This week, the Senate Finance Committee released its portion of the Senate GOP’s reconciliation package—a response to the House-passed One Big Beautiful Bill Act (H.R. 1). While pitched as a course correction, the Senate’s proposal still adds trillions to the deficit.

We’d like to start with the score—but that hasn’t been released yet. But considering in many areas the text mirrors the House bill, it’s likely to be pricey—trillions of dollars pricey. The bill also includes a $5 trillion increase in the federal debt limit, a recognition of how far Congress is stretching its fiscal boundaries.

The bulk of the deficit impact comes from extending or making permanent key provisions of the 2017 tax law. These include business expensing, the pass-through deduction, and estate tax changes. The Senate plan keeps many of Trump’s newer tax pledges—like deductions for tips and overtime—but scales them back considerably, capping their value and limiting eligibility. Both the tips and any overtime deductions are temporary, generally available only for tax years 2025 to 2028.

There’s also a punt on the state and local tax (SALT) deduction cap. SALT lets taxpayers deduct what they pay in state and local income and property taxes from their federal tax bill, a benefit that mostly helps higher earners in high-tax states. The $10,000 limit stays in place, but with tweaks like allowing owners of certain businesses—law firms, medical practices, accounting partnerships—to claim the deduction at the business level instead of on their personal taxes. Even then, the committee acknowledges that there will be negotiation on the limit—the House bill lifted it to $40,000.

The Senate bill steps back from some of the House’s steepest cuts to clean energy tax credits—but not by much. Credits for wind and solar phase out starting in 2026 and are gone entirely by 2028. Incentives for residential solar installations would end within 180 days of enactment. Energy efficiency credits for homes and appliances are also eliminated.

At the same time, the Senate bill actually extends generous tax treatment for so-called “baseload” power sources like nuclear, geothermal, and hydropower. Projects using these technologies can still qualify for the Inflation Reduction Act’s clean electricity credits as long as they begin construction by 2035—eight years longer than the window offered to solar and wind. Rather than repealing clean energy credits outright, the bill simply re-tilts the playing field.

Carbon capture and storage (CCS) incentives under Section 45Q also emerge relatively unscathed. Despite growing concerns about CCS’s cost, scalability, and track record, the bill maintains the existing subsidy structure—and even includes tweaks aimed at ensuring “parity” between different forms of CO₂ use. That includes increased support for enhanced oil recovery, where captured CO₂ is used to extract more fossil fuels. In contrast to the steep cuts elsewhere, preserving and even strengthening 45Q reflects persistent pressure from oil, gas, and industrial interests.

One of the more consequential shifts comes in the form of Medicaid cuts. The Senate bill retains—and in some cases expands—House proposals to reduce the federal match, end expansion incentives, and add new barriers to coverage. The bill blocks new federal rules designed to simplify Medicaid and CHIP eligibility and enrollment, making it harder for children, seniors, and people with disabilities to apply for or renew coverage. These changes make up a significant share of the package’s claimed savings but raise concerns about sustainability and downstream costs, as more of the burden would fall to local hospitals and governments.

While some senators have promoted the new package as more “balanced” than the House’s version, the fundamentals remain the same—expensive tax cuts upfront, limited offsets, and a growing burden of interest payments over time.

So it’s worth looking at what the Congressional Budget Office said about the House version this week—that it would sharply increase deficits: $2.8 trillion over the next decade after accounting for its macroeconomic effects, which is an increase from the previous $2.4 trillion static estimate. Once interest costs are factored in the debt price tag goes up to $3.3 trillion. Even with a modest bump in projected GDP, the bill would push debt held by the public to 124 percent of GDP by 2034—up from 117 percent under current law.

As Senate Republicans prepare to bring their package to the floor next week, key provisions face new uncertainty. Democrats are challenging around 60 provisions under the Byrd Rule, arguing that some—particularly in the tax and Medicaid sections—would increase deficits outside the 10-year budget window, which makes them ineligible for reconciliation. A number of the challenges will also scrutinize Republicans’ use of a “current policy” baseline—an accounting gimmick that magically assumes expiring Trump tax cuts will be extended at no cost, despite their clear impact on future deficits and the fact that they were designed to expire early in the ten-year budget window to mask their true cost in the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.

Meanwhile, the true cost of the Senate tax title remains murky—official estimates are still pending, but independent analyses peg the price tag as high as $4.8 trillion over a decade, significantly above the House version. Taxpayers could be looking at an even bigger—and more convoluted—budget hole than initially projected.

The Senate’s version may trim some edges, but it doesn’t change the shape of the thing. Permanent tax cuts, temporary pay-fors, and mounting debt remain the through line. With official scores still pending and major provisions under procedural fire, this isn’t a reset—it’s a rerun, with a bigger price tag and fewer answers for taxpayers.