“Do you think the current timeline is unrealistic?” Raw Story asked Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) at the Capitol.
“It is,” said Johnson, one of only a few Senate Republicans Trump has called this week.
Unrealistic or not, Republican leaders are barreling ahead to meet their own self-imposed timeline of ASAP, even as an increasing number of senators call for a better bill.
‘He wants no Medicaid cuts’
A handful of key Republicans are worried less about timelines than about the substance of the bill, a measure even Trump’s former “first buddy” Elon Musk now calls a “disgusting abomination."
The White House has pushed back, arguing the measure “delivers the largest deficit reduction in nearly 30 years.” But that’s not what analysts say, and it isn’t good enough for fiscal conservatives like Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY). He says raising the debt ceiling by $5 trillion as part of the package makes it impossible for him to swallow White House talking points.
f“Well, have you ever seen the debt ceiling go up when we didn't reach the debt ceiling? So we will,” Paul told reporters this week. “It means we're going to borrow $5 trillion more, probably, presumably, next year. And so it means that they're calculating spending and the deficit accumulation goes on unabated.”
On Tuesday, President Trump lashed out.
“Rand votes NO on everything, but never has any practical or constructive ideas,” the president wrote on Truth Social. “His ideas are actually crazy (losers!). The people of Kentucky can’t stand him. This is a BIG GROWTH BILL!”
The Congressional Budget Office estimates the House measure will add more than $2 trillion to budget deficits, while changes to Medicaid would result in millions losing health coverage.
Paul says that if the GOP is serious about getting federal spending under control, it must overhaul programs like Medicare and Social Security.
“If you take the entitlements off the table, which they’ve largely done, you cannot change the direction, cannot change the vast accumulation of debt,” Paul said.
Paul is far from alone. A growing number of Republicans are demanding steeper spending cuts.
Johnson, the Wisconsin senator, has been walking around the Capitol, using his phone to show reporters and fellow Republicans spending charts, arguing the House measure fails to bring federal spending back to pre-pandemic levels.
“I understand the challenges everybody faces, but we have to bend the deficit curve down,” Johnson told Raw Story, showing a chart. “We have to do that.”
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) shows reporters spending charts. Photo: Matt Laslo.
While Paul wants the debt limit increase stripped out of the bill, Johnson advocates making it smaller, so Congress is forced to cut spending next year.
“Right now I'm hoping to convince President Trump that it's in his best interest — he wants to bring the deficit curve down as well — to just do a debt ceiling for a year to put pressure on the process, force us to come back and do another reconciliation and get more serious about all this stuff,” Johnson said. “If I can accomplish that, I think that would be pretty good.”
“Do you think there's political will in the GOP conference to cut the deficit?" Raw Story asked.
“You have to create it,” Johnson said.
Creating political will is hard, especially in this divided Washington.
The GOP is itself divided. Some Republicans are fighting House-passed Medicaid cuts.
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO), no one’s idea of a moderate, has spoken to Trump and says the president sided with him and other vocal opponents of cutting Medicaid.
“He reiterated that he wants no Medicaid benefit cuts,” Hawley told reporters. “I agree with him 100 percent."
Hawley is joined by the few remaining GOP centrists, including Sens. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) and Susan Collins (R-ME), in vowing to oppose the Big Beautiful Bill if Medicaid cuts stay in.
‘Deep uncertainty’
Such GOP infighting is bolstering Democrats who cannot derail the bill without Republican assistance. Many highlight the hypocrisy enshrined in the Republican plan.
“It’s one of the most destructive pieces of legislation in the history of the USA,” Sen. Peter Welch (D-VT) told Raw Story. “It’s a massive act of self-deception.
“Everything that traditionally Republicans stood for. Fiscal responsibility? Gone. Investment in the future? Gone. Rule of law? Gone. This will spread the pain universally. No one's spared.”
Democrats claim that message is resonating in battleground states.
Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) says his voters resent even the name of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
“What I hear from my constituents does not include the word ‘beautiful,’” Kelly told Raw Story. “Nobody in Arizona has used that word with this legislation.”
Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) just attended the Detroit Chamber of Commerce’s annual bipartisan conference on Mackinac Island.
“It was pretty much the only talk of the island,” Slotkin told Raw Story. ”All our business leaders, all our unions, energy companies, environmental folks, every elected official — Democratic, Republican.”
“What's the mood?” Raw Story pressed.
“Deep uncertainty, especially in manufacturing,” Slotkin said.
‘I’m a maybe’
With Republican senators demanding sweeping changes to the multi-trillion-dollar package, even some of Trump’s closest allies are still on the fence.
“I’m a maybe right now,” Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) told Raw Story. “Every day something will change. If people are going out there saying, ‘I'm for it’ or ‘I'm against it’, why would you do that? Too early.”
Speaker Johnson has urged Senate Republicans not to overhaul the measure, because with every tweak he risks losing support in his own divided conference.
To make it out of the Senate, the bill needs backing from 50 Senate Republicans, given Vice President JD Vance would break a tie. As of now, the votes aren’t there. Supporters say that’s to be expected.
“It's called negotiations. We're just negotiating,” Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) told Raw Story. “Everybody wants their fingerprints on it, but, at the end of the day, you’ve got to get 51 on the bill. That's what we're going to do.”
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