Musk lashes out at Senate’s take on ‘beautiful’ megabill

Elon Musk has slammed the Senate version of President Donald Trump's "Big, Beautiful Bill" as support for the motion to proceed with the legislation in the upper chamber comes down to the wire. "The latest Senate draft bill will destroy millions of jobs in America and cause immense strategic harm to our country!" Musk wrote on X on Saturday afternoon. "Utterly insane and destructive. It gives handouts to industries of the past while severely damaging industries of the future." Senate Republicans dropped the final text of the sprawling 940-page bill late on Friday evening.

Trump has said he wanted the Senate to pass the legislation — which would include sweeping spending cuts to pay for the tax cuts he signed into law in 2017, increased spending for the military, oil exploration, and immigration enforcement —before the July 4th weekend. Republicans, who have 53 seats, plan to pass the bill using the process of budget reconciliation. That would allow them to sidestep a filibuster from the Democrats as long as the legislation relates to the budget. For the past week, the Senate parliamentarian's office has issued advisories about which parts do not comply with the rules of reconciliation. The biggest sticking point was major changes to Medicaid. Specifically, the legislation would require that Medicaid recipients who are able-bodied and without dependent children would have to work or participate in community service or education for 80 hours a month. In addition, the legislation limits the amount of money states can tax health care providers like hospitals and nursing homes to raise money for Medicaid.

But the American Hospital Association said this would devastate rural hospitals that rely on Medicaid dollars. The parliamentarian removed the provider tax provision, but the new version of the bill simply delays when the cap goes into effect. Before the text dropped, Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina, who hails from a state with a large number of rural hospitals and that expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act in 2023, said he was a "no" on the motion to proceed because of Medicaid. "It will cause a lot of people to have to be moved off of Medicaid," he told The Independent on Friday evening. "Is just inescapable. The price tag's too high, and the transition protocol, even if you agree with the ultimate target." In addition, the legislation also rolls back some of the renewable energy tax credits implemented in the Inflation Reduction Act, the legislation former President Joe Biden signed that used the same budget reconciliation process.

If the bill passes the Senate, it will return to the House of Representatives, which passed it last month. But plenty of conservatives have made objections to the Senate's changes. Trump lobbied senators on Saturday while playing golf with Senators Rand Paul of Kentucky and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. Tillis, who's up for re-election in 2028, outlined his opposition to the bill again on Saturday, saying in a statement that "It would result in tens of billions of dollars in lost funding for North Carolina, including our hospitals and rural communities. This will force the state to make painful decisions like eliminating Medicaid coverage for hundreds of thousands in the expansion population, and even reducing critical services for those in the traditional Medicaid population."

Senator Tim Sheehy of Montana wrote on X ahead of the vote on Saturday, "I have just concluded productive discussions with leadership. I will be leading an amendment to strip the sale of public lands from this bill. I will vote yes on the motion to proceed. We must quickly pass the Big Beautiful Bill to advance President Trump's agenda." While, President Donald Trump threatened Senate Republicans who defy him and his “Big, Beautiful Bill” as the legislation cleared a key test vote in a dramatic night in the upper chamber of Congress. After negotiations dragged on for hours Saturday evening, the Senate voted 51 to 49 to open a debate on the legislation, moving one step closer to landing the bill on Trump’s desk by his self-imposed Fourth of July deadline.

The Independent