Senate Republicans hauled President Donald Trump’s big tax breaks and spending cuts bill to passage Tuesday on the narrowest of votes, pushing past opposition from Democrats and their own GOP ranks after a turbulent overnight session.
Vice President JD Vance broke a 50-50 tie to push it over the top. The three Republicans opposing the bill were Sens Thom Tillis of North Carolina, Susan Collins of Maine and Sen Rand Paul of Kentucky.
The outcome capped an unusually tense weekend of work at the Capitol, the president’s signature legislative priority teetering on the edge of approval, or collapse. The difficulty it took for Republicans, who have the majority hold in Congress, to wrestle the bill to this point is not expected to let up. The package now goes back to the House, where Speaker Mike Johnson had warned senators not to deviate too far from what his chamber had already approved. But the Senate did make changes, particularly to Medicaid, risking more problems as they race to finish by Trump’s Fourth of July deadline.
The outcome is a pivotal moment for president and his party, which have been consumed by the 940-page One Big Beautiful Bill Act, as it’s formally titled, and invested their political capital in delivering on the GOP’s sweep of power in Washington.
Trump acknowledged “it’s very complicated stuff”, as he departed the White House for Florida.
“I don’t want to go too crazy with cuts,” he said. “I don’t like cuts.
Few Republicans appeared fully satisfied as the final package emerges, in either the House or Senate.
What’s in the big bill: All told, the Senate bill includes $4.5 trillion in tax cuts, according to the latest CBO analysis, making permanent Trump’s 2017 rates, which would expire at the end of the year if Congress fails to act, while adding the new ones he campaigned on, including no taxes on tips.
The Senate package would roll back billions of dollars in green energy tax credits, which Democrats warn will wipe out wind and solar investments nationwide. It would impose $1.2 trillion in cuts, largely to Medicaid and food stamps, by imposing work requirements on able-bodied people, including some parents and older Americans, making sign-up eligibility more stringent and changing federal reimbursements to states.
Democrats fighting all day and night: Unable to stop the march toward passage, the Democrats tried to drag out the process, including with a weekend reading of the full bill.
A few of the Democratic amendments won support from a few Republicans, though almost none were passing. More were considered in one of the longer such sessions in modern times. One amendment overwhelmingly approved stripped a provision barring states from regulating artificial intelligence if they receive certain federal funding.