Senate Republicans are scrambling this week to finalize and pass the bill containing much of President Trump’s legislative agenda. GOP leaders are still aiming to have the Senate hold a vote-a-rama on a slew of amendments starting Thursday and to get the giant tax-and-spending package to the president’s desk by July 4 — just 11 days from now — but they’ve got a lot of work left to do.

The GOP plan is still undergoing the so-called Byrd Bath, the process in which Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough rules on whether its provisions meet the criteria to be included in a reconciliation bill and bypass the Senate’s usual requirement for a 60-vote supermajority. Items in the bill must address spending, revenue or the debt limit, not strict policy matters.

MacDonough has already delivered several setbacks for Republicans, ruling against some provisions, including:

* SNAP-ping back. Republicans were planning to force states to take on more costs of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, known as SNAP or food stamps, based on the states’ payment error rates. The plan also would have removed SNAP eligibility for immigrants who are not citizens or lawful permanent residents, with limited exceptions. Some Republicans had raised concerns that the SNAP changes would be politically costly.

The Senate had already scaled back a plan by House Republicans that would have cut nearly $300 billion from the program. But, as Politico notes, the loss of the Senate bill’s scaled-back SNAP savings leaves Republicans looking for more cuts to help pay for their plans, including a $67 billion farm bill package: “Although the committee’s bill hadn’t received a final cost saving estimate from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, committee staff predicted it would save around $211 billion in agriculture spending, with the cost-share plan making up a large portion of those trims.”

Politico says that Republicans believe they may be able to salvage the SNAP changes by tweaking the language in the legislation and clarifying how payment error rates will factor into state costs.

* CFPB is protected. Republicans were looking to gut the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau by eliminating its funding to save $6.4 billion. But the CFPB is funded through the Federal Reserve, not Congress, so on Friday, MacDonough knocked out that measure, along with other elements of the Senate Banking Committee’s portion of the bill.

“I remain committed to advancing legislation that cuts waste and duplication in our federal government and saves taxpayer dollars,” Senate Banking Committee Chairman Tim Scott, a South Carolina Republican, said in a statement. “My colleagues and I remain committed to cutting wasteful spending at the CFPB and will continue working with the Senate parliamentarian on the Committee’s provisions.”

* Restrictions on federal judges nixed. The parliamentarian ruled against a provision that would have restricted the power of federal judges to issue nationwide injunctions or restraining orders. Those orders have stymied some Trump administration plans and frustrated Republican lawmakers and administration officials — though the Biden and Obama administrations also saw some of their plans halted by such court rulings. “We successfully fought for rule of law and struck out this reckless and downright un-American provision,” Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said in a statement.

Republicans can still include these measures in their bill, but they would require 60 votes to pass. The GOP has a 53-47 majority in the Senate.

MacDonough also ruled against a restriction on grant funding for so-called sanctuary cities, but she upheld a proposal that ties federal grants for broadband access to a ban on state and local government regulations on AI.

What’s next: Republicans were reportedly making final arguments to MacDonough today on the Finance Committee portion of the bill, which includes the Senate GOP’s Medicaid changes. Senate Republicans were scheduled to hold a conference meeting Monday night for an update on the status of the bill and sticking points. Ahead of a planned Independence Day recess starting this weekend, Republican Senate Majority Leader John Thune is reportedly prepared to keep the Senate in session until it passes the reconciliation bill.

The bottom line: At this point, for the bill to get to Trump’s desk by July 4, the House would have to swallow whatever changes the Senate might approve, but House Republicans are already raising some alarms over the Senate version of the legislation, and GOP divisions remain on key issues including Medicaid cuts, clean energy tax credits and the deduction for state and local taxes.

The Senate parliamentarian has rejected several controversial provisions in the GOP’s tax and spending package over the past few days.

Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough’s decision on Thursday to reject key Medicaid cuts in the bill enraged hard-line Republicans, who called on Senate leaders to overrule or fire the longtime Senate referee.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) has said he won’t seek to overrule MacDonough. He said Thursday he still aims to get the “big, beautiful bill” on President Trump’s desk by July 4.

