By Richard Cowan, David Morgan and Bo Erickson
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. Senate on Tuesday began voting on President Donald Trump’s sweeping tax-cut and spending bill after an all-night debate that laid bare Republican concerns about its $3.3 trillion price tag.
Senate Republican Leader John Thune told reporters he thought he had the votes to pass the bill and send it back to the House of Representatives for final approval.
“I believe we do. But like I said, I’m of Scandinavian heritage so I’m always a bit of a realist. So we’ll see what happens,” he told reporters. Republicans hold a 53-47 majority in the chamber.
It was not immediately clear what changes Thune had made to secure the support of Republicans who had voiced objections to the bill.
During the all-night debate, lawmakers voted 99-1 to strip out a 10-year federal moratorium on state regulation of artificial intelligence, which supporters had promoted as a way to free innovation from a panoply of differing requirements.
The megabill would extend the 2017 tax cuts that were Trump’s main legislative achievement during his first term as president, cut other taxes and boost spending on the military and immigration enforcement. It would cancel many green-energy incentives and cut Medicaid and some food assistance programs for low-income Americans.
According to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, it would add $3.3 trillion to the $36.2 trillion U.S. debt pile, $800 billion more than the version that passed the House last month.
Many Republicans dispute that assessment, contending that extending existing policy will not add to the debt. Nonetheless, international bond investors see incentives to diversify out of the U.S. Treasury market.
MUSK FEUD
The debt debate re-ignited a feud between Trump and Elon Musk, the world’s richest person, who on Monday threatened to fund primary challengers to Republicans who voted for the bill, due to its high cost. Trump responded by proposing cuts to funding to Musk’s companies, which include SpaceX and Tesla.
Democrats, meanwhile, hope the latest, eye-widening figure could stoke enough anxiety among fiscally minded conservatives to get them to buck their party, which controls both chambers of Congress.
Democrats argue that the bill disproportionately benefits the wealthy at the expense of low- and middle-income Americans. Republican supporters say it provides stability by preventing the expiration of Trump’s 2017 tax cuts at the end of this year.
Trump wants the 940-page bill passed before the July 4 Independence Day holiday.
BILL POLITICS
Amendments proposed by Democratic senators, such as limiting cuts to Medicaid, were rejected by the Republican majority overnight.
Embedded in the Senate Republicans’ bill are several hot-button political issues, including a prohibition of Medicaid funding for a list of almost 30 medical procedures related to gender transition, as well as an increase of immigration-related funding for criminal and gang checks for unaccompanied migrant children, including examinations of “gang-related tattoos” for children as young as 12 years old.
Early on Tuesday, the Senate also adopted an amendment offered by Republican Senator Joni Ernst to prevent jobless millionaires from claiming unemployment compensation.
Democrats and Republicans voted down an attempt by Republican Senator Susan Collins to cushion the impact of Medicaid cuts on rural health facilities by doubling federal support to $50 billion over five years and paying for the increase by raising the top federal tax rate. The measure still drew support from 18 Republicans.
Some Republicans, including Senator Lisa Murkowski and Collins, backed a handful of Democratic amendments on social issues, including Medicaid. But the initiatives still failed.
DEBT CEILING DEADLINE
The Republican measure contains a $5 trillion debt ceiling increase – $1 trillion more than the House’s bill – but failure to pass some version would present lawmakers with a serious deadline later this summer, when the Treasury Department could come close to exhausting its borrowing authority and thus risk a devastating default.
The debt limit increase has caused Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky to come out in opposition to the bill, joining fellow Republican Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina, who decried its cuts to Medicaid and clean energy initiatives.
According to the CBO, the Senate bill would result in about 11.8 million additional uninsured people, surpassing estimates for the House’s version.
If the Senate succeeds in passing the bill, it will then go to the House, where members are also divided, with some angry about its cost and others worried about cuts to the Medicaid program.
(Reporting by David Morgan, Richard Cowan and Bo Erickson; Editing by Andy Sullivan, Scott Malone, Alex Richardson and Alistair Bell)