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The Republican-controlled Senate held a marathon voting session on President Donald Trump’s massive tax cuts and spending bills on Monday, extending over 14 hours without a clear path to endgame.
The Senate is locked up in the “voting for the llama” process, and the Senators can offer unlimited amendments. According to NBC News, the goal of the GOP leader closing on Monday afternoon slipped down as he struggled to secure the simple majority needed to pass it on.
The 940-page law, which the Senate advanced 51-49 votes on Saturday, was still in shape even if the amendment came to the floor.
But the path remained elusive. Republicans need to hold 50 of the 53 senators to pass the bill. And some of them weren’t ready to vote for it as the clock approached midnight ET.
Key issues such as Medicaid cuts and clean energy funding rollbacks remained unresolved. Existing contracts that ban state regulations regarding artificial intelligence had collapsed. And numerous Republican senators told NBC News they didn’t know how the bill was designed to tax wind and solar energy.
Republican leaders have lost the votes of Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky. He complained that it was too much for national debt.
“So, what will you tell 663,000 people in two or three years when President Trump pushes Medicaid away and breaks his promise?” Tillis said in a fierce floor speech Sunday evening.
Tillis advised Trump, saying that “amateurs” were confusing long-standing healthcare policies with “waste, fraud, abuse.” A few hours ago, he announced he would not run for reelection in 2026 after clashing with Trump about his opponents.
R-Maine Sen. Susan Collins voted to move the bill forward on Saturday, but told NBC News Monday that she was still leaning towards it with the final passage. She has expressed concern about Medicaid cuts, saying she prefers to increase high-income earners, calling it “two of the most important things” she wants to address.
“There will be a huge number of amendments tonight,” Collins said second.
R-Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski voted to keep the process moving over the weekend after discussions with Republican leaders, and on Monday expressed concerns about cutting back on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), healthcare and energy tax credits.
“I’m still worried about SNAP and Medicaid,” Murkowski told reporters. “There are still fragments of the bill that is continuing its review. So, some provisions are not fully finalized yet. And I’d like to know where they’re going.”
Republicans voted for many democratically-led amendments designed to remove the bill from the floor and send it to the committee, but Collins and Markowski d-mass by Senator Ed Markey to revise regulations relating to rural hospitals.
Additionally, the conservative group Ron Johnson, R-Wis. , Rick Scott, R-Fla. , and R-Utah’s Mike Lee advocates for revision of the bill to reduce the impact of the deficit.
The Non-partisan Congressional Budget Office predicts the Senate bill will increase national debt by $3.3 trillion over the next decade. It has found that revenues will drop by about $4.5 trillion, and spending will be reduced by $1.2 trillion. The bill is also projected to result in 11.8 million people losing health insurance by 2034 if it becomes law, the CBO said.
The GOP is using a budget trick known as the “current policy baseline” to hide the cost of extending the tax cuts Trump signed in 2017, effectively reducing sticker prices by $3.8 trillion. That tactic has not been used in the budget process previously, setting a precedent that undermines the Senate’s 60-voting rule.
The Senate voted 53-47 on Monday to greenlight the new baseline, with all Republicans in favor.
“This is the nuclear option,” D-ore said. Sen. Ron Wyden of the warned that the majority would “cut off both ways” if the majority flipped.
This law cuts taxes on tips and overtime salaries. This includes a $150 billion boost to military spending this year, and a surge in federal funds to implement Trump’s massive deportation and immigration enforcement agenda. Pay partially for it with Medicaid cuts, snaps and clean energy funding.
It also includes an increase in the debt cap of $5 trillion ahead of the August deadline to avoid defaulting state obligations.
“The permanent tax credits included in our bill mean Americans are keeping more of the hard-earned money and the American companies that grow into our country and our workers.”
The Senate version of the bill includes changes to rollbacks of clean energy funds, as well as a sharper Medicaid cut than the House version. The expanded $40,000 state and local tax (salt) credit cap timeline will return to $10,000 over five years. It also includes a set of regulations regarding Alaska’s priorities, including tax cuts for Whaling Captain, in an obvious attempt to beat Murkowski.
Monday’s vote – The llama comes after a rare weekend work session in the Senate.
On Saturday night, after a few hours of delays and uncertainty, the package for Trump’s agenda cleared the first major hurdle, with Tillis and Paul opposed all Democrats.
A narrow but successful vote occurred after a small band of GOP holdouts, including Johnson, Scott and Lee, signed a deal with Thune for the revision. However, these revisions still require the adoption of a large number of votes. Former Senator Vice President JD Vance attended a meeting in Thune’s office and shook the vote.
Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer, DN.Y. forced a full read of the bill, delaying the process by about 16 hours. Democrats don’t have a vote to sink the bill as Republicans use the filibuster “budget settlement” process to avoid the 60 vote threshold.
“The Republicans are still confused. They’re hiding all sorts of things from us,” Schumer told reporters Monday. “They do all sorts of transactions with other members, such as backroom deals, side deals, and so on. We have to look at them, and they can’t keep secrets from us and the Americans.”
If the bill passes the Senate, it heads to the House. I’m heading home. The house passed its own version on May 22nd with one vote.
R-La. , and his leadership team told Rank and File members over the weekend that they are ready to return to Washington as early as Tuesday and to vote for the Senate bill on Wednesday.
The GOP leader is aiming to send the bill to Trump’s desk for his signature, with a deadline of Friday, July 4th.
Like the Senate, Republican leaders in the House can only buy three GOP asylums. Rep. Thomas Massey, R-KY. opposed the law from the start, claiming it would be added to the debt. And a small number of moderate Republicans are cutting Medicaid cuts to districts and sounding changes to the Senate salt deduction.
This story first appeared on nbcnews.com. More from NBC News:
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