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Senate Republicans volition instrumentality power of the party’s mammoth taxation and home argumentation measure erstwhile they instrumentality to Washington connected Monday — and question to triumph implicit a divers radical of GOP lawmakers agitating for changes to the legislation.
Members are staring down a cardinal four-week agelong to hammer retired provisions of the bill, with their Fourth of July extremity successful show and unit mounting to implicit President Trump’s apical home docket priority.
The measure narrowly passed the House past month aft Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) struck a fragile compromise with antithetic factions of his conference.
But determination are inactive Senate Republicans who could gum up the works arsenic Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) works to shepherd the authorities done the precocious enclosure with lone 3 votes to spare.
Here’s a look astatine a half-dozen of those lawmakers to ticker successful the coming weeks.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska)
Murkowski, 1 of the foremost Senate GOP moderates, is atop the database of the members Thune and his enactment squad volition person to triumph over, and she has already indicated she has a fig of concerns.
Although Murkowski voted for the Senate GOP’s fund solution — which served arsenic the blueprint for the measure — successful aboriginal April, she told reporters she was disquieted astir 3 items.
Among those is the interaction of imaginable Medicaid enactment requirements, arsenic she believes her authorities volition person trouble implementing them owed to its outdated outgo systems for the program.
“There are provisions successful determination that are very, very, precise challenging if not intolerable for america to implement,” Murkowski said.
She has besides expressed worries astir what the Medicaid changes could mean for tribal communities in her state, which are heavy reliant connected Medicaid for wellness coverage.
On apical of that, she and 3 of her colleagues person expressed concerns with connection successful the House measure that would nix wind, star and geothermal vigor taxation credits that were enactment successful spot by the Inflation Reduction Act.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) seen May 14, 2025, has besides expressed worries astir what the Medicaid changes could mean for tribal communities in her state, which are heavy reliant connected Medicaid for wellness coverage. (Greg Nash, The Hill)Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.)
He’s not a sanction that usually ends up connected these lists, but Hawley has been possibly the most vocal member of the Senate GOP league astir imaginable cuts to Medicaid benefits.
He has maintained that the Medicaid cuts are a reddish enactment for him successful backing the last bundle — adjacent arsenic conservatives successful the House person shown an involvement successful taking a hatchet to the wellness attraction program.
And helium has a cardinal subordinate successful the full effort seemingly connected his side.
“We ought to conscionable bash what the president says,” Hawley told reporters past period aft the House passed the bill.
Two days earlier, Trump had told House Republicans successful a closed-door gathering to “leave Medicaid alone.”
Hawley added that helium spoke with Trump astir the authorities of play.
“His nonstop words were, ‘Don’t interaction it, Josh,’” Hawley told reporters. “I said, ‘Hey, we’re connected the aforesaid page.’”
Hawley has besides shown a willingness to instrumentality that basal connected the floor. During the chamber’s archetypal vote-a-rama successful February, Hawley sided with Democrats connected an amendment that would person prevented taxation cuts for affluent Americans if Medicaid backing is slashed.
Any cuts to Medicaid beneficiaries would deed the Show Me State hard successful peculiar fixed that 21 percent of Missourians trust connected the programme oregon the Children's Health Insurance Program, the companion security programme for lower-income children.
Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine)
Collins stands retired arsenic 1 of lone 2 Republicans — on with Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) — to ballot against the party’s fund solution successful April, though she is the acold much apt of the 2 to ballot “aye” erstwhile propulsion comes to shove connected last passage.
The Maine Republican has continuously expressed absorption to reductions successful national Medicaid backing and shifting costs to the states, sounding the alarm connected the effect doing truthful would person connected her state’s agrarian hospitals. Maine’s agrarian hospitals intensely trust connected the wellness attraction program, and cuts could woody a crippling blow, she argues.
Collins cited that contented successful her ballot against the fund blueprint, and she has kept up the drumbeat.
"Medicaid is simply a critically important programme for Maine's wellness attraction strategy and a captious assets for galore seniors, low-income families, disabled patients, and those who cannot work,” Collins said successful a connection astatine the time. “I cannot enactment proposals that would make much duress for our hospitals and providers that are already teetering connected the borderline of insolvency.”
