Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call via AP Images
Chairman Rep. Jodey Arrington (R-TX), ranking member Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-PA), left, and Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC) are seen during the House Budget Committee markup of the Republicans’ spending bill, May 18, 2025, on Capitol Hill.
After an intensive weekend of negotiations, four fiscally conservative members of the House Budget Committee agreed to change their vote from no to present, allowing the bill to clear the committee, 17-16, and the package to advance to the House floor. In a gesture to Trump, the 1,116-page bill is literally titled The One Big Beautiful Bill Act. But the deal is far from done.
Among the schisms: Blue-state Republicans are nervous about Medicaid and food stamp cuts that present a fat target for Democrats. Other blue-state Republicans are holding out for a much larger lifting of the cap on state and local tax deductions, which pinches wealthy residents of high-tax states like California and New York. The latest proposal is to raise the cap from the current $10,000 to $40,000, and $80,000 for couples. From the opposite quarter, fiscal conservatives are outraged that the net spending cuts aren’t deep enough, and that the package increases the deficit.
Bottom line: The bill cuts taxes by about $4 trillion over a decade compared to current law, mostly by extending Trump’s 2017 tax cuts, which otherwise sunset this year. But it cuts spending by only about $1.6 billion and adds some new outlays such as more spending on border security.
If this bill were to pass as is, it would increase projected budget deficits by nearly $3 trillion through 2034. On Friday, Moody’s Ratings, in downgrading the United States’ AAA rating, pointed to both the damage from Trump’s tariffs and the expected increase in the deficit and publicly held debt.
The debt is now about $29 trillion. Nearly $1 in every $7 that government spends covers interest on the debt, more than the U.S. spends on national defense.
That cost will only rise, as bond markets worry about increased government borrowing. Long-term Treasury bond yields topped 5 percent on Monday morning.
Trump has yet to weigh in directly on this proposed big beautiful bill, except for a few half-hearted forays that other Republicans shot down, including, of all things, a surtax on the very wealthy. But it’s hard to see how Trump, even with the Republican caucus’s usual loyalty to him, can square these circles, because the math simply doesn’t work. Most likely are more gimmicks, to understate the true costs by pretending that everything sunsets when Trump leaves office.
The trouble with that ploy is it doesn’t change reality. Either Medicaid suffers real cuts to real people, or it doesn’t. Either the bond market has reason to worry about the massive increase in federal borrowing, or it doesn’t.
Even if a medley of gimmicks gets the reconciliation bill through the House, it has to pass the Senate. There, a number of senators, led by Josh Hawley of Missouri, have been even more blunt about resisting cuts in social outlays. Last week, Hawley wrote in an op-ed piece in the Times titled “Don’t Cut Medicaid”: “If Congress cuts funding for Medicaid benefits, Missouri workers and their children will lose their health care. And hospitals will close. It’s that simple. And that pattern will be replicated in states across the country.”
He concluded, “If Republicans want to be a working-class party—if we want to be a majority party—we must ignore calls to cut Medicaid and start delivering on America’s promise for America’s working people.”
Beyond those qualms, many key Senate Republicans are opposed to the one big beautiful bill strategy entirely. Republican Majority Leader John Thune was never happy with it, and there is increasing sentiment to break the measure into two or three bills.
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) has explicitly called for breaking up the bill and has said that he and Sens. Mike Lee (R-UT) and Rick Scott (R-FL) will vote against the House reconciliation bill as currently drafted. Other key senators such as Finance Chair Mike Crapo of Idaho are also said to be sympathetic to breaking up the bill.
But even a strategy of multiple bills doesn’t solve the basic political problem that massive tax cuts, politically palatable spending cuts, and fiscal discipline just don’t add up. The Trump coalition held together long enough to get Trump elected. It doesn’t seem capable of governing.
