U.S. Senate Follows U.S. House’s Lead in Destructive Budget Cuts
By Heather Braum, Dustin Hare, and Nathan Kessler | Original - June 26, 2025; Last Updated - July 1, 2025
Last month, the U.S. House passed their version of the “One Big, Beautiful Bill,” which deals with federal budget appropriations. Now, the U.S. Senate has released their version of budget and tax policy, and their proposal continues to include numerous provisions that will make it harder on everyday Kansans.
Update 7/1/2025: The U.S. Senate narrowly passed the bill 51-50 after Vice President Vance broke the tie. Both Kansas Senators voted yes.
Fully unpacking the Kansas impact will take time, as this bill races forward, but here are some of the ways the Senate version changed tax, SNAP, and health policy. We’ll have a fuller analysis of the bill if Congress passes a final bill.
Note: Some of the provisions have been ruled down by the Senate parliamentarian as violating what can be allowed in a reconciliation bill. See our mentions throughout of what has been impacted and will need to be rewritten by Congress or removed for the bill to move forward.
Tax Provisions
What Stayed the Same
In many ways, the two versions of the “One Big, Beautiful Bill” are very similar. Each version would make permanent tax cuts enacted through the TCJA in 2017 and would prioritize eliminating taxes on a certain amount of tip and overtime income, at least temporarily.
For a refresher on what came out of the House, KAC covered the major tax provisions here.
MAGA Accounts. The Senate language also keeps the new Money Accounts for Growth and Advancement – or MAGA accounts – for children and the corresponding pilot program to fund the accounts of babies born during the Trump administration with $1,000. These accounts are a tax-preferred vehicle for parents to contribute up to $5,000 a year that can be used for their child’s education, first home purchase, or other eligible uses.
Standard Deduction. Each version of the bill increases the standard deduction and provides for a temporary bonus deduction for seniors, though the Senate language allows for $6,000 compared to $4,000 in the House bill. Additional similarities include a deduction for auto loan interest and an increase to the estate tax exemption.
EITC Red Tape. The Senate Finance Committee also declined to change a provision in the House plan that would require a precertification process for taxpayers to be able to claim a dependent for the sake of the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC). The EITC has been around for 50 years and has been extremely successful in raising low-income Americans’ standard of living.
Part of what has made the EITC so successful is that it is administered through the tax code efficiently, allowing the IRS to swiftly process the credit through individuals’ tax returns. Because the EITC requires an individual to have earned income in order to be eligible, it has been incredibly effective at encouraging labor force participation among both parents and nonparents.
The precertification process being proposed in the federal tax plan jeopardizes this efficiency by adding red tape to a program utilized by more than 175,000 low- and moderate-income Kansans, many of whom have children. Should this bureaucracy cause people to opt out of the credit or fail to qualify, there will be fewer resources going to families who need them most.
Update 7/1/2025: This measure was removed by the Senate Parliamentarian because it did not comply with Senate Rules, which prohibits policy changes in reconciliation bills that are not directly related to the federal budget. This will come as an incredible relief for the 175,000 low- and moderate-income Kansans who utilize the program.
What Changed
While largely the same as the House tax plan, the Senate Finance Committee made some notable changes to the tax provisions that set up a potential showdown with the House.
SALT Deduction Cap. The greatest point of contention is likely to be around the state and local taxes (SALT) deduction cap. The version of the bill that passed the House raised this cap from the current $10,000 to $40,000. This was necessary to gain the support of a handful of blue-state Republicans – the so-called SALT Republicans – without whom the bill would not have had enough support to pass. The text released by the Senate Finance Committee maintains the current $10,000 cap, which is seen as a non-starter for the SALT Republicans in the House.
CTC Eligibility and Credit Amount. In our analysis of the House tax plan, we shared that an estimated 42,000 Kansas children would lose eligibility for the federal child tax credit (CTC) under the House proposal. This was because of a provision that requires both the child and each parent on the tax return to have a Social Security Number (SSN) – a significant departure from current law requiring only the child to have an SSN.
The problem with this is that there are thousands of mixed status and documented immigrant households where one or both parents of an American child holds an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (ITIN). For these families, the U.S. House proposal is a cruel reduction in household resources, while mixed status households would also face a marriage penalty, meaning should an immigrant and non-immigrant parent choose to get married they would forfeit the CTC.
