Senate GOP leaders want the chamber to vote on President Donald Trump’s colossal “big, beautiful bill” before the Independence Day recess. Ron Johnson isn’t buying it.
All ten Senate committees have released draft sections of the multi-trillion-dollar package. Leaders hope floor debate can begin next week, mirroring the House’s late-May sprint.
The Wisconsin fiscal hawk says there are enough holdouts to block any motion to proceed before July 4. His call: slow down, tighten the bill, and avoid a quick defeat that could stall Trump’s agenda.
Johnson wants cuts far steeper than the $1.5 trillion approved by the House and the $2 trillion target now floating in the Senate. Pandemic-era spending, he argues, demands an unprecedented rollback.
In a new report, Johnson lays out debt-and-growth scenarios that clash with rosy projections from party leadership and the Congressional Budget Office. His takeaway: current trims barely scratch the surface.
Beyond spending, senators are split over Medicaid changes, a debt-ceiling increase and revenue assumptions. Any three GOP defections would sink the bill under reconciliation rules.
Majority Leader John Thune can lose only three Republican votes. Johnson warns that forcing the full package to the floor next week risks an embarrassing “nay.”
Johnson favors voting on two or three smaller measures, giving lawmakers “multiple bites at the apple” and time to understand every line—unlike, he says, the rushed passage of past mega-laws.
If the Senate fails to act before the holiday, leaders must decide whether to re-draft, divide or scrap the bill. Johnson insists a delay is no rebuke to Trump—just a bid to craft, in the president’s words, “a better bill.”
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