The megabill, which carries much of Trump’s legislative agenda, must undergo the “Byrd bath,” a a process through which measures are reviewed for compliance with the Byrd Rule; measures that do comply can be attached to a reconciliation package that can pass with a 51-vote majority.

Republicans can still retool the provisions in an attempt to address the conflicts and resubmit them for review.

Here’s a look at what didn’t make the initial cut:

Capping provider taxes; barring Medicaid for noncitizens

MacDonough ruled against several Medicaid provisions in the GOP megabill, including a plan to cap states’ use of health care provider taxes to get more federal Medicaid funding.

The provision would have saved the federal government hundreds of billions of dollars in spending over the next 10 years and would have helped to offset the cost of making President Trump’s corporate tax cuts permanent. The measure would have required states to pay more for the cost of Medicaid coverage.

MacDonough also rejected a provision in the bill that would have revoked Medicare eligibility for many noncitizen immigrants. It would have also prevented refugees and asylum-seekers from enrolling in Medicare even if they have a sufficient work history, meet the age and disability requirements, and have paid into the program.

Barring ACA subsidies to health plans that cover abortion care

MacDonough rejected language that would bar federal subsidies under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) from going to qualified health plans that cover abortion care.

The provision in the bill aimed to restrict the ACA’s cost-sharing subsidies from lowering the costs of plans that cover abortion in roughly a dozen states. It would have had an “outsized impact” on states where health insurers cover abortion voluntarily.

MacDonough also ruled against another provision that would have ended “silver loading” under the ACA. Silver loading refers to when insurers increase premiums for silver-level health insurance plans in order to offset the cost of subsidies.

Restrictions on Medicaid, CHIP coverage to immigrants

MacDonough also ruled against a provision that would have barred federal dollars from being spent on Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) to cover adults and children whose citizenship and immigration status are not immediately verifiable.

She also rejected language in the megabill that would have lowered the Federal Medical Assistance Percentage grant from 90 to 80 percent in states that use funds to offer Medicaid coverage to immigrants without legal status. The provision would have applied to states that have chosen to expand Medicaid coverage as part of the ACA.

Change to Federal Employees Retirement System contributions

MacDonough ruled against language that proposed increasing the Federal Employees Retirement System contribution rate for new civil servants who refuse to become at-will employees. She argued the provision violates the Byrd Rule, which bars provisions that are considered “extraneous” to the federal budget.

State authorization to conduct border security and immigration enforcement

The megabill originally included language that gave states the authority to conduct border security and immigration enforcement, a responsibility that has traditionally fallen on the federal government. MacDonough rejected this language, ruling it violates the Byrd Rule.

Measure to limit court contempt powers

The parliamentarian rejected a measure in the bill that would have made it harder for courts to enforce lawsuits against the Trump administration. The measure targeted preliminary injunctions and temporary restraining orders issued by federal judges against Trump’s executive orders and other directives. MacDonough argued that limiting courts’ ability to hold Trump in contempt violates Senate rules.

Language barring noncitizens or permanent residents from receiving SNAP benefits

Last week, MacDonough ruled against a measure that prevented immigrants who are not yet citizens or lawful permanent residents from participating in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).

She also rejected another SNAP-related provision that required states to pay a percentage of food assistance under SNAP depending on their individual error rates in delivering food aid. The provision required states to pay between 5 percent and 15 percent of food benefits in 2028, depending on their error rate. Nearly every state has had SNAP error rates of 6 percent or higher.

Extending the suspension of permanent price support authority

MacDonough pushed back against a Republican measure that sought to extend the suspension of permanent price authority, which has traditionally been a part of the farm bill.

The original bill had attempted to end a long-held farm bill practice in which farm commodity programs — the network of subsidies for products such as dairy, corn or rice — that underpin large-scale U.S. agriculture expire every few years, effectively forcing congressional Republicans back to the negotiating table annually to participate in the grand bargain of SNAP and conservation funding in return for farm welfare.