The Senate Finance Committee seems to have addressed the marriage penalty piece, allowing for only one parent on a joint return to have an SSN. However, this still represents a senseless change to an incredibly effective tax credit that will deprive thousands of American children in Kansas of funds that are most often used to put food on the table, gas in the car, and a roof over their heads.
The Senate version of the bill still includes an increase in the amount of the CTC, raising it from $2,000 to $2,200. This is slightly less than the House proposal of $2,500, and unfortunately any increase seems likely to be paid for by taking resources away from the children of immigrants.
SNAP Provisions
The U.S. Senate largely followed the U.S. House’s lead on budget policy regarding the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). The SNAP proposals have received much attention for being one of the focuses of the massive budget cuts. Estimates show that more than $250 billion would be cut from the program over the next 10 years.
For a refresher on the impact could be to Kansans relying on SNAP, KAC provided an early overview here.
Work Reporting Requirements for Parents and Others. Both the House and Senate versions of the bill extend work requirements to parents of school-aged children for the first time in history. The House version requires parents with kids age 7 and older to work while the Senate version extends the requirements to parents with kids age 10 and older. However, the Senate version is not better — it requires both parents in a household to meet the work requirement, whereas the House version exempts one parent from working if the other parent in the household is fulfilling the requirement.
Under current law, veterans, people experiencing homelessness, and youth aging out of foster care are exempt from SNAP work reporting requirements. The Senate version strips away that exemption, whereas the House version maintains it.
State Cost-Share Plan. Currently, federal dollars pay for 100% of the benefits paid out to SNAP enrollees. Under the “One Big, Beautiful Bill,” that would drastically change. Both the House and Senate versions, for the first time in the history of the SNAP program, would shift some portion of the cost of the benefits to the states.
The Senate’s provisions are less harsh than those in the House version. The House bill would shift 25% of the program costs to Kansas and the Senate version would shift 15% of the cost to the state. If this provision passes, this would leave Kansas on the hook for $103 million or $62 million, respectively, depending on which maximum cost-share rate makes it into the final bill.
Worse yet, if Kansas were unable or unwilling to pay the new cost share, SNAP would end in Kansas completely, leaving low-income parents, children, people with disabilities, and other vulnerable populations without any food assistance.
Over the weekend of June 21-22, however, the Senate Parliamentarian ruled that the cost-shift provision violated Senate rules and would need to be removed from the bill. At this time, it is not known how the Senate will respond. They had a target dollar amount of cuts they wanted to make specifically for SNAP, and the cost-shift plan made up the largest share of those cuts. It is likely we will see new SNAP-cut proposals emerge this week that will bring further harm to Kansas families.
Health Provisions
Compared to the House version, the Senate Medicaid changes are worse, particularly for states that have already expanded Medicaid. No official cost estimate is yet available for the Medicaid portion of the Senate version, but it’s estimated the House version will cut $863 billion to the Medicaid program.
Update 6/30/25: New CBO preliminary score estimates that the Senate version will cut $1.02 trillion in federal funds for the Medicaid program over the next 10 years.
For a refresher on what came out of the House, KAC covered the major health provisions here.
Additional estimates show that at least 17 million Americans will lose health coverage and become uninsured over the next 10 years due to Medicaid funding cuts and policy changes, failure to extend the Affordable Care Act (ACA) marketplace premium tax credits, and other harmful ACA marketplace policy changes.
Bottom line: both the House and Senate versions are the largest Medicaid cuts in the program’s history and will place a significant financial burden on state budgets, risk rural hospital closure, and result in millions of Americans going uninsured.
Below are some major health provisions in the “One Big, Beautiful Bill” that will hurt Kansas. For a lengthier breakdown of some of the complex policies, view KFF’s or CBPP’s analyses.
Note: Some of the below provisions were ruled down by the Senate parliamentarian, including the provider tax piece. This information below reflects what the Senate has proposed, however, and we’ll update sections with new information as more is learned.
Freezing Provider Taxes. The Senate version continues a freeze on current provider taxes and prevents any new ones from being added in the future in non-expansion states (like Kansas). This provision – in use for over 30 years – allows states in certain circumstances to place taxes on health providers (including hospitals) to partially fund a state’s share of Medicaid spending and draw down additional federal dollars.
Restricting this mechanism in the future means Kansas will draw down fewer federal dollars as health care costs continue to rise. Recent analysis shows Kansas could lose more than $4 billion in total Medicaid funding (state and federal combined), threatening hospitals around the state and forcing state lawmakers to make tough decisions for the state budget, like cutting provider reimbursement rates or targeting the optional Home and Community Based Services (HCBS) waivers.
