As the Senate prepares to leave its mark on the act of a great bill of President Donald Trump this week, Republicans are dealing with the potential impact that the Megabill could have on the national debt, which has been balanced to almost $ 37 billion.
With a 10 -year budget law project, the Senate deficit hawks such as Rand Paul and Ron Johnson are drawing a red line, pressing for deeper cuts than those of the bill that the Chamber sent them.
As legislators aim to send a bill to Trump for July 4, these demands could complicate the calculation of the Senate for the Pass, where Republicans can only pay three defections.
On the one hand, the act of Big Big Beautiful Bill reduces disbursements by more than $ 1.5 billion against the current initial expenditure, according to the preliminary analysis of the non -partisan Congress Budget office, fulfilling the objective of reconciliation for between $ 1.5 and $ 2 billion in expense reductions.
Senator Rand Paul speaks against the Federal Omnibus Expenses Legislation for Fiscal Year 2023 who at a press conference with Senator Rick Scott and Senator Ron Johnson in the United States Capitol on December 20, 2022 in Washington, DC.
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On the other hand, the bill still adds about $ 3.1 billion to the debt, according to the CBO, although some Republicans such as the Kentucky Thomas Massie representative predict that he could add $ 20 billion to the debt during the next decade.
Disagree with the White House
Paul and Johnson disagree with the White House, which indicates an analysis of the Blannel Economic Advisors Council that considers that the legislation will save $ 1.6 billion in 10 years.
“There are $ 1.6 billion in savings in this bill,” said White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, during a press conference on May 19. “That is the greatest savings for any legislation that Capitol Hill has approved in the history of our nation.”
At a press conference on Thursday, Leavitt attacked the CBO and other markers, saying that they used “poor quality and historically terrible assumptions in forecasts between Democratic and Republican administrations alike.”
The Senate is expected to alter the proposal passed by the Chamber and some of the Senate’s fiscal hawks have conditioned their support for the implementation of even more pronounced cuts. But any cuts that these members want implemented must be balanced by the leadership of the Senate against the wishes of the moderates who wish to preserve key programs of the Social Security Network, creating important challenges with the hope of compensating the cost of the package.
Senator Josh Hawley talks to journalists before the weekly policy lunch of the Senate Republicans, in the United States Capitol on March 25, 2025 in Washington, DC.
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Will the camera and the Senate see face to face?
Another complication: any change in the bill made by the Senate must be approved by the Chamber, which sent the bill to the upper chamber for just one vote.
President Mike Johnson, who guided the bill through the Chamber on the objections of prosecutors and moderate at his conference, declared that “the debt will not be added,” when asked if Trump would take possession of an increase in the deficit.
And he said he and Trump have the same concerns as Johnson and Paul.
“He is also worried like me, as Ron Johnson is, as Rand Paul is, as we are all about the nation’s debt, and he and I talk about this frequently, and is excited to change that trajectory,” he said in “Meet The Press” of NBC.
The bill sent to the Senate would also increase the federal debt limit by $ 4 billion, another conflict point with fiscal hawks.
“There is nothing fiscally conservative about expanding the debt roof more than we have done before,” Paul said after the bill went through the camera two weeks ago. “This will be the greatest increase in debt roof, and the Republican party possesses this now.”
The president of the House of Representatives speaks with the media after the Chamber approved the agenda of Bill Donald Trump in the United States Capitol, on May 22, 2025 in Washington.
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‘Wimpy and Anemic’
In an event last week in Iowa, Paul repeated his disdain for the bill, calling the current “Wimpy and Anemic” cuts and suggesting that additional cuts could occur to law programs such as Medicaid and Social Security, areas where a line has been drawn by Trump and other GOP senators such as Josh Hawley of Missouri, who called the construction of the construction of the draft law on the bill on the bill on the bill on the project Health insurance for work insurance that works poor “and politically politically injustrial.”
Paul said on Sunday “Face the Nation” of CBS that he thought there were enough votes among his republican colleagues in the Senate to block the bill.
“I think we are four at this time, and I would be surprised a lot if the bill is not modified in a good direction,” he said.
Trump called Paul during the weekend, writing on his social platform of truth that if the senator votes against the bill, “Rand will play directly in the hands of the Democrats, and Kentucky’s great people will never forgive him!”
Talking to journalists on Monday, Leavitt suggested that there will be a price to pay those who vote against him.
“His voters will know. That is unacceptable for Republican voters and all voters throughout the country who chose this president in a republican majority to do things in Capitol Hill,” he said.
Budget reconciliation, the tactic that Congress Republicans are using to approve the bill, is not subject to the filibuster, which allows the republican majority to promulgate radical changes with only a simple majority.
But changes in Social Security and Medicare are exempt from the fast track budget process. Any change in these rights would require 60 votes and the bipartisan cooperation of the Democrats: a republican perspective does not entertain as they do it only in the bill.
Paul requested more steep expenses for cuts so that the increase in the debt limit was not part of this bill. The Secretary of the Treasury, Scott Besent, has asked Congress to increase the legal debt limit at the end of July to prevent the country from breaching its debt obligations.
“Desire [Trump’s 2017] Tax cuts will be permanent. But at the same time, I don’t want to increase the debt roof five billion, “he told CBS on Sunday.” The Republican party will be the owner of the debt once they vote for this. “
Senator Johnson, a remarkable fiscal falcon, has also firmly indicated that he would not support the bill in its current form, since it adds to the debt.
“It is very far from the brand. It is very bad,” Capitol journalists told the journalists while the Chamber still advanced the bill through the rules committee. “I have been trying to intervene reality. I have been trying to intervene facts and figures. They are on my side.”
President Donald Trump shakes hand with the representative of the president of the House of Representatives, Mike Johnson, and the leader of the majority of the Senate, John Thune, after the national breakfast of prayer in Statuary Hall in the Capitol of the United States on February 6, 2025 in Washington, DC.
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Big or beautiful?
In a newspaper lunch on Wednesday in Milwaukee organized by Wispolitics and Milwaukee Press Club, Johnson said that “there was no pressure” that Trump could press it to support him in his current form.
When asked on Sunday at “Sunday Morning Futures” by Fox News if he was willing to press so far as to fly the Trump agenda, Johnson emphasized that his loyalty was with the American people.
“I want to see [Trump] succeed. But again, my loyalty is for the American people, for my children and grandchildren. We cannot continue mortgaging his future, “said Johnson.
Trump’s advisor Elon Musk, who left the White House on Friday after his role as a special government employee reached his 130 -day limit, publicly broke with the president during an interview with CBS a couple of days before he said he was “disappointed” by the draft law of mass expenses.
“I think a bill can be large or can be beautiful,” Musk told CBS News, “but I don’t know if both can be. My personal opinion.”
-ABC News’ Isabella Murray and Kelsey Walsh contributed to this report.