The measure knocked down by the parliamentarian would have extended those subsidies past their normal cutoff to expire in 2031 — which advocates of sustainable agriculture and SNAP warn would have removed any need for farm state legislators to pass any farm bill this decade, because they would have gotten what they needed.

While this would be within bounds of a normal farm bill, the Senate parliamentarian ruled that legislators couldn’t do it through reconciliation and would therefore need to come up with 60 votes.

Funding cap on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

MacDonough has ruled against a provision that would have essentially eliminated the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau by placing a cap on its funding. The provision would have lowered the agency’s maximum funding to zero percent of the Federal Reserve’s operating expenses.

She also ruled against several other measures that fell under the control of the Senate Banking Committee, Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, and the Senate Armed Services Committee. One would have cut $1.4 billion in federal costs by lowering the Federal Reserve staff pay.

MacDonough also rejected measures that proposed cutting more than $1 billion in costs by slashing Office of Financial Research funding and getting rid of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board.

Selling off millions of acres of public land

The Senate parliamentarian ruled against a provision championed by Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) that would have sold off millions of acres of Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management land in up to 11 states.

Lee, in a post on the social platform X, said he would revamp the plan. The new legislation will still sell off land owned by the Bureau of Land Management — but not land owned by the Forest Service.

He also said he would “SIGNIFICANTLY REDUCE” the amount of land in the bill, limiting it only to lands within 5 miles of a population center.

Easing offshore oil and gas project compliance

MacDonough blocked a provision that would deem offshore oil and gas projects as automatically compliant with the National Environmental Policy Act.

She also rejected a measure in the bill that required offshore oil and gas leases to be issued to successful bidders within 90 days after their sale.

She also said Republicans could not include a provision in the bill that requires the Interior secretary to OK the construction of Ambler Road, a more than 200-mile-long access road that would facilitate the development of four large mines and hundreds of smaller mines in northern Alaska.

Forcing the Postal Service to sell electric vehicles

The bill originally contained language that sought to undo Biden administration rules meant to encourage electric vehicle use. The Senate parliamentarian rejected a provision that would force the General Services Administration, which handles the equipment used by government agencies, to sell all the eclectic vehicles used by the U.S. Postal Service.

However, a policy that would rescind funds passed by Democrats to allow the Postal Service to purchase additional electric vehicles and chargers is still in the bill.

Repeal EPA rule limiting air pollution emitted by passenger vehicles

The bill targeted several Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulations, including one that restricts air pollution emissions from passenger vehicles. MacDonough said late last week that Republicans could not include that measure in the “big, beautiful bill.”

Allowing project developers to bypass judicial environmental reviews

Republicans also wanted to change the National Environmental Policy Act to allow project developers to fast-track environmental reviews or prevent judicial reviews if they paid a one-time fee, according to Politico. MacDonough ruled against the measure.

Altering the REINS Act

MacDonough also said Republicans could not include a modified version of the REINS Act in the bill. The measure would have increased congressional power over big regulations, according to Axios.

Saul Elbein contributed.

Originally published at 6:05 p.m. on June 23

Good evening. President Donald Trump just announced a ceasefire between Israel and Iran that he said he hopes will become permanent. That news comes after Iran launched a missile attack on the Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, the largest American military installation in the Middle East. The attack, retaliation for the U.S. bombing of three Iranian nuclear sites over the weekend, was thwarted by air defense systems, officials said. No casualties were reported. Trump, in an earlier post on social media, had floated the possibility of Iranian regime change.

While the world is watching the Middle East, Senate Republicans are working to finish their budget reconciliation bill. Here’s the latest.

Senate Republicans Scramble to Address Challenges to Their Megabill

Senate Republicans are scrambling this week to finalize and pass the bill containing much of President Trump’s legislative agenda. GOP leaders are still aiming to have the Senate hold a vote-a-rama on a slew of amendments starting Thursday and to get the giant tax-and-spending package to the president’s desk by July 4 – just 11 days from now – but they’ve got a lot of work left to do.