If providers see reduced reimbursement rates, kids’ health care access will be impacted if fewer pediatricians can afford to take Medicaid patients. It could also impact maternity care access and limit access to early intervention services for infants and toddlers. Rural hospitals are particularly in jeopardy of closure, according to the National Rural Health Association.
HCBS waivers – an optional, not mandated service – allow recipients to remain in their communities instead of a hospital or institution. That includes the Technology Assistance (TA) waiver, which provides services for medically complex kids to receive care at home instead of remaining in the hospital. Less available funding for Medicaid at the state level risks cuts to these kids’ services and jeopardizes recent forward progress in Kansas to reduce the waiting lists for the IDD and PD waivers.
This Senate provision hurts financing in expansion states even more, as they must reduce current provider taxes to 3.5% over the next several years.
Update 6/26/2025: The Senate Parliamentarian has ruled this provision to violate Senate rules.
Update 6/30/2025: The Senate updated the language to delay implementation of this provision until FY 2028 (October 1, 2027), and it has passed parliamentarian review. Additionally, a Rural Health Transformation Fund for $25 billion has been added to the bill – but that is woefully inadequate to cover the impact of cuts on rural hospitals.
Update 7/1/2025: Right before the U.S. Senate's final vote on the bill, the chamber voted to increase the Rural Hospital Fund to $50 billion, to be allotted over the next five years. It remains far below what is actually needed to fill the funding gap rural hospitals will face.
Eligibility and Enrollment Processes. Another difference between the House and Senate versions involves pausing a federal rule to simplify enrollment and renewal processes for Medicaid and CHIP recipients. Finalized in 2024, this complex federal rule removed longstanding system barriers that kids, people with disabilities, pregnant women, and others face when navigating enrollment and renewal processes.
The House version includes a 10-year pause on this rule’s implementation. The Senate version appears to permanently end its implementation. This rule removed barriers to eligible kids keeping CHIP coverage and may never be fully implemented by states without this rule in place. Either version will result in Medicaid and CHIP coverage loss in Kansas.
Update 6/30/2025: This was found to violate Senate rules as it relates to current administrative rule implementation, which includes several CHIP-related implications.
Update 7/1/2025: In the version of the bill that passed the U.S. Senate, this rule is back to a 10-year pause (like in the House version). However, in some good news, several pieces of the rule that were already in effect were left out of the bill — including eliminating CHIP lockout and waiting periods and eliminating annual and lifetime caps for CHIP coverage. More analysis of this bill provision is needed.
Targeting Expansion States. One Senate change extends the Medicaid expansion population work requirement to parents of kids 15 years or older. In the House version, parents of kids were exempted from this new work requirement. As Kansas has yet to expand Medicaid, this change would not impact Kansas, but implications for the rest of the nation remain concerning.
With the harsher provider tax reduction requirement for expansion states, as well as additional funding changes applying to only expansion states, the Senate version of Medicaid changes puts expansion states in an even worse financial place long term. Combined with the removal of the extra financial incentive to expand Medicaid (also in the House version), these provisions make it nearly impossible for non-expansion states to ever consider expanding.
Update 6/26/2025: Several provisions that targeted expansion states, especially for as applied to immigrant populations were ruled to violate Senate rules.
Update 6/30/2025: The new language released by the Senate late Friday evening dropped the child age for a work requirement exemption to 13 and younger. For the current status of immigration-related sections, see this information from the National Immigration Law Center. A Senate floor amendment vote to eventually eliminate the increased federal funding (at 90%) for covering the Medicaid expansion population is expected.
Update 7/1/2025: The potential amendment that would have eliminated the 90% federal funding portion for covering the Medicaid expansion population was never taken up and is not in the bill passed by the U.S. Senate.
‘One Big, Beautiful Bill’ Should Be a Non-starter for Congress
Neither the House nor the Senate reconciliation versions are what Kansas families require to thrive into the future. While slightly different than the House version, the Senate’s plan goes even further than the House version did and will result in less money for Kansas families, worse food access, higher health care costs, difficult state budget decisions, and more uninsured Kansans.
There’s still a chance Congress will deadlock over a few pieces of the bill. But with President Trump expecting Congress to send him a bill to sign by July 4, time is running out for everyday folks to urge Congress to do the right thing for hundreds of millions who live in the United States. Now is the time for Kansans to step up in support of their neighbors.
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