(Bloomberg) — Senate Majority Leader John Thune said his chamber will soon vote on passage of President Donald Trump’s tax and spending bill after securing enough support to pass the legislation.
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“I believe we do” have enough votes to pass the bill, Thune said. “But like I’ve said I’m of Scandinavian heritage so I’ve always been a realist so we will see what happens.”
The Senate worked through the night on Trump’s $3.3 trillion tax and spending package, with Republican leaders still negotiating Tuesday morning with key GOP holdouts.
Thune did not specify what changes were made to the bill to convince holdouts to support the measure.
“I hear we’re doing well,” Trump told reporters upon arriving in Florida Tuesday. “I think it’s going to be the greatest bill ever passed.”
Alaska Republican Lisa Murkowski, a moderate concerned about Medicaid and green energy cuts, appeared to be the central focus of Senate leaders’ attention early Tuesday.
Throughout the negotiations in recent days, there have been eight major Republican holdouts. Thune can afford to lose only three senators and still pass the measure. Two — Rand Paul of Kentucky and Thom Tillis of North Carolina — have said they are solidly against it, leaving very little room for error as the South Dakota Republican tries to get to 50 votes on the package.
Senate aides huddled on the chamber floor Tuesday morning going line-by-line through last-minute revisions to the bill.
Murkowski, whose efforts to protect her home state from Medicaid cuts were rejected by the Senate ruleskeeper, had meetings both on and off the Senate floor throughout the night. She would not divulge early Tuesday whether she’d support the bill.
“The sun is up, I’m going to go have a cup of coffee,” Murkowski told reporters.
Murkowski had backed an effort to soften an aggressive planned phase-out of subsidies for wind and solar projects under Trump’s tax-and-spending package.
The amendment sponsored by Republican Joni Ernst of Iowa would also do away with a proposed new excise tax the Senate bill would slap on wind and solar projects that use components from China and other “foreign entities of concern.”
Ernst, carrying donuts through the Capitol on Tuesday morning, said she didn’t think her amendment would ultimately get a vote. The change would risk displeasing fiscal conservatives who have insisted on the more stringent requirements to qualify for the tax credits.
