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The Senate plowed ahead Sunday on President Donald Trump’s massive tax and immigration agenda as Republicans tried to swat away Democratic policy challenges and contend with its rising impact on the ballooning national debt.
Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill would extend tax cuts passed in 2017, enact campaign promises such as no tax on tips, spend hundreds of billions of dollars on immigration and defense, and slash social benefit programs. The multitrillion-dollar legislation survived a brief GOP revolt Saturday night to allow the chamber to move forward with debate on the measure.
Senators will probably work overnight to get the bill moving through the chamber. Democrats on Saturday forced Republicans to read the measure aloud in an act of protest over the legislation. After 15 hours and 55 minutes of that reading, lawmakers began debating the measure Sunday afternoon.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-South Dakota, said he hopes to pass the legislation as soon as Monday so it can be sent back to the House for final approval in time to beat Trump’s self-imposed Independence Day deadline. The House passed a version of Trump’s agenda in May.
But the legislation is growing increasingly unpopular among voters, and its price tag continues to rise.
The Congressional Budget Office, lawmakers’ nonpartisan bookkeeper, reported Sunday that it would raise the national debt by $3.3 trillion over 10 years. That estimate does not include increased borrowing costs, which would be substantial because the measure, even with spending cuts, is largely deficit-financed.
A Washington Post-Ipsos poll conducted this month found that Americans oppose the bill by an almost 2-to-1 margin and that 63% said the measure’s debt impact was “unacceptable.”
Sen. Thom Tillis, R-North Carolina, declared on Sunday that he would retire from the Senate when his term ends in 2026, a day after he spoke in opposition to the legislation.
“It shows you the risks the Republican majority has because the bill is so unpopular, not only in North Carolina, but in the country,” Senate Democratic Leader Charles E. Schumer of New York told The Washington Post. “This is bad news for their majority.”
The bill would extend expiring tax cuts from Trump’s first term and include new deductions the White House hopes will spur economic growth. It includes a trio of Trump’s populist campaign promises—no taxes on tips, overtime wages or auto loan interest—and adds $6,000 to the standard deduction for seniors. During the 2024 campaign, Trump pitched ending taxes on Social Security benefits, but the idea was not included in the bill.
For the private sector, the legislation would give corporations larger deductions for research and development, depreciating assets and interest on large purchases.
To offset the cost, Republicans have proposed steep cuts to Medicaid, the state and federal health insurance program for low-income individuals and disabled people, as well as SNAP, the anti-hunger Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program formerly known as food stamps.
The bill would cut $1.1 trillion from health benefits programs, according to CBO. And, by 2034, nearly 12 million people would lose health insurance coverage.
“We don’t pay people in this country to be lazy,” Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Oklahoma, said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “We want to give them an opportunity, and when they’re going through a hard time, we want to give them a helping hand. That’s what Medicaid was designed for, and it’s, unfortunately, it’s been abused.”
The largest budget cuts would come from provider taxes, which are duties that states charge medical providers as a roundabout way of collecting more federal Medicaid dollars. Some in the GOP wish to use that policy to force states to jettison some immigrants from benefits rolls, leaving other lawmakers concerned about the finances of rural hospitals, which rely heavily on Medicaid patients.
“This program was created to help pregnant women, children and seniors in America and those with disabilities,” Finance Committee Chair Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, said Sunday on the Senate floor. “We are continuing to protect them. They will not lose benefits. And the politics of fear that you hear constantly are simply false.”
Still, the cuts to Medicaid have become a sticking point among Republicans, both within the Senate and between senators and House members.
The House’s version of the bill was far less expensive and far less punitive on Medicaid. The Senate overhauled that legislation in ways that some House members now find unrecognizable, and the measure could have trouble securing support when it returns to the lower chamber.
In the Senate, though, lawmakers who represent states that use provider taxes or have a large number of rural health care facilities have warned the provision is fatal to the success of the bill.
“Let’s watch and be careful that we don’t cut into bone, don’t hurt our rural hospitals,” Sen. Jim Justice, R-West Virginia, said late last week. “If we do that, it’s going to be a bad day.”
Tillis voted with Democrats on Saturday night to block moving forward on the measure.
Sens. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, and Susan Collins, R-Maine, have expressed similar concerns, though they voted to clear the bill’s procedural hurdle.
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Kentucky, is steadfastly opposed to the bill over deficit concerns, meaning the GOP can lose only two more votes to keep the measure afloat. If that happens, Vice President JD Vance would be forced to break the Senate’s tie.
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Why has the IBJ become a negative liberal point of view the articles always have a slant as to what is wrong. Why not comment the positive aspects of the new Bill. Negativity and reporting everything that’s wrong. Isn’t good for subscriptions. How about a balance approach to news reporting
Facts aren’t liberal. Reconsider what you’re saying and start by recognizing that this GOP has zero conservatives.
Because it’s a Washington Post article! The AP is just as bad!
Richard, why don’t you tell us what the positives are? Do you find the positives to be the subsidies for coal or the debt slavery that our children and grandchildren will find themselves in to pay for this?
