GOP Senators hit a snag while trying to push through the Trump-backed “big, beautiful” bill. The Senate parliamentarian rejected major provisions in the tax cuts and spending bill, blocking more than $250 billion in Medicaid-related cuts.
Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough issued her rejections on Thursday, saying the struck sections ran afoul of the Senate’s rules. In addition to the Medicaid-slashing section of the bill, MacDonough rejected cuts to Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (commonly known as “food stamps”), bans to undocumented residents’ use of public benefits and a provision that would restrict federal judges’ power to impose injunctions against the Trump administration.
MacDonough’s rejections came under the Byrd rule, which requires that bills passed via a simple majority under reconciliation be limited to strictly budgetary concerns.
Many of these provisions are key to offsetting the large tax cuts included in the spending bill. If MacDonough’s rejections stick, more than $500 billion of the bill’s spending cuts would be removed, according to the Center for American Progress Senior Director Bobby Kagan.
Republicans hoped to start voting on the bill Friday, but the rejections will likely delay that timeline. Senate Majority Leader John Thune said Senate Republicans aren’t planning to overrule the parliamentarian. Thune told Politico that overruling “would not be a good option” in completing the bill. Instead, Republicans are attempting to make revisions to the rejected measures.
House Democrats, like Rep. Robert Garcia, D-Calif., are backing MacDonough’s ruling.
“The parliamentarian is right to strip out these provisions,” Garcia told MSNBC. “Every American should know that this bill is all about taking away health care and then giving away a huge wealth transfer to the richest people in this country.”
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Republican Senator Tommy Tuberville of Alabama said MacDonough is pushing a “woke agenda.”
“The WOKE Senate Parliamentarian, who was appointed by Harry Reid and advised Al Gore, just STRUCK DOWN a provision BANNING illegals from stealing Medicaid from American citizens,” Tuberville wrote on X. “THE SENATE PARLIAMENTARIAN SHOULD BE FIRED ASAP.”
