Freedom Caucus threatens to tank ‘big, beautiful bill’

I am sure Donald Trump never expected to have this level of resistance to his spending bill with the GOP holding the majority in the House and Senate, but this has not been an easy process.  

Even though the House finally passed the bill, the Senate is now making changes, some of which are not sitting well with the House Freedom Caucus, which is threatening to kill the bill if the Senate dials back some of the cuts made by the House.  

Save the Green Credits 

There are several factions within the House itself who are battling over cuts. More specifically, some of the cuts made to green energy credits.  

A group of 13 House Republicans urged the Senate to “substantially and strategically” improve the tax provisions in the spending bill that are not already present in the version that was passed in the House.  

The group wrote to Senator Thune (R-S.D.), “We believe the Senate now has a critical opportunity to restore common sense and deliver a truly pro-energy growth final bill that protects taxpayers while also unleashing the potential of U.S. energy producers, manufacturers, and workers.” 

The letter continued, “Since January, over $14 billion in energy projects have been canceled or delayed, with $4.5 billion scrapped in April alone. Without a clear signal from Congress encouraging continued investments and offering business certainty as these provisions are phased out, project cancellations will continue to snowball.” 

Freedom Caucus Pushes Back 

After the group pleaded with Senate Republicans to add green provisions, the House Freedom Caucus threatened to kill the bill if it comes back as a watered-down version of the bill that went through the House.  

The Caucus stated, “We want to be crystal clear: if the Senate attempts to water down, strip out, or walk back the hard-fought spending reductions and IRA Green New Scam rollbacks achieved in this legislation, we will not accept it. 

“The House Freedom Caucus Board will stand united holding the line. The American people didn’t send us here to cave to the swamp — they sent us here to change it.” 

This does not bode well for the bill when the new version gets kicked back to the House after the Senate makes its edits. It does appear that either the House Freedom Caucus or this group of 13 who want the green credits added will shoot it down. 

Johnson Still Hoping to Pass Bill 

One of the main reasons Trump and Musk had their fallout was because Musk was so critical of the legislation.  

To that point, Speaker Johnson (R-LA) was doing damage control to try to save the bill, stating, "I'm not going to engage in this back-and-forth stuff. I don't think the American people care much about Twitter wars. I think they care about us accomplishing our legislative agenda, and the 'One Big, Beautiful Bill' does that." 

Rep. Thomass Massie (R-KY), who does not support the bill, disagreed, stating, "I think Elon probably did change the trajectory of this bill two or three days ago when he came out against it because people trust the guy who can land rockets backwards more than they do the politicians.” 

I tend to side with Massie on this one, as I am against several provisions in the bill, as is, and believe it will increase our debt to the point of more than $40 trillion before Trump leaves office. I can confidently say that if I were in office right now, Trump would be threatening to primary me because I cannot accept the bill as it is currently written.