The GOP plan is still undergoing the so-called Byrd Bath, the process in which Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough rules on whether its provisions meet the criteria to be included in a reconciliation bill and bypass the Senate’s usual requirement for a 60-vote supermajority. Items in the bill must address spending, revenue or the debt limit, not strict policy matters.

MacDonough has already delivered several setbacks for Republicans, ruling against some provisions, including:

* SNAP-ing back. Republicans were planning to force states to take on more costs of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, known as SNAP or food stamps, based on the states’ payment error rates. The plan also would have removed SNAP eligibility for immigrants who are not citizens or lawful permanent residents, with limited exceptions. Some Republicans had raised concerns that the SNAP changes would be politically costly.

The Senate had already scaled back a plan by House Republicans that would have cut nearly $300 billion from the program. But, as Politico notes, the loss of the Senate bill’s scaled-back SNAP savings leaves Republicans looking for more cuts to help pay for their plans, including a $67 billion farm bill package: “Although the committee’s bill hadn’t received a final cost saving estimate from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, committee staff predicted it would save around $211 billion in agriculture spending, with the cost-share plan making up a large portion of those trims.”

Politico says that Republicans believe they may be able to salvage the SNAP changes by tweaking the language in the legislation and clarifying how payment error rates will factor into state costs.

* CFPB is protected. Republicans were looking to gut the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau by eliminating its funding to save $6.4 billion. But the CFPB is funded through the Federal Reserve, not Congress, so on Friday, MacDonough knocked out that measure, along with other elements of the Senate Banking Committee’s portion of the bill.

“I remain committed to advancing legislation that cuts waste and duplication in our federal government and saves taxpayer dollars,” Senate Banking Committee Chairman Tim Scott, a South Carolina Republican, said in a statement. “My colleagues and I remain committed to cutting wasteful spending at the CFPB and will continue working with the Senate parliamentarian on the Committee’s provisions.”

* Restrictions on federal judges nixed. The parliamentarian ruled against a provision that would have restricted the power of federal judges to issue nationwide injunctions or restraining orders. Those orders have stymied some Trump administration plans and frustrated Republican lawmakers and administration officials – though the Biden and Obama administrations also saw some of their plans halted by such court rulings. “We successfully fought for rule of law and struck out this reckless and downright un-American provision,” Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said in a statement.

Republicans can still include these measures in their bill, but they would require 60 votes to pass. The GOP has a 53-47 majority in the Senate.

MacDonough also ruled against a restriction on grant funding for so-called sanctuary cities, but she upheld a proposal that ties federal grants for broadband access to a ban on state and local government regulations on AI.

What’s next: Republicans were reportedly making final arguments to MacDonough today on the Finance Committee portion of the bill, which includes the Senate GOP’s Medicaid changes. Senate Republicans were scheduled to hold a conference meeting Monday night for an update on the status of the bill and sticking points. Ahead of a planned Independence Day recess starting this weekend, Republican Senate Majority Leader John Thune is reportedly prepared to keep the Senate in session until it passes the reconciliation bill.

The bottom line: At this point, for the bill to get to Trump’s desk by July 4, the House would have to swallow whatever changes the Senate might approve, but House Republicans are already raising some alarms over the Senate version of the legislation, and GOP divisions remain on key issues including Medicaid cuts, clean energy tax credits and the deduction for state and local taxes.

Senate GOP Slashes Official Cost of Megabill With Accounting ‘Gimmick’

A new analysis of the Republican megabill currently under consideration in the Senate finds that it could be much less costly than previously estimated – as long as you’re willing to ignore the cost of extending the 2017 tax cuts that were set to expire at the end of the year.

Senate Republicans asked the non-partisan Joint Committee on Taxation to score the tax provisions of the reconciliation bill using a “current policy” baseline, a novel accounting method that assumes that maintaining current policies effectively has no cost, regardless of whether the policies were set to expire, and thus is budget neutral.

Under that assumption, the JCT reported this weekend that the tax portions of the Republican megabill would cost just $442 billion over 10 years – a huge drop from the previous estimate, which included a roughly $3.8 trillion cost for extending the 2017 tax cuts.

