Senate Parliamentarian Blocks Republican Attacks on SNAP, CFPB in Reconciliation Bill
"We will be fighting this bill every single day until Republicans bring it to the floor," said Sen. Jeff Merkley.
Democratic senators on Saturday applauded the news that several of the Republican Party's proposals in President Donald Trump's domestic spending bill must be struck from the legislation—potentially protecting millions of Americans from cuts to crucial nutrition assistance and the elimination of federal consumer protections.
"As much as Senate Republicans would prefer to throw out the rule book and advance their conservative 'families lose and billionaires win' agenda, this process has rules and Democrats are making sure those rules are enforced," said Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee.
Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough ruled late Friday that a measure pushing some of the cost of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program onto the states should be struck from the bill, along with a provision barring undocumented immigrants from receiving SNAP benefits.
MacDonough has been analyzing the legislation to ensure its provisions comply with the Byrd Rule. The rule requires that measures included in reconciliation bills, which can be passed with a simple majority rather than a 60-vote threshold, are directly related to budget matters.
Republicans have pushed the SNAP provision to partially cover the cost of extending massive tax cuts for corporations and the wealthiest Americans.
Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), ranking member of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry, said MacDonough had "made clear that Senate Republicans cannot use their partisan budget to shift major nutrition assistance to the states that would have inevitably led to major cuts."
Klobuchar called on Republicans to work with the Democratic Party "to lower costs for Americans and pass a bipartisan Farm Bill that works for all farmers and rural America."
The Republican who chairs Klobuchar's committee, Sen. John Boozman (R-Ark.) suggested Republicans would look for other ways to cut nutrition assistance that more than 40 million Americans—including 8% of Boozman's own constituents—rely on.
If Republicans fail to strip out provisions that are rejected by MacDonough, the GOP could be forced to find at least 60 votes to support the budget bill.
Earlier this week, MacDonough rejected a provision put forward by Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) that would cap the funding of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) at 0% of the Federal Reserve's total operating budget—effectively gutting the agency that has returned tens of billions of dollars to Americans who have been defrauded by banks and other corporations.
"The Senate parliamentarian has begun providing guidance that certain provisions in the Republicans' 'One Big, Beautiful Betrayal' will be subject to the Byrd Rule—ultimately meaning they will need to be stripped from the bill or altered to comply with the rules of reconciliation," said Merkley. "We will be fighting this bill every single day until Republicans bring it to the floor."
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), who pushed for the creation of the CFPB, said Scott's proposal was "a reckless, dangerous attack on consumers and would lead to more Americans being tricked and trapped by giant financial institutions and put the stability of our entire financial system at risk—all to hand out tax breaks to billionaires."
"Democrats fought back, and we will keep fighting back against this ugly bill," said Warren.
Also rejected by MacDonough were a provision aimed at reducing the pay of Federal Reserve staff and one that would repeal emissions standards for vehicles starting in 2027.
On Saturday MacDonough was still considering a measure that would block states from regulating artificial intelligence for a decade.
