Top Senate Official Rules Against Several Key Provisions in G.O.P. Policy Bill

A top Senate official on Thursday rejected a slew of major provisions in Republicans’ sweeping domestic policy bill, sending party leaders rushing to salvage the legislation a week before the July 4 deadline President Trump set for its enactment.

Elizabeth MacDonough, the parliamentarian who enforces the chamber’s rules, said several of the measures in the legislation that would provide hundreds of billions of dollars in savings could not be included in the legislation in their current form. They include one that would crack down on strategies that many states have developed to obtain more federal Medicaid funds and another that would limit repayment options for student loan borrowers.

Ms. McDonough has not yet ruled on all parts of the bill. The tax changes at the centerpiece of Mr. Trump’s agenda were still under review.

But the decisions dealt a blow to Senate Republicans as they attempt to pass the behemoth legislation by Mr. Trump’s deadline. Party leaders had hoped to begin voting on the bill this weekend, to allow time for the House, which must give final approval to any changes, to pass it early next week, clearing it for the president’s signature.

President Trump worked to rally support for the legislation on Thursday at an event at the White House, praising the “hundreds of things here” to like about the bill.

“It’s so good,” he said, though one item he trumpeted, eliminating taxes on Social Security, was not actually in the bill.

When a reporter shouted out a question about whether Congress could pass the bill by July 4, Mr. Trump replied: “We hope so.”

The provisions struck down on Thursday by Ms. MacDonough were just the latest of several she has rejected over the past week, including Republicans’ initial plan to slash the food assistance program known as SNAP, an effort to sell federal land and a move to limit federal judges’ power to enforce injunctions against the Trump administration.

Republicans are moving the bill through Congress using special rules that shield it from a filibuster, depriving Democrats of the ability to block it. But to qualify for that protection, the legislation must comply with a rigorous set of budgetary restrictions established by the Senate to govern that process.

The Senate parliamentarian, an official appointed by the chamber’s leaders to enforce its rules and precedents, must evaluate those measures to ensure that every provision meets those requirements.

Ms. MacDonough’s rulings are closely held by senators and are not released to the public. So it was unclear whether she had suggested the provisions were essentially unsalvageable, or merely needed to be modified.

Republicans on the Senate Agriculture Committee, for example, believe they will be able to restore the provision that Ms. MacDonough struck that would push some SNAP costs to the states.

One of the key provisions Ms. MacDonough ruled against, a measure that would try to close the so-called provider tax loophole, has already divided Senate Republicans. Senators from several states that heavily rely on a tax maneuver to finance their Medicaid programs have said they will not vote for the legislation until it is modified, citing risks to rural hospitals. (Almost every state uses the loophole to some degree.)

The senators, including Susan Collins of Maine, Thom Tillis of North Carolina, and Josh Hawley of Missouri, have pressed G.O.P. leaders to add a separate fund for rural hospitals that could offset some of the money they would lose.

Senators had been privately negotiating over how much money would be earmarked for that fund. Some are pressing for as much as $100 billion; the Senate Finance Committee initially floated allocating $15 billion. As written, the bill would cut Medicaid spending by more than $900 billion over a decade.

If Republicans are forced to remove all the provisions Ms. MacDonough has ruled against, it would eliminate more than $500 billion of the bill’s intended spending cuts, according to a rough analysis by Bobby Kogan, a former Democratic Senate Budget Committee staff member and White House budget official who is now the senior director of federal budget policy at the left-leaning Center for American Progress.

On Thursday, Senator John Thune, Republican of South Dakota and the majority leader, played down the adverse rulings, saying the measure was still on track.

“These are speed bumps along the way; we anticipated those and so we have contingency plans,” he told reporters at the Capitol. “Obviously, you have to adjust the timing and schedule a little bit, but we’re moving forward.”

Other Republicans vented rage against Ms. MacDonough and were agitating to overrule her or get rid of her altogether.

“The Senate Parliamentarian is not elected. She is not accountable to the American people. Yet she holds veto power over legislation supported by millions of voters,” Representative Greg Steube of Florida wrote on social media.

In his own post, Senator Tommy Tuberville, Republican of Alabama, castigated the “WOKE parliamentarian” for rejecting a provision that would reduce Medicaid funding to states that use their own tax revenues to provide health coverage to undocumented immigrants.

“This is a perfect example of why Americans hate THE SWAMP,” Mr. Tuberville wrote. “Unelected bureaucrats think they know better than U.S. Congressmen who are elected BY THE PEOPLE. Her job is not to push a woke agenda. THE SENATE PARLIAMENTARIAN SHOULD BE FIRED ASAP.”

Republican senators could vote to steer around her guidance, but that move would deal a substantial blow to the filibuster. The vote would set a new precedent that senators can ignore the parliamentarian on budget matters whenever they can muster a majority to do so, and Mr. Thune has repeatedly pledged not to take such action.

Zolan Kanno-Youngs contributed reporting.