A malleable number: Senate Finance Chair Mike Crapo, Republican from Idaho, said the JCT score reflects his preferred way of thinking about the 2017 tax cut extension. “Extending the Trump tax cuts prevents a $4 trillion tax increase-this is not a change in current tax policy or tax revenue,” he said in a statement Sunday. “This score more accurately reflects reality by measuring the effects of tax policy changes relative to the status quo.”

Sen. Jeff Merkley of Oregon, the senior Democrat on the Budget Committee, rejected the new score as the product of “magic math.”

“Republicans finally showed their hand, and its completely dishonest,” Merkley said in a statement. “‘Current policy baseline’ is a budget gimmick that is nothing more than smoke and mirrors instead of honest accounting. This bill will add trillions upon trillions of dollars to the national debt to fund tax breaks for billionaires – while Republicans want everyone to think it adds zero.”

Democrats have asked the JCT to release a score of the bill using the more conventional “current law” baseline, which recognizes that many of the 2017 tax cuts are set to expire at the end of 2025. Eliminating that expiration dramatically alters projections for tax revenues over the next 10 years.

Tax and budget experts typically rely on the current law baseline. Maya MacGuineas, president of the fiscally conservative Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, said the current policy baseline amounts to little more than a “gimmick” that threatens to produce legislation that is “an affront to logic, consistency and sound principles of budgeting.”

“The TCJA was scored as temporary back in 2017 in order to keep its reported costs down,” she said in a statement Monday. “The current bait and switch doesn’t make $3.8 trillion of borrowing disappear, it just hides the cost from the public.”

Senate tweaks to the bill: The Senate altered some tax provisions in the bill in an effort to reduce costs, reducing the generosity of some notable components that were passed by the House in May. As congressional reporter Jamie Dupree notes, the Senate reduced the cost of policies that would eliminate federal income taxes on tips and on overtime pay by placing a cap on the amount of income that can be exempted and by phasing out the tax break at higher income levels.

Workers would be able to avoid taxes only the first $25,000 in tip income, an allowance that starts phasing out at $150,000 a year in total income. For overtime pay, the Senate capped the amount that could be claimed at $12,500, and the tax break also starts phasing out at $150,000 in earnings.

The changes lower the cost of those elements in the bill. The cost of the “no tax on tips” provision falls from $39.6 billion in the House version to $30.7 billion in the Senate, and the cost of the “no tax on overtime” provision drops from $124 billion to $89.3 billion, according to the JCT.

Other provisions of the bill that saw tweaks include the proposed deduction for auto loan interest, the cost of which fell from $58 billion in the House version to $31 billion in the Senate, and new rules for expensing manufacturing costs, which dropped from $148 billion to $141 billion, per Andrew Lautz of the Bipartisan Policy Center.

For many of the other major tax provisions, the switch in baselines did the work of reducing costs, even where lawmakers tweaked some of the related details. For example, per Politico’s Benjamin Guggenheim, extending the personal income tax cuts in the 2017 bill would cost an estimated $2.2 trillion in the conventional analysis, but that cost is sharply reduced to $83 billion in the new JCT analysis, which looks only at the ways the Senate altered the existing rules moving forward. Similarly, the cost of extending and expanding the Child Tax Credit is estimated to be about $800 billion, but that cost falls to $124 billion in the new JCT score.

The bottom line: Republicans may hope to use the current policy baseline to obscure much of the cost of the bill as understood in conventional analysis. Still, the JCT score does tell us that the new provisions in the tax portions of the reconciliation bill would cost an estimated $442 billion, bringing the total cost of the tax component to about $4.2 trillion over 10 years when analyzed on a current law basis.

Fiscal News Roundup

Views and Analysis

The Senate Parliamentarian said no to some budget cuts in the OBBA.

The Byrd Rule Comes Into Play

Q: What is the Byrd Rule?

