WASHINGTON — U.S. Senate Republicans were in a holding pattern Tuesday morning, as party leaders struggled to find the votes needed to pass their “big, beautiful bill” following more than 24 hours of continuous debate.
Whether the tax break and spending cuts package can move forward in its current form will likely come down to Maine Sen. Susan Collins and Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, neither of whom has said publicly how they’ll vote.
Kentucky’s Rand Paul and North Carolina’s Thom Tillis have already said they won’t approve the legislation, and with a narrow 53-seat majority, GOP leaders cannot afford both Collins and Murkowski to oppose the bill.
U.S. Sen. Susan Collins, a Maine Republican, walks into the Senate chamber on July 1, 2025. (Photo by Ashley Murray/States Newsroom)Murkowski and Majority Whip John Barrasso, of Wyoming, left the chamber to catch an elevator together just after 9:30 a.m. Eastern.
Asked if the bill was in the hands of the parliamentarian, Murkowski quipped, “I think it’s in the hands of the people that operate the coffee machine.”
Barrasso said “Yes” when asked if it would pass this morning.
Vice President JD Vance, who arrived at the Capitol building shortly after sunrise, can, if needed, break a 50-50 tie in favor of sending the measure to the House for final approval.
If all four Republican senators vote no, leadership would have to go back to the drawing board on various policy changes in the bill. But any alterations directed at getting their votes could alienate other Republican senators, potentially further changing the whip count.
Failing to pass the package sometime Tuesday or even Wednesday would likely lead to Republicans missing their self-imposed Fourth of July deadline for having the legislation to President Donald Trump for his signature.
Trump weighs in
Trump told reporters on Tuesday morning before leaving for a Florida visit to the “Alligator Alcatraz” immigrant detention site that “it’s very complicated stuff” when asked about Senate Republicans’ debate over spending cuts.
“We’re going to have to see the final version. I don’t want to go too crazy with cuts. I don’t like cuts. There are certain things that have been cut, which is good. I think we’re doing well,” Trump said. “We’re going to have to see, it’s some very complicated stuff. Great enthusiasm as you know. And I think in the end we’re going to have it.”
The heart of the nearly 1,000-page legislation extends and expands the 2017 tax law to keep individual income tax rates at the same level and makes permanent some tax breaks on business investments and research and development costs.
The bill would also put in motion some of Trump’s campaign promises, including no tax on qualifying tips, overtime or car loan interest, but only for a few years.
And it slashes spending on the Medicaid program for low-income people and some people with disabilities as well as shifting significant costs of the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, to states for the first time.
Once the Senate passes the measure, it will have to go back to the House for a final vote, and even if that happens, approval is far from guaranteed.
Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., can only lose four Republicans if all lawmakers in that chamber attend the vote. Several GOP members have voiced frustration with how the Senate has reworked the legislation, signaling an uphill climb for the bill.
House Ways and Means Chair Jason Smith said as he left the Senate cloakroom just after 9:20 a.m. Eastern that lawmakers are “getting closer to a bill signing on July Fourth.”
“If you followed this journey over the last six months, over and over, people said that we could not accomplish a budget (reconciliation bill). We did. They said we would never pass it out of the House. We did. The Senate is going to pass it. The House is going to pass it, and the president’s going to sign it into law,” the Missouri Republican said.
Three amendments succeed
The Senate had adopted three amendments to the bill following an all-night amendment voting session, known as a vote-a-rama.
Tennessee Republican Sen. Marsha Blackburn was able to remove language from the package that would have blocked state and local governments from regulating artificial intelligence for five years if they wanted access to a $500 million fund. That vote was 99-1 with only North Carolina’s Tillis voting to keep the language in the package.
Blackburn said the change was necessary because lawmakers in Congress have “proven that they cannot legislate on emerging technology.”
Senators approved an amendment from Iowa GOP Sen. Joni Ernst by voice vote that would disqualify “anyone making a million dollars or more from being eligible for unemployment income support.”
Louisiana Republican Sen. John Kennedy was able to get an amendment adopted by a voice vote that would move up the date when Medicaid administrators must begin checking the Social Security Administration’s death master file to determine if a new enrollee is alive before adding them to the health program. It was set to begin on Jan. 1, 2028, but will now begin one year earlier.
