Trump’s much-ballyhooed big, beautiful bill may have passed the lower chamber of Congress – barely – but what little chance it initially had in the upper chamber now seems to be slipping away. Half-a-dozen Senate Republicans have spoken out against the spending package in its current form, and the majority can afford to lose only three. Even if it is retooled eventually into something all – or nearly all – GOP senators can vote for, it would then have to go back to the House for approval because of the changes. The more time that goes by, the more it seems budget reconciliation may be out of reach for what could become a big, beautiful bust.
Reconciliation Ramifications
Technically, a bill only needs a simple majority – that’s 50% plus one vote to put it over being tied – to pass its final vote in either chamber of Congress. However, the Senate has an additional rule that allows any lawmaker to tie up the pre-vote discussion in what’s called a filibuster. It takes a 60% supermajority – that’s 60 votes in a 100-member Senate – to “invoke cloture,” which forces and end to the discussion and cue the final vote.
The filibuster rule has been removed for various items over the years so that, now, any presidential nominee – from Cabinet member to agency director, from district judge to Supreme Court justice, can be approved with a simple majority and no required cloture vote. But there’s one more exception to the filibuster rule – the budget reconciliation process. So long as everything in the package that is voted on is directly related to the federal budget, senators can skip the filibuster and cloture process.
One might think this means that, so long as nothing is ruled a non-budget measure, even a slim majority can bulldoze through the opposition and pass whatever it wants. Well, it has worked that way in the past – but so far, that hasn’t been the case with this year’s budget reconciliation attempt.
No Votes to Lose
The spending package barely passed the House back in May, 215-214, with every Democrat and two Republicans in opposition. And it only passed after a marathon session of amendment attempts stretching through the night. The result was a very tight bill that satisfied precisely as many representatives as it had to, no more and no less. Even the slightest change could completely derail it, sending lawmakers back to the drawing board and sinking any hopes of having a big, beautiful bill by Independence Day.
In the Senate, Republicans enjoy a 53-47 majority, meaning they should be able to lose three to the opposition and still win if Vice President JD Vance bails them out with a tie-breaking vote. The problem, however, is that twice that number of GOP senators are speaking out against the bill in its current form.
Budget hawks demand more deficit reduction and oppose the House-passed increase on the maximum State and Local Tax (SALT) deduction cap, while others are worried about the spending cuts to Medicaid and SNAP benefits (more commonly known as “food stamps”). Others still want to “root out” as much as $200 billion in waste and fraud in Medicare.
Senators Susan Collins (R-ME), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), Jerry Moran (R-KS), and Josh Hawley (R-MO) are threatening to oppose the bill if it reduces Medicaid benefits at all. Rand Paul (R-KY) has consistently said he would vote “no” because the legislation includes language that raises the debt ceiling by another $4 trillion. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) also announced that he’s a “hard no” on the House-passed bill because it doesn’t do enough to bring America back to pre-pandemic spending levels. If more than half of these disgruntled legislators oppose the budget, it’s dead in the water.
Busting the Budget
There’s something to this whole “we should spend less” idea. The US Office of Management and Budget (OMB) released stats on total annual federal outlays and tax revenue ranging from 2000 to last year, along with projections running through 2029. It’s important to note, by the way, that this data was released in April 2024, so it does not include the estimated $2 trillion-plus increase to the deficit.
In 2000, the United States government took in just over $2 trillion in tax revenue and only spent about $1.79 trillion. $2 trillion is a massive number – either for outlays or revenue – when compared to past years, but it’s also considerably better than where we stand today. The national debt was around $5.6 trillion at the time. If that seems like a big number, just wait. You haven’t seen anything yet.
Federal spending continued to grow over the next 20 years – as one might expect for a nation at war – topping out at $4.45 trillion in 2019. In fact, expenses outpaced income in 2006 and never returned to anything like a balance. In 2019, the US took in $3.46 trillion in taxes – resulting in a deficit of $990 billion. And after nearly a decade-and-a-half of deficits, the national debt had risen to a whopping $22.7 trillion.
But then the pandemic struck. The federal government spent a massive $6.55 trillion and took in only $3.42 trillion in 2020. The next year was worse – and that worsening trend continued. 2023 saw $4.44 trillion in tax revenue – four times the burden borne by the taxpayers 20 years earlier. It spent a whopping $6.13 trillion. The national debt was over $33 trillion. So, all parties can agree the bill is big – but not everyone seems to find it so beautiful. The legislative process is always a bumpy ride, but unless the GOP can square these issues, this big beautiful bill may run right off the rails.
