The 2025 tax and spending law: her votes and the rural health fund
What they say
In both debates she said she voted against the One Big Beautiful Bill because of its Medicaid cuts, but voted to let it reach the floor, and that this let her author its $50 billion rural health fund. On October 6 she said she had proposed paying for the fund by raising taxes on top earners.
What the record shows ·
She voted Yea on the motion to take up H.R. 1 on June 28, 2025, which carried 51 to 49, and Nay on passage on July 1, which carried 50 to 50 on the Vice President's tie-breaking vote. The law, Public Law 119-21, creates the Rural Health Transformation Program with $10 billion a year from 2026 to 2030. The fund was already in the Senate's substitute text when she offered an amendment to raise its first two years to $22.5 billion each, paid for with a 39.6 percent tax rate on income over $25 million. The amendment was ruled out of order, and a motion to waive the rule failed 22 to 78, with her Yea.
Limit: Her two votes on the bill are on the record and match what she said. Who wrote the fund is not: it was in the text before her amendment, which failed. The captions have her putting the tax on people making over $250,000 a year; her amendment's rate started at $25 million. The $190 million she said Maine got in the first year was not checked; the federal agency's site refused our script.