Senators rejected dozens of amendments offered by both Democrats and Republicans, some of which deadlocked on 50-50 votes. Maine’s Collins and Alaska’s Murkowski broke with their party several times to vote with Democrats.
Safety funding for Virginia airport across from DC
Virginia Democratic Sen. Mark Warner tried to add language to the bill that would have increased safety funding for airports near Washington, D.C., and established a memorial for the victims who died in a crash this January. The vote failed on a tied 50-50 vote, with Collins, Kansas GOP Sen. Jerry Moran and Murkowski voting with Democrats in support.
“Colleagues, we all know that on January 29 of this year, 67 individuals lost their lives when a military helicopter and a passenger jet collided near Reagan National Airport. This tragedy underscores the need for more safety improvements at National Airport,” Warner said. “The reconciliation bill increases, actually doubles, the amount of rent that National and Dulles pay the government but doesn’t use any of that money to make those airports and the people who use them any safer.”
He argued there was “no good rationale for increasing those rents and not using them for aviation safety.”
Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz spoke against Warner’s amendment, saying the rents for the two airports in Virginia near the nation’s capital haven’t been updated in decades.
“The federal government originally calculated the rent in 1987 at $7.5 million dollars, massively below market rates,” Cruz said. “This bill increases that to $15 million, still dramatically below market rates.”
Cruz — chairman of the Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation — said the legislation includes $12.5 billion for the Federal Aviation Administration to “transform the air traffic control system” and said his panel is looking into the collision in order to prevent something similar from happening again.
Trump budget director’s office targeted
Maryland Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen also got within one vote of having an amendment adopted when he tried to remove a section from the bill that would increase funding for the White House budget office by $100 million.
“This is at a time when (Federal Emergency Management Agency) grants to many of our states have been canceled, grants for law enforcement have been frozen, grants for victims of crimes are on hold,” Van Hollen said. “That is not efficiency. That is creating chaos and uncertainty. And I ask my colleagues, why in the world would we want to send another $100 million to OMB?”
Wisconsin Republican Sen. Ron Johnson opposed the efforts, saying “the Office of Management and Budget needs to identify budgeting and accounting efficiencies in the executive branch. They need the resources to do it.”
The amendment was not added to the bill following another tied 50-50 vote with Collins, Murkowski and Paul voting with Democrats in favor.
Had GOP leadership wanted either of those proposals added to the package, they could have had Vance break the tie, but they did not.
Collins loses vote on rural hospital fund
Maine’s Collins tried to get an amendment added to the legislation that would have increased “funding for the rural health care provider fund to $50 billion dollars and expand the list of eligible providers to include not only rural hospitals but also community health centers, nursing homes, ambulance services, skilled nursing facilities and others.”
Collins said the additional $25 billion in funding for the fund would be paid for by “a modest increase in the top marginal tax rate, equal to the pre-2017 rate for individuals with income above $25 million and married couples with income above $50 million.”
Collins’ amendment was subject to a Senate procedural limit known as a budget point of order. She was unable to get the votes needed to waive that on a 22-78 vote.
Oregon Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden spoke against Collins’ proposal, calling it “flawed,” and introduced the budget point of order against her amendment.
“The danger Senate Republicans are causing for rural hospitals is so great, Republicans have had to create a rural hospital relief fund so they can look like they are fixing the problem they are causing,” Wyden said. “It is a Band-Aid on an amputation. It provides just a tiny fraction of the nearly $1 trillion in cuts the bill makes to Medicaid. It would be much more logical to simply not cut $1 trillion from Medicaid in the first place.”
Collins received a mix of support from Republicans, including West Virginia Shelley Moore Capito, Louisiana’s Bill Cassidy, Utah’s John Curtis, Nebraska’s Deb Fischer, South Carolina’s Lindsey Graham, Missouri’s Josh Hawley, Ohio’s Jon Husted and Bernie Moreno, Mississippi’s Cindy Hyde-Smith and Roger Wicker, Louisiana’s Kennedy, Kansans Roger Marshall and Moran, Kentucky’s Mitch McConnell, Alaskans Dan Sullivan and Murkowski and Indiana’s Todd Young.
Also voting to waive the point of order and move forward with the amendment were Georgia’s Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock and Virginia’s Warner, all Democrats, and independent Maine Sen. Angus King.
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