SCOOP: House GOP Battles Trump Tax-and-Spend Bill Amid Senate Push for Revisions
House Republicans quietly oppose Senate changes to the GOP reconciliation bill, risking legislative gridlock.
The House Republican Conference is intensifying efforts behind the scenes to urge the Senate to adopt its sweeping legislative package, championed by President Donald Trump as the "one big, beautiful bill." However, with Senators returning to Capitol Hill after the Memorial Day recess, it has become increasingly clear that significant modifications are on the horizon, fueling friction between GOP lawmakers across the two chambers.
This high-stakes legislation—combining elements of tax reform, immigration enforcement, and energy policy—is being pushed through via the budget reconciliation process, allowing Republicans to bypass a Democratic filibuster. Yet, even as House leaders tout their late-night passage of the bill and circulate internal messaging to defend its provisions, Senate Republicans are signaling their intent to make substantial changes, particularly around spending cuts, Medicaid reforms, and rollbacks of green energy subsidies enacted during the Biden administration.
Behind the scenes, communication within the party has escalated. On Monday, as the Senate began deliberating the bill, the House Budget Committee convened a private staff-level briefing focused on solidifying talking points and preempting criticism from their Senate counterparts. Documents circulated to House aides argued that savings from mandatory spending reforms and projected economic growth would more than offset the bill’s $4.12 trillion cost, directly challenging estimates from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, which warned of a potential $2 trillion increase in federal deficits over the next decade.
The House version of the bill includes several items likely to face resistance in the Senate: permanent extension of the 2017 Trump tax cuts, additional tax relief for seniors, elimination of taxes on tipped and overtime wages, increased funding for border security, and stringent new Medicaid work requirements starting December 2026. States that allow illegal immigrants into the expanded Medicaid program would be penalized, while others would see incentives. Further, the legislation seeks to eliminate a swath of green energy subsidies from the Inflation Reduction Act, redirecting those funds to different priorities.
A key fault line remains the fate of rural hospitals and Medicaid coverage, with several Senators—especially those representing rural states—expressing concern about the measure's impact on health care access. The House GOP’s messaging attempts to assuage those fears by emphasizing provisions to reopen rural emergency hospitals and maintain care access, arguing, "No, the bill does not put rural hospitals at risk." Nonetheless, some senators remain skeptical, with Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) warning that the measure “is going to hurt rural hospitals in my state.”
Tensions are also surfacing among Senate Republicans over the depth of fiscal reform. While more moderate voices are worried about the scale of entitlement and health care reform, fiscal hawks such as Senator Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) argue the House package doesn’t go far enough, characterizing the cuts as "not even the tip of the iceberg" compared to what’s needed to return to pre-pandemic spending levels.
House Republican leaders emphasize the need for unity, with some urging the Senate to heed the wishes of President Trump and deliver the bill to his desk before July 4th. Reflecting on the trade-offs and intra-party debate, House Budget Chair Jodey Arrington (R-Texas) acknowledged the delicate balance required to pass historic cuts: "You can only cut as much as you can get the vote to pass it out of your chamber. And we cut almost $1.7 trillion in spending, which is the largest spending cuts in American history by twofold."
As the Senate weighs amendments and debates the path forward, the coming weeks will reveal whether Republican negotiators can bridge their differences and arrive at final legislation capable of passing both chambers—a key test of the party’s ability to govern amid sharp internal divisions and a fast-approaching deadline.
