Last-Minute Changes Made the Senate’s Megabill Worse Still

As National Review reports, the Republican majority in the Senate passed its updated version of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act by the narrowest possible margin, with Vice President Vance required to cast a tiebreaking vote after a 50–50 split. President Trump’s signature legislative package now heads back to the House for another vote and potentially further revisions. Yet many GOP House members from both ideological ends of the caucus are not exactly enthused about the product they are receiving. According to The Hill, one representative wonders how the bill they sent to the Senate just over a month ago got “so much f***ing worse.”

I can’t disagree with this anonymous member of Congress. As I wrote yesterday, the ‘big, beautiful bill’ became significantly less beautiful over the last week as procedural and political limitations combined to make the bill’s carve-outs wider, its offsets smaller, and its expansion of the national debt much greater. I also covered the major changes that various Republican senators wished to make to the bill — some that aimed to reduce its overall cost, others to add to it. My hope, however implausible, was that the more prudent amendments would make it into the legislation while the pricier ones would be excluded.

Instead, the opposite happened. In order to get to 50 votes, Republican leadership made a few last-minute tweaks to the Senate’s version of the bill that made it even worse:

• Restrictions on eligibility for expiring green energy tax credits, which were created by Democrats’ Inflation Reduction Act in 2022, were eased slightly thanks to Republican senators whose states host projects that benefit from the subsidies. This group, led by Joni Ernst (R., Iowa), wanted to keep subsidies flowing to projects that would begin construction by the end of 2027 rather than only those put in service by that date, as the original Senate text had it. They won a partial victory. Although the “in service by” language remains, any project that begins construction less than one year after the bill’s enactment would now be eligible for the tax credits, regardless of when it enters service. As a result, renewable energy firms would now receive more federal money than they would if the text had been left alone — though still less than many Republicans would prefer.
• A “stabilization fund” to dole out money to rural hospitals doubled in value, from $25 billion over five years to $50 billion. Championed by Senator Susan Collins (R., Maine), this fund would supposedly help offset lost Medicaid payments to vulnerable medical centers. In reality, the fund would far exceed what rural hospitals can be expected to lose, as they only receive around $12 billion in total Medicaid inpatient spending each year. Besides, the bill’s major change to Medicaid — restricting state provider taxes — wouldn’t even come into effect until 2028 and wouldn’t be fully realized until 2032. The $50 billion hospital fund, in contrast, would be allocated for years 2026 through 2030. Having the fund expire just as Medicaid limits are kicking in lays the perfect political groundwork for it to be extended indefinitely. By the way, after throwing in that extra $25 billion, Republicans didn’t even end up winning Collins’s vote.
• A moratorium on state and local AI regulation, originally advanced by Senator Ted Cruz (R., Texas), was completely removed from the bill after a compromise with its opponents fell apart. Many Republican governors and senators had voiced concern with the policy, prompting Cruz to accept more-moderate language that would have cut the moratorium’s time frame in half and created exceptions for laws protecting individuals’ identities and children’s safety. That seemed like a good deal. With the moratorium gone, however, states will be free to impose a complicated patchwork of rules on the AI industry as it tries to develop. Larger progressive states such as California and New York may effectively set standards for the entire country by taking a maximalist approach to AI regulation, as they have been known to do in other areas.

It appears that nearly all of the damaging changes to Republicans’ megabill came down to one factor: Fiscal conservatives who might have been willing to withhold their votes to advance their cause were vastly outnumbered by colleagues looking out for their states’ immediate interests. Senators such as Lisa Murkowski (R., Alaska) fought relentlessly to secure handouts for their states — and did not sign onto the legislation until they got them. Fiscal conservatives will need to demonstrate similar resolve if they ever want to bring deficits under control.