WASHINGTON — (AP) — Senators hunkered down Monday to consider proposed amendments to President Donald Trump's big bill of tax breaks and spending cuts amid challenges including the weekend announcement from one GOP senator that he won't run for reelection after opposing the package over its Medicaid health care cuts.
The grind is expected to take all day, and it could churn into the night. Potential changes were being considered in what's called a vote-a-rama, though most are expected to fail. With Democrats united against the Republican president's legislation and eagerly lined up to challenge it.
"It's time to vote," said Senate Majority Leader John Thune of South Dakota, as the chamber opened. But later he suggested final action could slip.
Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer of New York said the “hardest choices" for Republicans are still to come. Democrats, he said, are bringing “amendment after amendment after amendment to the floor, so Republicans can defend their billionaire tax cuts and so they can try to explain their massive cuts to Medicaid to people back home.”
The day will be pivotal for the Republicans, who have control of Congress and are racing against Trump's July Fourth deadline to wrap up work. The 940-page "One Big Beautiful Bill Act," as it's formally titled, has consumed Congress as its shared priority with the president, with no room politically to fail, even as not all Republicans are on board.
House Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana was calling lawmakers back Wednesday for final votes, if it clears the Senate.
A new analysis from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office found 11.8 million more Americans would become uninsured by 2034 if the bill became law. The CBO said the package would increase the deficit by nearly $3.3 trillion over the decade.
The White House said it was counting on Republican lawmakers to "get the job done.”
“Republicans need to stay tough and unified during the home stretch,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said.
But the outcome remains uncertain.
As the first few Senate amendments came up Monday — to strike parts of the bill that would limit Medicaid funds to rural hospitals or shift the costs of food stamps benefits to the states — some were winning support from a few Republicans.
Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, joined Democrats on the rural hospitals amendment, and Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, joined Democrats on both votes.
But none of the amendments won majority support to substantially change the package.
Few Republicans appear fully satisfied as the final package emerges. GOP Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina, who announced Sunday he would not seek reelection after Trump badgered him over his opposition to the package, said he has the same goals as Trump: cutting taxes and spending.
But Tillis said this package is a betrayal of the president's promises not to kick people off health care, especially if rural hospitals close.
At the same time, some loosely aligned conservative Senate Republicans — Rick Scott of Florida, Mike Lee of Utah, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming — have prosed steeper cuts, particularly to health care, drawing their own warning from Trump not to go “crazy."
Sen. Mike Crapo, the GOP chairman of the Finance Committee dismissed the dire predictions of health care cuts as Democrats trafficking in what he called the “politics of fear.”
All told, the Senate bill includes $4.5 trillion in tax cuts, according to the latest CBO analysis, making permanent Trump's 2017 rates, which would expire at the end of the year if Congress fails to act, while adding the new ones he campaigned on, including no taxes on tips.
The Senate package would roll back billions of dollars in green energy tax credits that Democrats warn will wipe out wind and solar investments nationwide and impose $1.2 trillion in cuts, largely to Medicaid and food stamps, by imposing work requirements, making sign-up eligibility more stringent and changing federal reimbursements to states.
Additionally, the bill would provide a $350 billion infusion for border and national security, including for deportations, some of it paid for with new fees charged to immigrants.
Unable to stop the march toward passage, the Democrats as the minority party in Congress are using the tools at their disposal to delay and drag out the process.
Democrats forced a full reading of the text, which took 16 hours, and now are filing dozens of amendments.
Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, the ranking Democrat on the Appropriations Committee, raised particular concern about the accounting method being used by the Republicans, which says the tax breaks from Trump's first term are now “current policy” and the cost of extending them should not be counted toward deficits.
“In my 33 years here in the United States Senate, things have never — never — worked this way,” said Murray, the longest-serving Democrat on the Budget Committee.
She said that kind of “magic math” won't fly with Americans trying to balance their own household books.
“Go back home,” she said, “and try that game with your constituents.”
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Associated Press writers Ali Swenson, Fatima Hussein, Michelle L. Price, Mary Clare Jalonick, Matt Brown and Chris Megerian contributed to this report.
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