A: The Byrd Rule, formally known as Section 313 of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974, is a Senate rule that prevents extraneous matter from being included in budget reconciliation legislation. It’s designed to ensure that reconciliation bills, which can pass with a simple majority, focus on budgetary matters rather than being used to enact unrelated policy changes.

The above answer is from AI. It’s a very good synopsis. Congress.Gov provides in depth discussion in The Budget Reconciliation Process: The Senate’s “Byrd Rule”

The Byrd Bath

Please note the Senate Parliamentarian Advises Several Provisions in Republicans’ “One Big, Beautiful Bill” Are Not Permissible, Subject to Byrd Rule

Provisions Subject to a 60-Vote Byrd Rule Point of Order Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Funding Cap for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. This section cuts $6.4 billion by reducing the CFPB’s maximum funding to 0% of the Federal Reserve’s operating expenses, eliminating the agency. (Sec. 30001) Pay and Benefits of Employees of the Federal Reserve System. This section cuts $1.4 billion by reducing the pay of Federal Reserve staff. (Sec. 30002) Financial Research Fund. This section cuts $293 million by reducing the Office of Financial Research funding. (Sec. 30004) Transfer of Public Company Accounting Oversight Board. This section cuts $771 million to eliminate the PCAOB and transfers its authority to the Securities and Exchange Commission. (Sec. 30005) Environment and Public Works Funding Repeals. These sections repeal statutory authorizations for Inflation Reduction Act programs and rescind funds. The repeals of authorizations, but not the rescissions, violate the Byrd Rule. (Secs. 01 and 03-25) Repeal of Multipollutant Emissions Standards for Model Years2027 and Later Light-Duty and Medium-Duty Vehicles. This section repeals EPA’s rule that sets limits on the air pollution emissions of passenger vehicle models manufactured, sold, or operated in the United States. (Sec. 27) Judicial Review portion of Project Sponsor Opt-In Fees for Environmental Reviews. This subsection allows environmental projects to skirt judicial review if they pay a fee. (Sec. 28) Armed Services Multi-Year Operational Plan. This section reduces appropriations to the Department of Defense if spend plans are not submitted on time. (Sec. 20014)

The American Prospect reports Elimination of CFPB and Other Financial Agencies Tossed Out of Budget Bill

The Senate parliamentarian has been hearing arguments over whether certain provisions can stay in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, and the first set of decisions preserves several federal banking agencies. The ruling means that these provisions would only be able to return to the bill in one of two ways: either with a 60-vote waiver of the Byrd Rule, or with the chair of the Senate ignoring the parliamentarian and allowing the measures to stay. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) has ruled out the latter, but now we’ll get a test of whether he is committed to abiding by this. The Senate Banking Committee attempted to essentially zero out the CFPB by reducing the cap for funds that the Federal Reserve can transfer to the agency to zero percent. That’s a full defunding, and it doesn’t directly impact the overall budget, since it’s a reduction in funds coming from off-budget, via the Federal Reserve. The parliamentarian ruled that this did not have a primary budgetary purpose but was a policy move by Republicans to get rid of a disfavored agency. This isn’t allowed in budget reconciliation. The same ruling was made for the zeroing out of the budget of the Office of Financial Research, which is funded through an assessment on large banks. Under the bill, that assessment money would get swept into the general fund; the parliamentarian saw that as a policy maneuver to kill OFR, a critical agency for market operations as well as for seeing over the horizon on the stability of the financial system. The Banking Committee also tried to eliminate the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, which was inaugurated after Enron and other disasters to provide oversight of accounting firms, and fold it into the Securities and Exchange Commission. That also is policy. Congress can of course move to destroy the agencies it created if it wants, but only through regular order, not the special process used for budget reconciliation, which gets around the filibuster. So these measures are out of the bill. “As much as Senate Republicans would prefer to throw out the rule book and advance their families lose and billionaires win agenda, there are rules that must be followed and Democrats are making sure those rules are enforced,” Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR), ranking Democrat on the Senate Budget Committee, said in a statement. A couple of other provisions were struck last night. The Banking Committee attempted to reduce pay of Federal Reserve staff to cut $1.4 billion. The Environment and Public Works Committee added a provision that appeared to repeal long-standing emissions standards for vehicles starting in 2027; that was also eliminated. And the Armed Services Committee had a trigger that would reduce appropriations to the Department of Defense if they were late in submitting their spending plans. All of these are gone as well.

