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House Republicans warn Senate GOP against watering down Trump agenda bill

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24.05.2025

House Republicans are sending a clear and early warning to their Senate allies as the bill encompassing President Trump’s domestic priorities heads to the upper chamber: Don’t water it down.

House GOP leaders spent weeks in delicate talks with Republican holdouts before cobbling together a fragile agreement that could thread the needle between conservatives’ demands for more spending cuts and moderates’ insistence on a controversial tax break.

As the massive package heads to the Senate, the critical voices of the House debate — blue-state Republicans, hardliners and party leaders — are cautioning their upper-chamber counterparts not to alter their design too severely, or it will never get through the House on its return.

The warnings forecast a coming clash between Republicans in the two chambers, since many senators are already saying they can’t support the package without substantial changes.

House conservatives would be fine with some changes — if they shift the bill to the right with more spending cuts and deficit reduction. At the bare minimum, they’re demanding that the Senate keep in place hard-fought provisions to limit Medicaid eligibility and roll back green-energy subsidies adopted by the Biden administration.

"They've got a lot they still need to do to make it better, and they can't unwind what we achieved. And those are going to be red lines," said Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas). "If the SALT guys think they've got red lines, just wait until you see what's coming out of us."

Blue-state Republicans have their own concerns. They went to the mats to lift the $10,000 cap on the state and local tax (SALT) deduction, and they don’t want Senate Republicans to nibble away at their hard-earned victory.

Their agreement included not only an increase in the cap — to $40,000 for those making up to $500,000 — but also commitments on how to handle the threat of any Senate changes.

Unlike in the House, Senate Republicans do not represent regions where constituents are greatly impacted by the SALT deduction cap. For that reason alone, many Senate Republicans are cold to the notion of giving a bigger tax break to........

© The Hill