Well, howdy there, Internet people, it's Bell again.

So today, we're going to talk about House GOP versus Senate GOP, budget edition.

Senate Republicans are signaling, okay, in some cases they're flat out saying,

they don't plan on going along with the extreme House Republican budget blueprint.

And because of that, for once, I have some at least partially good news for y'all.

Earlier in the week, Senate Republicans started making it clear that they weren't going to

accept the House budget reconciliation package as is. Using the budget reconciliation tool is

realistically the only way for Trump to get his agenda through. Without using it, Democrats

can easily stop a package from moving forward. Senator Lindsey Graham, who is not exactly

known for taking strong stances, said, quote, they said they needed

time to do one big beautiful bill. They had a chance. The product is woefully inadequate.

So, what are Senate Republicans concerned about? Well, Senate Republicans don't want to deal with the tax cut issue again and want to make

the cuts permanent. The House doesn't seem to want to do that, but we'll probably be open

to it when push comes to shove. But the big sticking point is the $880 billion cut that

the Energy and Commerce Committee is supposed to make under the House plan.

That's the one we've talked about repeatedly that would require steep cuts to Medicaid.

It looks like once the Congressional Budget Office came out and said there was no way to get to that number

without shredding Medicaid

and children's health insurance. Republicans in the Senate got cold feet. Even some MAGA senators

are saying they won't vote for a plan with cuts that steep without assurances that it won't

impact benefits.

Senator Hawley said, quote, I'm not going to vote for something that would lead to Medicaid cuts and then added that assurances that it wouldn't lead to benefit cuts could sway him.

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