Trump’s ‘Big, Beautiful Bill’ Gets Slimmed Down in Senate

The Wall Street Journal reports Trump’s ‘Big, Beautiful Bill’ Gets Slimmed Down in Senate

President Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” is getting smaller just as Republicans head into a crucial week, after the Senate’s rules arbiter decided several controversial provisions don’t qualify for the special procedure the GOP is using to bypass Democratic opposition. Senate parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough, who has been hearing arguments from Republicans and Democrats behind closed doors, issued guidance in recent days on which measures don’t fit within the so-called budget-reconciliation process. Under budget reconciliation, provisions have to be primarily related to the budget to be eligible for a simple majority vote, rather than the 60 votes typically required in the Senate. One of the top measures that the parliamentarian said didn’t fit, according to Democrats who publicized her decisions: a provision requiring states to pay a portion of food benefits, with their share increasing the more they mistakenly overpay or underpay beneficiaries. It isn’t clear if Republicans plan to rework the measure to try to accommodate the parliamentarian’s guidance. The measure as originally passed in the House would have saved $128 billion over a decade, according to the Congressional Budget Office. While the Senate scaled back the House cuts, it didn’t entirely eliminate them. The parliamentarian said a provision barring people living in the country illegally from receiving nutrition assistance didn’t conform to the requirements of the budget-reconciliation process. She also struck out a measure that would have required plaintiffs to post potentially enormous bonds when asking courts to issue preliminary injunctions or imposing temporary restraining orders against the federal government. She said a provision that would reduce the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s funding to zero didn’t qualify for reconciliation. She also said a proposal to merge the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, the U.S. audit watchdog, into the Securities and Exchange Commission wasn’t eligible for the fast-track process. In response to the recommendations on the CFPB and PCAOB, Sen. Tim Scott (R., S.C.) said he remains committed to advancing legislation that cuts waste and duplication in the U.S. government. One measure that appeared to survive her review: a provision withholding broadband funds to states that regulate artificial-intelligence technology. Earlier, House Republicans had included in their version of Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” a measure that would have essentially imposed a moratorium on state regulation of artificial intelligence for 10 years. But Senate Republicans changed that language in hopes of preserving the spirit of the policy while ensuring that it could survive the parliamentarian’s so-called Byrd bath—the review process named for the late Sen. Robert Byrd (D., W.Va.).

Still More Provisions Struck

The US Senate Budget Committee reports More Provisions in Republicans’ “One Big, Beautiful Bill” Are Subject to Byrd Rule

Judiciary Provisions Struck Appropriation: Eligibility. This subparagraph limits certain grant funding for “sanctuary cities,” and where the Attorney General disagrees with states’ and localities’ immigration enforcement. (Section 154, Paragraph 5, Subparagraph C) Bridging Immigration-Related Deficits Experienced Nationwide Reimbursement Fund. Language in this section gives state and local officials the authority to arrest any noncitizen suspected of being in the U.S. unlawfully. (Offending language in Section 155) Restriction on Enforcement. This section limits the ability of federal courts to issue preliminary injunctions or temporary restraining orders against the federal government by requiring litigants to post a potentially enormous bond. (Section 203) Limitation on Donations Made Pursuant to Settlement Agreements to Which the United States is a Party. This section limits when the federal government can enter into or enforce settlement agreements that provide for payments to third parties to fully compensate victims, remedy harm, and punish and deter future violations. (Section 301)

Nothing Surprising

Nothing above is surprising, especially the judiciary items.

Many of Trump’s executive orders will have to survive a filibuster or the courts. I expect some will and some won’t.

Byrd Rule not Officially Binding

There is nothing forcing the Senate to honor the Byrd rule. It’s just a convention that both parties honor. But as soon as one party breaks it, the other will the next time.

