The House passed President Donald Trump’s so-called big, beautiful tax and budget bill by a single vote. Now, the bill moves on to the Senate, where Republicans say they’ll make changes to several provisions that could put the bill’s final passage in question.
For a bill to become law, the Senate and House must pass identical versions. If the Senate makes changes to a House-passed bill, or vice versa, it has to be reapproved.
The Senate is considering alterations which could be enough to make House Republicans who were on the fence switch their vote to no the second time around.
The biggest changes will be related to Medicaid, which provides health insurance to about 71 million low-income Americans. Senators want to reform the state and federal cost-share system and work requirements that were passed in the House.
“I think there’s some opportunities for more efficiency, some more savings,” Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., said. “We have to look at the specifics of some of the renewable investment tax credits and production tax credits. that I think that even if we’re going to revise them, we’ve got to make sure that businesses who believe the government was setting this as a priority don’t have a lot of stranded costs.”
Other Senators are talking about individual measures. For instance Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., wants to increase the child tax credit to $2,500. Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D., said there are multiple members who will vote against the package unless the plan to auction off radio frequency spectrum comes out.
More widely accepted measures include no taxes on tips and overtime, funding for the military and border security, and baby savings accounts that can, one day, be used for education expenses, to buy a home, or other qualified purchases.
The House Freedom Caucus warned the Senate not to water down the cost savings. They said in a statement that the Senate should strengthen “the conservative principles in this reconciliation package – we will not look kindly on less.”
Here’s the full statement from the House Freedom Caucus:
Statement on behalf of the House Freedom Caucus:
— House Freedom Caucus (@freedomcaucus) May 22, 2025
This morning, Members of the House Freedom Caucus delivered the votes necessary to advance President Trump’s agenda after securing significant wins in making the reconciliation bill the most conservative version possible — much…
“You had your chance,” Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., responded when asked about their statement.
“There’s some of these cuts that are not real. And we’re talking about over a decade, you know, if you do a trillion and a half, that’s like a percent and a half,” Graham continued. “So let’s not get high on our horse here that we’ve somehow made some major advancement of reducing spending because we didn’t.”
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., met with Senate Republicans this week where he asked them to keep changes to a minimum.
“I encouraged them to remember that we have a very delicate equilibrium that we reached up here. A lot of work went into this to find the right balance,” Johnson said.
Democrats uniformly opposed the bill in the House, and they’re expected to do the same in the Senate. That means Republicans will only be able to lose three votes to get it approved on a party-line basis.
“I think that the fact that it was done on a partisan basis is going to invite closer scrutiny in the Senate,” Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said. “I think there are several aspects of it, for instance, cutting of Medicaid benefits for millions of Americans is going to have trouble being accepted in the Senate.”
The president announced he wants this bill on his desk as soon as possible. Senate Republicans believe the original July 4th timeline is still possible.
Here’s Trump’s full statement:
