Time ticks on Senate Republicans as they refresh their ‘Big Beautiful’ megabill

Senate Republicans dropped the updated draft of their massive domestic package Friday night, aiming to get it on the floor for votes starting Saturday.

They’re pushing to meet President Donald Trump’s July 4 deadline, but they still don’t have the 50 votes locked in. Even as John Thune, the Senate GOP leader, pushes hard for floor action by Saturday afternoon, several Republican senators are still uncommitted.

Lindsey Graham, who chairs the Budget Committee, published the revised text covering nearly every committee’s contribution, except for the part that matters most right now: the Finance section. That’s where the overhaul of Medicaid and the rewritten tax plan sit.

Those pages weren’t finalized in time, even though the Finance Committee met with Elizabeth MacDonough, the Senate Parliamentarian, late Friday night. Her previous rulings shaped most of the updated language, but Graham’s team didn’t complete the final edits before releasing the text.

Republicans tweak Medicaid cuts and SALT cap to win votes

The new version reflects efforts to please multiple factions within the party. For starters, Republicans kept in a tentative SALT deduction deal with the House, raising the cap from $10,000 to $40,000 for five years starting in 2025, before snapping back.

After 2025, the cap rises 1% each year. This deal came after internal fights over whether to preserve the tax break, which mostly benefits higher-income states. It’s part of a larger $4.2 trillion tax cut proposition, which Republicans want passed before the holiday to show alignment with Trump’s economic push.

To calm moderate senators, the bill now includes $25 billion for rural hospitals to cushion Medicaid cuts. But Susan Collins, a Republican from Maine, called that number too low—she had been pushing for $100 billion.

Negotiators also added a one-year delay to the 3.5% cap on Medicaid provider taxes, moving the start date from 2031 to 2032. That tax maneuver is a way for states to get more federal matching funds, and delaying it helps states who’ve built their budgets around it.

Another section tweaks the timeline for the hydrogen production tax credit, letting it stay in place through 2028 for any project that starts construction before then. The earlier version had it ending in 2025, and energy lobbyists had been pressing to keep the extension.

Republicans also added language to raise the debt ceiling by $5 trillion, a move designed to prevent a government default that could happen as soon as August.

Senate bill kills EV credits, drops court restrictions

Late Friday night, the same text confirmed the GOP’s move to eliminate tax credits for electric vehicles. The bill ends the $7,500 credit for new EVs and $4,000 for used EVs on September 30. The previous proposal gave new car buyers 180 days and used car buyers 90 days after passage.

Now the phaseout is sooner and more absolute. Lease deals for EVs that don’t meet North American assembly requirements are also cut under this bill.

Meanwhile, the House GOP version keeps the new EV credit until the end of 2025, and through 2026 for automakers who haven’t sold 200,000 units yet. Those differences could complicate reconciliation between the two chambers, especially if House Speaker Mike Johnson struggles to hold his caucus together when the bill comes up for final approval next week.

In a separate section aimed at carmakers, the Senate version also kills fines for not meeting federal fuel economy rules, known as CAFE standards. That rollback is meant to give breathing room to automakers that haven’t met rising fuel targets set under the Biden administration.

One provision missing entirely from the updated text would have blocked federal judges from issuing nationwide injunctions unless a financial bond was posted. MacDonough ruled it violated the Byrd Rule, which limits what can pass through reconciliation. So it was cut.

Still, the GOP didn’t drop the issue completely. The bill now includes funding for a government study into the cost of those broad injunctions, plus training money to help agencies navigate legal slowdowns when district court rulings hit national policy.

The Senate text is far from final. More edits can still be made during debate, and leadership has said they’re willing to amend the bill on the floor if that’s what it takes to lock in votes. But time’s running short.

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