Will the budget bill be complete by the 4th? Ryan Schmelz explains

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Boy, it's been busy in the Senate as they're working
on that big beautiful bill. So yesterday I guess they
released their version of Trump's big beautiful bill, Senate Finance Committee,
Republicans proposing slashing states medicaid provider taxes from six percent
to three point five percent by twenty thirty one. Ryan
Schmelz joins us not to kind of peel it back
and explain what exactly is going on here. Ryan, good morning,

(00:22):
welcome in.

Speaker 2 (00:23):
Hey, good oneing Jat, how are you good.

Speaker 1 (00:24):
A lot of discussion on this whole medicaid thing. So
talk to me about slashing the state's medicaid provider Texas.
What does this mean? Yeah?

Speaker 2 (00:31):
Right, So essentially it's going to mean that a lot
of states are going to have to pick up the
burden when it comes to Medicaid provisions and how they
pay for for some of these the programs that people
are on. This has gotten a kind of a scorn
from some Republicans. You have Josh Hawley from Missouri who
pretty much said that it's a terrible idea. You really

(00:52):
pushed back on this yesterday. But then there's also some
other you know, more of the conservative Republicans who don't
distill do think this goes far enough because one thing
that was of notice that they took the debt ceiling,
the debt limit increase from four trillion dollars up to
five trillion dollars. So it just seems like this thing
is is kind of on the rocks still, especially now

(01:13):
if they have the bill text out. And of course
when you factor in the fact that salt was taken
down from forty dollars to ten thousand dollars, this was
probably going to be a no play in the house
right now.

Speaker 1 (01:24):
Yeah, that doesn't sound good either. I mean, how do
you get you're going in this? I guess they consider
a fiscally responsible direction with some of this, and then
all of a sudden you look over here in the
debt seeing how are we doing there? That's got to
be pretty good. No, actually it's going the other direction.
What Sam, I mean, I think they're further apart than
what you thought they were going to be.

Speaker 2 (01:45):
I mean, some could balbly argue that. You know, they
had a closed door meeting yesterday. There were some who
felt like it was productive and they kind of have
an idea of where everyone is now. But is everyone
too far away to get this thing done by fourth
of July? I think it depends on what the Senate's
willing to do and what they're willing to change, and
and and just you know, with the way in which,
how and how much different this bill is from the

(02:07):
House version, you know, the House You remember, you remember
how hard it was for his speaker Johnson to get
that thing across the finish line, and how hard of
a vote this was for moderates to get the yes?
Is this just a bridge too far for them? So
so if there's gonna be a negotiating time, you know,
to do all that before the fourth of July recess,
that's still a lot to.

Speaker 1 (02:27):
Do well this There are some good points and some
silver linings in the sentence version of what they're talking
about yesterday. It also ends the taxes on tips and
auto loan interest. It raises the child tax credit to
twenty two hundred dollars, and also, you know, makes Trump's
tax cuts permanent. So where's rand Paul and all this?

Speaker 2 (02:46):
He's you know, he was warm enough to this idea,
but I can't We haven't gotten any him on record yet,
But I can't imagine he's going to be a fan
of the five trillion dollar debt limit increase when he
had an issue with the four trillion dollar debt limit increase. Now,
one interesting that the child tax credit provision that's actually
lower than the one that was in the House. The
House one was twenty five hundred dollars. This one's down

(03:08):
to twenty two hundred. Like you just said, Yeah, you
still have the provisions on taxes on tips over time,
and the extension of the Trump tax cuts, but you know,
there's some other changes in here, Like we just mentioned
the provider tax for for states that's down to three
point five percent when it was at five percent for
the House version. So these things are going to have

(03:30):
to be worked out, and they have to figure out,
you know, a way to get to get people on
board and then make everyone happy.

Speaker 1 (03:36):
You know, when you talk about you know, the state's
medicaid provider taxes from six percent to three point five percent,
putting the onus back on the states to handle it more,
I would imagine there's a lot of pushback and concern
about rural hospitals and things like that.

Speaker 2 (03:52):
Yeah, that's and that's the big reason why you have
somebody like Josh Holly is really concerned about this. He
thinks it's going to be horrible for hospitals and and
and make it very hard for them to you know,
survive and and and to be able to pay for
for these high medicaid populations. Now, I think one of
the things that did stand out was that you have
somebody like Roger Marshall who's saying that there are some

(04:15):
grants in there for rural hospitals that will help make
up for any payments that they're struggling to make or
and whatnot. So I think we got to kind of
look through that and figure out what that exactly means
and what those provisions need. There's I mean, there's just
a lot in here, you know, five hundred plus pages. JT.
It's a lot to have to go through.

Speaker 1 (04:33):
Well, I'm looking through some of these pages and I
just don't see that. I don't see anything where it
talks about no tax on Social Security. I guess that's
not happening this.

Speaker 2 (04:43):
Yeah, that was one of that was one of the
things that they did they did take out for this one.

Speaker 1 (04:48):
Yeah, that's correct, all right, maybe next time, Ryan, Thank
you so much, buddy.