the various sections of the reconciliation bill with markups — which means a bill is debated and potentially amended or rewritten — in the Financial Services, Judiciary, Transportation and Infrastructure and Oversight and Government Reform committees.

House Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana said Republicans will spend the rest of this week and next debating the 11 separate bills in committees. Committees when they finish their measures will send them to the House Budget Committee, which is expected to bundle them together prior to a floor vote.

The Judiciary panel’s 116-page bill vastly overhauls U.S. asylum laws. It would, for example, create a fee structure for asylum seekers that would set a minimum cost for an application at no less than $1,000. Applications now are free.

“These and other resources and fees in this reconciliation bill will ensure the Trump administration has the adequate resources to enforce the immigration laws in a fiscally responsible way,” GOP Chair Jim Jordan of Ohio said.

The bill would establish a $1,000 fee for immigrants granted temporary protected status, which would mean they would have work authorizations and deportation protections.

It would also require sponsors to pay $3,500 to take in an unaccompanied minor who crosses the border without a legal status. Typically, unaccompanied minors are released to sponsors who are family members living in the United States.

The bill would also require immigrants without permanent legal status to pay a $550 fee for work permits every six months.

The top Democrat on the panel, Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, slammed the bill as targeting immigrants.

“Every day, this administration uses immigration enforcement as a template to erode constitutional rights and liberties,” he said.

A final committee vote was expected Wednesday night.

‘A giveaway to ICE’

The Judiciary bill directs half of the fees collected from asylum seekers to go toward the agency that handles U.S. immigration courts, but Democrats criticized the provisions as creating a barrier for asylum seekers.

“The so-called immigration fees that are in this bill are really fines and nothing but a cruel attempt to make immigrating to this country impossible,” Washington Democratic Rep. Pramila Jayapal said.

Democratic Rep. Chuy Garcia of Illinois, said the bill would not only “gut asylum” but would significantly increase funding for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention.

Funding for ICE detention this fiscal year is roughly $3.4 billion, but the Judiciary bill would sharply increase that to $45 billion.

Garcia called the increase a “a giveaway to ICE, a rogue agency that’s terrorizing communities and clamping (down) on civil liberties and the Constitution itself, because they’ve been directed to do so by this president.”

House Republicans have also included language that would move the Federal Trade Commission into the Department of Justice’s antitrust division, a move Democrats argued would kneecap the FTC’s regulatory authority.

“You’re trying to shutter the FTC, the Federal Trade Commission, making it harder for us to enforce our antitrust laws,” Democratic Rep. Becca Balint of Vermont said.

Consumer protections to take a hit

Lawmakers on the House Committee on Financial Services met in a lengthy, and at times tense, session to finalize legislation to cut “no less than” $1 billion from government programs and services under the panel’s jurisdiction, according to the budget resolution Congress approved in April.

Funds in the crosshairs include those previously authorized for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and grants provided under the Biden administration-era Inflation Reduction Act for homeowners to improve energy efficiency.

Chair French Hill said the committee “will do its part to reduce the deficit and decrease direct spending, so that Congress can enact pro-growth tax policies.”

“And remember, today, we are here with one purpose, to do our part to put our nation back on a responsible fiscal trajectory,” the Arkansas Republican said.

Democrats introduced dozens of amendments during the hourslong session to block cuts to community block grants and programs protecting consumers, including veterans, from illegal credit and lending practices.

Ranking member Maxine Waters said committee Republicans’ plans to cut the CFPB by 70% “is ridiculous.”

“The bureau has saved American consumers $21 billion by returning to them funds that big banks and predatory lenders swindled out of them,” said Waters, a California Democrat.

Congress created the CFPB in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, when subprime mortgage lending cascaded into bank failures and home and job losses.

Republicans opposed amendment after amendment.

Rep. María Salazar of Florida tossed a copy of one of Waters’ lengthy amendments straight into a trash can after a staffer handed it to her. Michigan’s Rep. Bill Huizenga held up proceedings for several minutes when he accused Waters of breaking the rules by not distributing enough paper copies of her amendment.

“We cannot allow our government to continue spending money like there are no consequences,” GOP Rep. Mike Flood of Nebraska said in response to several Democratic amendments.

A final committee vote was expected Wednesday night.