This is why Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) has ruled out ignoring the parliamentarian.

It will be interesting to see if Trump pressures Thune to do break the rule.

The Senate Makes Big Changes to Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill

On June 16, I noted The Senate Makes Big Changes to Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill

The biggest changes are SALT and Medicaid, but there are many significant details. What I Expect The SALT change is very favorable and I hope Trump hammers on the House to accept it. I sense a compromise, the smaller the better. The Senate made a good set of changes on Medicaid that I think will stick. I thought there might have been a bigger Senate fight. I expect the Senate caps on overtime and tips to stick.’ The Bottom Line It’s hard to crow over big budget deficits, but the bill appears to be a significant improvement. There is a decent chance most of the Senate changes stick. Budget analysis should be out in a day or to so we can assess the real score card.

The Parliamentarian just undid ~$200 billion negating much of the Senate’s improvements.

So it’s back to the drawing board if the hawks insist on more cuts.

I propose killing SALT entirely along with no tax on tips and no tax on overtime, and ramming that through the House.

Trump can blame the Parliamentarian for the changes.

For more of my ideas, please click on the preceding link.

Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough has ruled that several key pieces of the massive bill to implement President Trump’s agenda run afoul of the Byrd Rule and must be taken out of the package to allow it to pass with a simple majority vote on a special procedural fast track.

The parliamentarian ruled against several provisions under the jurisdictions of the Senate committees on Banking, Environment and Public Works, and Armed Services.

These included a provision that would have placed a funding cap on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), which would have cut $6.4 billion from the agency by reducing its maximum funding to zero percent of the Federal Reserve’s operating expenses. The funding cut would have eliminated the agency.

The creation of the CFPB was one of the central reforms of the Dodd-Frank Act that Democrats passed in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis.

She also ruled against language cutting $1.4 billion in costs by reducing the pay of Federal Reserve staff, cutting $293 million by reducing the Office of Financial Research funding and cutting $771 million by eliminating the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board.

Sen. Jeff Merkley (Ore.), the ranking Democrat on the Senate Budget Committee, touted the parliamentary rulings.

“The Senate Parliamentarian advised that certain provisions in the Republicans’ One Big, Beautiful Betrayal will be subject to the Byrd Rule – ultimately meaning they will need to be stripped from the bill to ensure it complies with the rules of reconciliation,” Merkley said.

“As much as Senate Republicans would prefer to throw out the rule book and advance their families lose and billionaires win agenda, there are rules that must be followed and Democrats are making sure those rules are enforced,” he added.

Senate Republicans will need to remove the provisions from the bill or otherwise would have to muster 60 voters to overcome a point of order against the bill.

Senate Republicans hold a 53-47 seat majority.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) could opt to override the parliamentarian’s ruling with a simple majority vote on the floor, establishing a new Senate precedent, but he has indicated he does not plan to do that.

The parliamentarian ruled several sections of the bill under the jurisdiction of the Environment and Public Works Committee also violated the Byrd Rule.

She ruled against the repeal of funding authorizations in the Inflation Reduction Act and the repeal of the Environmental Protection Agency’s multipollutant emissions standards for light-duty and medium-duty vehicles for model years 2027 and later.

She also ruled against a provision under the Armed Services panel’s jurisdiction that would reduce appropriations to the Department of Defense if spending plans are not submitted on time.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), the ranking member on the Senate Banking Committee, applauded the parliamentarian’s rulings on the issues under her committee’s jurisdiction.

“These proposals are a reckless, dangerous attack on consumers and would lead to more Americans being tricked and trapped by giant financial institutions and put the stability of our entire financial system at risk,” she said.

“Democrats fought back, and we will keep fighting back against this ugly bill,” she said.

Warren’s Banking staff submitted in-depth written briefs to the parliamentarian in advance of her ruling.

Warren’s staff and Senate Banking Committee Chair Tim Scott’s (R-S.C.) staff also presented oral arguments to the parliamentarian during a June 16 meeting that lasted for 90 minutes.

Updated at 12:55 p.m. EDT