Republicans have a math problem—and it’s turning into a political one. As the party in full control of government moves to advance its sweeping policy agenda, internal divisions are surfacing over what to prioritize: tax cuts or budget cuts.
On Tuesday, Donald Trump met with House Republicans in an effort to rally them behind the so-called “One Big, Beautiful Bill”—a 1,116-page budget package. The bill would boost border security, and make Trump’s 2017 tax cuts permanent. Those tax cuts are projected to add over $5 trillion to the national deficit.
This is the problem: How do you give funds to expensive policy priorities, without ballooning the deficit – which many Republicans adamantly oppose?
Enter the budget hawks. The House Freedom Caucus sees the Republican unified government as a rare opportunity to dramatically scale back government spending. But keeping the Trump tax cuts in place while reducing the deficit would require deep budget cuts. And despite efforts to target government “waste,” it's nearly impossible to achieve the scale of savings they want without touching some of the biggest drivers of federal spending: Medicare, Medicaid, defense, and Social Security.
With cuts to defense and Social Security — the largest two expenditure categories — largely off the table because of their near-universal popularity among Republican voters, the Freedom Caucus has zeroed in on Medicaid, which funds medical care for low-income people. Their proposals include stricter work requirements, excluding undocumented immigrants from coverage, and reducing the amount of Medicaid funding that states get from the federal government. These changes could leave millions more Americans without health insurance.
But moderate Republicans are pushing back, warning that such drastic cuts could be politically damaging. Polls show that 75% of Republicans view Medicaid favorably, and the program is more prevalent in red states than blue.
As GOP communications strategist Douglas Heye put it, “They could be biting their own voters,” if the cuts are too steep. Trump seems to understand this political calculus. In Tuesday’s closed-door meeting, he reportedly told Republicans: “Don’t fuck around with Medicaid.”
Another major sticking point is the cap on state and local tax, AKA SALT, deductions. A group of moderate Republicans from high-tax states has warned they’ll oppose the bill unless the cap is raised—an adjustment that would further reduce the federal revenue needed to offset the growing debt.
But if you’re thinking, surely you don’t need 1,116 pages just for some tax proposals and Medicaid referendums, you’re correct. There are a lot of other policies in this bill worth knowing about:
- It increases the debt limit by $4 trillion.
- It creates MAGA accounts – short for Money Account for Growth and Advancement – which would authorize the Treasury to create tax-preferred savings accounts for children, and give each child $1,000 initial deposit.
- It eliminates most of Biden’s clean energy provisions, like the electric-car tax credit, and strikes the majority of the programs in the $1 trillion Inflation Reduction Act of 2022.
- It appropriates $500 million to update government agencies with AI technology.
- It eliminates the $200 excise tax on firearm silencers.
All of that extra pork could be on the table as negotiations heat up.
“When you're in this stage of negotiations, it’s not about how much gets added—it’s about what gets cut,” says Heye.
The House is expected to start making final cuts in the early hours of Wednesday —with voting as early as 1 AM— with debate stretching into Thursday. Holdouts are pushing to get the bill to a place they can claim as a victory for their faction -- before ultimately, and inevitably, falling in line. The goal is to send the bill to the Senate before the Memorial Day weekend kicks off.
But the fight is far from over. The Senate will have its own priorities—and its own fractures — to manage. Experts say the chance of a bill, no matter how big or beautiful, is slim before July 4th.