The Senate returns today under pressure to take up the reconciliation bill — officially titled the One Big Beautiful Bill Act — that the House passed before the Memorial Day break. 

That bill contains $294 billion in cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and $60 billion in added funding for farm programs.

Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman John Boozman, R-Ark., has said wants to include increases for “risk management” programs — his term for the Agriculture Risk Coverage and Price Loss Coverage programs and crop insurance — in the reconciliation bill, but is not enthused about including increases to the other USDA programs that the House bill contains. 

While the House Agriculture Committee received an instruction from the House Budget Committee to cut $230 billion from SNAP and finally cut an estimated $294 billion in order to cover the increase in farm programs, the Senate Agriculture Committee has been told to cut only $1 billion from SNAP. 

With Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D.. urging the Senate to pass the bill before the July 4 recess, battles over SNAP and the size of the farm program increases are expected this month.

But so far the issues of Medicaid cuts and a tax provision have made headlines. 

Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, who is running for re-election in 2026, dismissed voters’ concerns about the bill’s impact on Medicaid eligibility over the weekend by saying “we are all going to die,” and then posted a questionable followup on Instagram, The Washington Post reported. 

Meanwhile, a tax provision on the tax treatment of foreign capital known as Section 889 has sent jitters across Wall Street, CNBC reported. 

“We see this legislation as creating the scope for the US administration to transform a trade war into a capital war if it so wishes,” said George Saravelos, global head of FX research at Deutsche Bank told CNBC.