Noteworthy News

[Angrboda]

Hawley and other Republicans have complained for weeks that the House cuts to Medicaid went too far and called for changes, but those warnings appeared to have little impact on Thune or Senate Finance Committee Chair Mike Crapo (R-Idaho).

Instead, Thune and Crapo sided with conservatives, such as Sens. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) and Roger Marshall (R-Kan.), who called for deeper spending cuts than what the House passed.  

GOP lawmakers and aides ascribed Thune’s decision to add even bigger spending cuts in the bill to his sensitivity to the broad desire within the Senate Republican conference for more deficit reduction.

Some Senate GOP sources note that Thune won his contested race to become Senate majority leader in November by picking up more support from conservatives than his chief rival, Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas).

But perhaps a more important factor in Thune’s decision to move in the direction of deeper Medicaid spending cuts is that one of his top priorities is to make several corporate tax cuts in the bill permanent.

Making those tax breaks permanent requires finding hundreds of billions of dollars in spending cuts to offset the cost and comply with the Senate’s Byrd rule, which does not allow provisions passed under the special budget reconciliation process to add to the deficit outside the 10-year budget window.

https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/5355...dita-cuts/