Two GOP congressmen from N.J. take issue with Senate changes to Big Beautiful Bill

Throughout the process of negotiating the GOP’s “One Big, Beautiful Bill” in the U.S. House, Reps. Jeff Van Drew (R-Dennis) and Tom Kean Jr. (R-Westfield) each made specific demands of Republican leadership, ultimately reaching a compromise both could live with. Now, Republicans in the Senate are threatening to rework that compromise, and Van Drew and Kean aren’t having it.

For Van Drew, the issue revolves around Medicaid, the health program for low-income and disabled Americans from which the House and Senate versions of the bill both aim to cut hundreds of billions of dollars.

Van Drew has been adamant that Medicaid coverage for eligible Americans not be cut too deeply. The changes made by the House plan passed muster for him – even though nonpartisan estimates say that 10.9 million Americans could stand to lose health coverage under its provisions – but he said yesterday that the Senate version of the bill, which would stand to reduce Medicaid funding even further in states like New Jersey that opted into Medicaid expansion, is a bridge too far.

“This provision is a nonstarter for me if it makes its way back to the House,” Van Drew said in a statement last night. “I have always stood for cutting waste, and fraud, and making sure taxpayer dollars are not going to anyone who should not be getting them, especially illegal immigrants. But the way this plan is written could unintentionally hurt the people Medicaid is meant to help.”

“I will not support any proposal that puts critical care for the people of South Jersey at risk,” he added.

Kean, meanwhile, has staked out the State and Local Tax (SALT) deduction cap as his core issue in Big Beautiful Bill negotiations – and since he represents one of the most evenly divided congressional districts in the country, he can argue that the GOP’s House majority depends in part on him.

Kean and a small cohort of fellow SALT-focused Republicans persuaded GOP leaders to raise the SALT cap from its current level of $10,000 up to $40,000, giving higher earners in heavily taxed states like New Jersey the option to deduct far more on their taxes. But Senate Republicans, who have little real vested interest in SALT, removed that provision in their initial draft of the bill and reset the cap at $10,000, drawing Kean’s ire.

“Restoring SALT is not about New Jersey alone,” Kean said yesterday. “It is about fixing a flaw in the federal tax code that stifles growth, undermines local control, and violates the conservative belief in fair, limited taxation. $40k is the right compromise. No SALT, no deal.”

Kean has said explicitly in the past that he won’t vote for any tax-related legislation – the Big Beautiful Bill or any other – that doesn’t include a raise or elimination of the SALT cap, which was put in place during Donald Trump’s first term and has remained untouched since.

Senate Republicans are still debating the bill, and the proposed language released so far is liable to change before any votes begin. GOP leaders have imposed a deadline of July 4 to pass the bill, though some conservative senators who have issues with it are now saying that’s unrealistic.

But if and when the bill does come back before the House, Van Drew’s and Kean’s votes will both be critical. The House passed its version of the bill by an exactly one-vote margin in May, 215-214, meaning that any single Republican could theoretically stand to sink it; yesterday’s fairly explicit promises from Van Drew and Kean to oppose the current Senate version of the bill are a dire warning if the Senate forges ahead.

New Jersey Democrats, for their part, might like certain parts of the bill – its elimination of federal taxes on tips, for example, or its now-under-threat SALT cap raise – but have opposed it en masse due to its cuts to Medicaid and food stamps as well as the trillions of dollars it would be estimated to add to the federal deficit. 

“These cuts to Medicaid are not just numbers on a budget,” Senator Cory Booker said on social media last night. “They are profound impacts on families and our fellow Americans… For the sake of our nation, for each other, we must stop this bill.”