The fight over President Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” is officially moving to the Senate this week, as the chamber convenes for the first full in-person stretch since the House approved the sprawling package late last month.
Senate Republicans have signaled that they plan to make their imprint on the behemoth bill, whether it be ratcheting up spending cuts, watering down Medicaid changes, or reducing the rollback of green-energy tax credits, among other provisions.
The chamber is staring down an ambitious timeline: Republican leaders want to send Trump the package by July 4, leaving the Senate little time to make its alterations, then send the package to the House for a final stamp of approval. That sprint will begin in earnest this week.
Also this week, House Republicans are waiting on the White House to send over a package to claw back billions of funding, as the GOP conference looks to formally codify the cuts the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) made during the first few months of the Trump administration. On the House floor, lawmakers will consider a bill to create a report on esophageal cancer in honor of the late-Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.).
Throughout the Capitol, committees are scheduled to hold hearings on the White House’s 2026 budget request, as Congress gears up for the upcoming spending fight.
Senate to dive into ‘big, beautiful bill’
Senate Republicans will dive into work on Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” this week, as party leadership looks to meet its self-imposed deadline.
Both conservatives and moderates have signaled that they would like to see changes made to the large bill, with spending cuts, changes to Medicaid, the rollback of green-energy tax credits and the increase of the state and local tax (SALT) deduction cap topping the list of potential issue areas.
It remains unclear which provisions the Senate will tackle. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) has said there will be alterations, without specifying in which areas.
Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), meanwhile, has been urging the Senate to make minimal changes, pointing to the tenuous negotiations that led to the bill’s passage in the House by a small margin. Trump, however, gave cover to the upper chamber last month, greenlighting the tweaks.
“I want the Senate and the senators to make the changes they want. It will go back to the House and we’ll see if we can get them,” Trump said. “In some cases, the changes may be something I’d agree with, to be honest.”
“I think it’s going to get there,” he added of the package. “I think they are going to have changes. Some will be minor, some will be fairly significant.”
Senate Republicans are also watching closely to see what happens once the parliamentarian gets involved and begins to rule on key parts of the bill.
Despite the potential for consequential hurdles, Republican leaders are holding firm in their plan of sending the package to Trump’s desk for his signature by July 4 — a timeline that Johnson reaffirmed on Sunday.
“Yeah, they’ve always discounted us,” the Speaker said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” when asked if the party can complete its work by that deadline. “I mean, I said I would do it out of the House before Memorial Day, and I was laughed at when I said that back early part of the year. But we beat it by four days, OK? We’re going to get this done, the sooner, the better.”
“Because all these extraordinary benefits that we’re talking about have to happen as soon as possible,” he added. “And I’m convinced that the Senate will do it, do the right thing, send it back to us. We’re going to get it to the President’s desk, and we’re all going to have a glorious celebration on Independence Day, by July 4th, when he gets this signed into law.”
House GOP awaits rescissions package from White House
The White House this week is expected to send the House a package that would recoup $9.4 billion in funding, as Republicans look to formalize the changes DOGE has made — an outcome conservatives are itching for.
It remains unclear when the White House plans to formally dispatch the legislation, commonly referred to as a rescissions package. A spokesperson for the Office of Management and Budget said the measure will in-part target the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which supports NPR and PBS, in addition to the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) — all of which have been targets of DOGE.
Last week, Johnson said the House would act on the package “quickly.”
“.@ElonMusk and the entire @DOGE team have done INCREDIBLE work exposing waste, fraud, and abuse across the federal government – from the insanity of USAID’s spending to finding over 12 million people on Social Security who were over 120 years old,” Johnson wrote on X. “The House is eager and ready to act on DOGE’s findings so we can deliver even more cuts to big government that President Trump wants and the American people demand.”
Movement on the package, however, is already behind schedule. The White House initially planned to send the House the rescissions package on April 28, but pushed back that date as the lower chamber worked to pass the “big, beautiful bill” full of Trump’s legislative priorities.
Conservatives, meanwhile, have been itching for the House to codify the cuts DOGE has made. Last week, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) said the rescissions package was on its way to the House, writing on X: “Personally I want to pass DOGE cuts every single week until the bloated out of control government is reigned back in.”
Panels to begin examining Trump budget request
A slew of House and Senate committees are scheduled to hold hearings on Trump’s fiscal year 2026 budget request this week, as the panels prepare for the Sept. 30 government funding deadline.
The White House unveiled its first budget request early last month, headlined by hefty cuts to non-defense programs and increases for defense and border funding. The administration publicized a more than 1,200-page appendix to the budget request last week, detailing the slashes the president is hoping to make.
A number of panels will parse through those particulars in public this week.
Tuesday:
- 10 a.m.: Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies will review the budget request for the Education Department
- Witness: Education Secretary Linda McMahon
- 2:30 p.m.: Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Financial Services and General Government will review the budget request for the Securities and Exchange Commission
- Witness: Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Paul S. Atkins
Wednesday:
- 10 a.m.: House Appropriations Subcommittee on Departments of Transportation, and Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies will review the budget request for the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)
- Witness: FAA Acting Administrator Chris Rocheleau
- 10 a.m.: Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies will review the budget request for the Commerce Department
- Witness: Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick
Thursday:
- 11 a.m.: House Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies will review the budget request for the Commerce Department
- Witness: Lutnick
House to vote on esophageal cancer bill in honor of Connolly
The House this week will vote on a bill requiring the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to prepare a report on esophageal cancer, in honor of Connolly, who died from the disease last month.
The legislation — titled the Gerald E. Connolly Esophageal Cancer Awareness Act — advanced out of the House Oversight Committee last month, the same day Connolly passed away. Connolly initially introduced the bill, but it was renamed in his honor after his death.
“I know I’m not alone in that many of my Republican committee colleagues found Gerry Connolly to be a partner,” House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer (R-Ky.), a cosponsor of the bill, said in a statement. “Esophageal cancer is one of the deadliest and fastest growing cancer diagnoses among Americans today. I was proud to join Ranking Member Gerry Connolly in introducing this bill. I urge my colleagues to support this commonsense, bipartisan legislation and join us in the fight to end esophageal cancer.”