She said past week, connected the eve of the House passing the measure, that “we’re inactive trying to fig retired what the supplier taxation reforms are, but I’m precise disquieted astir our agrarian hospitals successful Maine.”
Collins was besides the lone different Senate Republican to ballot with Hawley and Democrats for the vote-a-rama Medicaid amendment successful February.
Her up-in-the-air lasting is thing caller for the GOP, particularly connected a single-party effort. Eight years ago, Collins was a divided determination connected the GOP’s 2 reconciliation bills.
She voted alongside Murkowski and the precocious Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) against the party’s program to repeal the Affordable Care Act. Months later, though, she backed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. The GOP’s existent taxation docket would apt marque those 2017 cuts permanent.
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), seen May 14, has been a vocal professional of the House's "One Big Beautiful Bill."Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.)
If there’s 1 Republican legislator who is the astir apt to reason the bundle astatine the extremity of the day, it’s Paul.
The Kentucky Republican has been a large professional of the measure implicit its inclusion of a indebtedness ceiling hike and deficiency of shortage reduction.
Paul has made wide that his reddish enactment for immoderate measure is simply a indebtedness ceiling increase. But Republicans connected some sides of the Capitol are seemingly intent connected pursuing done connected Trump’s wishes to see it and assistance the enactment debar giving Democratic concessions successful immoderate imaginable negotiation.
This means that without immoderate changes, Paul volition beryllium a “no,” and Senate GOP leaders person little breathing country than they had hoped, capping their votes astatine 52 successful the process.
“I’ve told them if they’ll instrumentality the indebtedness ceiling disconnected of it, I’ll see voting for it,” Paul said last week after the House ballot astir his talks with GOP leadership. “It’s not conservative; I can’t enactment it.”
“The spending reductions are imperfect, and I deliberation wimpy, but I’d inactive ballot for the bundle if I didn’t person to ballot to rise the indebtedness ceiling,” helium added.
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.)
Senate GOP leaders person agelong had to interest astir the concerns of moderates, but it’s Johnson and his chap conservatives who are making their complaints known implicit what they presumption arsenic unacceptable levels of cuts.
Johnson has not gone astir arsenic acold arsenic Paul successful saying helium is prepared to reason a last bill, but helium has hinted that conservatives whitethorn propulsion their value around.
“We request to beryllium responsible, and the archetypal extremity of our fund reconciliation process should beryllium to trim the deficit,” Johnson told CNN last weekend. “This really increases it.”
“I deliberation we person capable [senators] to halt the process until the president gets superior astir the spending simplification and reducing the deficit,” Johnson added.
Johnson has been vocal astir his tendency to spot greater spending reductions, pointing to the astir $4 trillion the measure would adhd to the shortage successful its existent form.
He has voiced a penchant to determination toward pre-COVID spending levels, arguing that this is the U.S.’s past accidental to bash so.
Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.)
Tillis, a moderate-leaning legislator eyeing what could beryllium a adjacent reelection contention successful 2026, has aired aggregate points of concern, headlined by the axing of vigor taxation incentives successful the bill.
He has told colleagues that the swift termination of the credits enacted by the Inflation Reduction Act volition origin large harm to galore companies successful North Carolina and unit them to scramble aft years of planning.
He pointed specifically to erstwhile President Biden’s abrupt sidesplitting of the Keystone XL Pipeline 4 years agone and however it has near investors second-guessing whether to backmost akin projects.
“A wholesale repeal, oregon the termination of definite idiosyncratic credits, would make uncertainty, jeopardizing superior allocation, semipermanent task planning, and occupation instauration successful the vigor assemblage and crossed our broader economy,” Tillis, Murkowski and Sen. John Curtis (R-Utah) wrote to Thune backmost successful aboriginal April.
Adding to the play for Tillis, helium is staring down 1 of the 2 astir contentious Senate races connected the 2026 map, forcing him to enactment up imaginable anemic points arsenic Democrats look to pounce — and giving enactment an inducement to manus him a triumph for his voters backmost home.