Transportation section adds fees on electric vehicles

The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee also approved, by a party line 36-30 vote, reconciliation instructions that would cut $10 billion from the federal deficit while boosting spending for the U.S. Coast Guard and the air traffic control system.

Like other portions of the larger reconciliation package, the transportation committee’s instructions would add funding for national security and border enforcement, through the Coast Guard funding, while cutting money from programs favored by Democrats, including climate programs and any spending that could be construed as race-conscious.

The bill would provide $21.2 billion for the Coast Guard and $12.5 billion for air traffic control systems. It would raise money through a $250 annual fee on electric vehicles and a $100 annual fee on hybrids, while also cutting $4.6 billion from climate programs created in Democrats’ 2022 reconciliation package.

Chairman Sam Graves, a Missouri Republican, said the measure included priorities for members of both parties, as well as business and labor interests.

“We all want to invest in our Coast Guard,” he said. “We all want to rebuild our air traffic control system and finally address the broken Highway Trust Fund. We have held countless hearings on all of these topics, both recently and, frankly, for years. And now members have the opportunity to actually act.”

Democrats on the panel complained that the reconciliation package was a partisan exercise and a departure from the panel’s normally congenial approach to business. They introduced dozens of amendments over the daylong committee meeting seeking to add funding for various programs. None were adopted.

“The larger Republican reconciliation package will add more than $15 trillion in new debt, gives away $7 trillion in deficit-financed tax cuts to the wealthy and slashes access to health care and food assistance for families,” ranking Democrat Rick Larsen of Washington said. “Given that, I think we’re going to have to vote no on the bill before us.”

The vehicle fees, which would be deposited into the Highway Trust Fund that sends highway and transit money to states, created a partisan divide Wednesday.

Federal gas taxes provide the lion’s share of deposits to the fund and Republicans argued that, because drivers of electric vehicles pay no gas taxes and hybrid drivers pay less than those who drive gas-powered cars, the provision would make the contributions fairer.

Republicans scrapped a proposed $20 annual fee on gas-powered cars, which Graves said was meant to “start a conversation” on the solvency of the Highway Trust Fund. But the provision “became a political distraction that no longer centered around seriously addressing the problem,” he said.

Pennsylvania Democrat Chris Deluzio criticized the vehicle fees, noting Republicans were pursuing additional revenue opportunities to offset losses from tax cuts.

“I don’t know when you guys became the tax-and-spend liberals,” Deluzio told his Republican colleagues. “But I guess the taxing of car owners so you can pay for tax giveaways to billionaires is your new strategy. Good luck with that.”

Federal employee benefits targeted

The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform voted nearly along party lines, 22-21, to send its portion of the reconciliation package to the Budget Committee, with Ohio Republican Rep. Mike Turner joining Democrats in opposition.

Turner was the first GOP lawmaker to cast a committee vote against reconciliation instructions this year.

The legislation hits at federal employee benefits and comes as the Trump administration continues to overhaul the federal workforce.

Part of the bill would raise federal employees’ required retirement contribution to a rate of 4.4% of their salary and eliminate an additional retirement annuity payment for federal employees who retire before the age of 62, while cutting more than $50 billion from the federal deficit.

At his committee’s markup, Chairman James Comer said the legislation “advances important budgetary reforms that will save taxpayers money.”

The Kentucky Republican acknowledged that the chief investigative committee in the U.S. House has “very limited jurisdiction to help reduce the federal budget deficit,” noting that the panel is “empowered to pursue civil service reforms, including federal employee benefits and reining in the influence of partisan and unaccountable government employee unions.”

But Democrats on the panel blasted the committee’s portion of the reconciliation package, saying the bill chips away at federal employees’ protections.

Rep. Stephen Lynch, the top Democrat on the panel, said congressional Republicans instructed the panel to target the federal workforce with roughly $50 billion in funding cuts “regardless of the impact on hard-working, loyal federal employees and their critical services that they provide to the American people.”

The Massachusetts Democrat said the bill “threatens to further undermine the federal workforce by reducing the take-home pay, the benefits and workforce protections of 2.4 million federal employees, most of whom are middle-class Americans and a third of whom are military veterans.”

Ohio’s Turner, who voted against the legislation because of the provision reducing pension benefits, said he supported the overall reconciliation package and hoped the pension measure would be stripped before a floor vote.

Turner said “making changes to pension retirement benefits in the middle of someone’s employment is wrong.”