It is hard to find many positives about a bill that will raise the debt by 3.3 trillion over 10 years. Oh for the time when the R’s were the party of “fiscal responsibility”.
They always claim to be such when there is a Democratic president, then turn around and jack up the deficit when they have power. They’ve been doing it for decades and no clue why anyone still believes them.
The game is simple – they want to get rid of everything that the federal government has done since FDR was president.
This bill renews the tax cut of which will continue to put dollars in wages earners pockets rather than raising taxes for us all to pay more. Notice how many Americans want the government to take care of their needs? Why not ask for personal responsibility, that’s fiscal responsibility isn’t it? We’ve become a country that enables. And sure, get rid of some of those loopholes these business owners abuse.
Fiscal responsibility is collecting enough to pay your bills, not continually cutting the taxes for the rich (which they’ve done since Reagan) and then claiming the services that many Americans count on are the only way to make the numbers work.
David, the lowest wage earners who need tax relief the most will actually see their tax bills go up by $1600 per year. We call that a wealth transfer.
This is like amputating your limbs to save money on food and clothing, then pledging all your savings to billionaires.
Absolutely. Actual research shows that when you take away access to healthcare by ending insurance, people literally die. This bill will take away insurance for millions and millions of Americans, and many of them WILL die because of it. It’ll be hard to calculate the exact number, but it is likely to be thousands of unnecessary deaths. To put it into perspective, a lot more than 9/11. In other words, this action knowingly creates a new 9/11, or worse, and the victims are paying with their lives in order to help the rich buy more yachts. The pro-life and supposedly fiscally responsible Republican Party is the architect of all this — and it doesn’t even reduce the national debt, but rather makes it far worse. Please help it make sense.
How can you balance the budget on the backs of those who have the least? Not that it even balances anything. I don’t care which side of the aisle you are in, this is ridiculous. The US has a deficit problem that needs to be addressed – this is not a serious bill and the Republicans, if there are any left, should he ashamed.
MAGA’s are lying about the bill not increasing the deficit as they’re projecting 4-5% growth. Trickle down economics has never worked. That’s why the GOP’s tax cuts for the wealthy always increases the deficit. Trump increased the deficit over $8 trillion his 1st term which is a 40% increase from Obama. We’re still paying for those tax cuts and interest is now $1 trillion a year.
Plus all the other bad stuff in the bill that will result in millions losing healthcare and benefits. Kids will starve and lives will be lost. This bill also will result in millions of job losses and green energy is dead and will raise utility costs for Americans. More money to treat immigrants inhumanely.
This bill is not pro-life. It’s to make the rich richer and the poor poorer or dead.
Trump is Hitler 2. His immigration policies like Hitler are an ethnic cleansing and he’s sending immigrants to concentration camps. MAGA’s are racist and trying to get rid of non-whites thru immigration and elimination of DEI.
Mark B’s irresponsible comment should be removed by the IBJ!
I see no lies detected
Susan Collins is concerned.
The is a quality comment about the senator who, when the time will come, will fold like a chair.
Do the Democrats have an alternative plan that would raise the deficit less without letting the 2017 tax-rate cuts expire? NO! Does anyone think that allowing the tax-rate cuts to expire would be popular with voters, or that the Democrats wouldn’t immediately attempt to spend any additional revenue tax-rate increases might bring in? The CBO projections are garbage. They factor in the revenue loss from making the tax-rate cuts permanent but don’t consider the revenue loss that would occur, from slower economic growth, if the tax-rate cuts expire. The article reads as if Tillis and Paul are siding with the Democrats, when the fact is that neither want allow the tax-rate cuts to expire, and Paul wants deeper spending cuts while Tillis wants the GOP House’s version of Medicaid reform rather than the Senate’s version.
How do you expect the economy to grow when you deport the labor, eliminate tax breaks for emerging technologies like clean energy while subsidizing old, dirty energy like coal, and turning our children and grandchildren into debt slaves to pay for all this spending?
The high growth sectors of our economy are not so dependent on labor from illegal immigrants. Others may need to raise wages to attract more domestic workers. What subsidies does the IIJA provide for coal? It does provide subsidies for “clean” energy but not as many boondoggles as the Biden admin. I agree that deficit is too high, but allowing the 2017 tax-rate cuts to expire would cause a recession and make the deficit worse. We need to get Federal spending back to down 20% or less of GDP, where it’s been historically, since WWII and prior to the pandemic, with the exception of severe recessions.
Steven, blaming the CBO is just as tiresome as a basketball player who whines for a call every time he drives to the basket.
There is a simple “other” option to reducing the deficit … it’s called “stop cutting government revenues”. Stop cutting taxes for those who make billions, who have been getting major tax cuts for over 40 years. If you were actually serious about the deficit, you wouldn’t be cutting the number of IRS agents, you’d be increasing them since they’re a revenue-positive addition to government spending … like the National Park Service. But I digress.
And, actually, Trump’s figured out a way to increase revenues. They’re called tariffs, and you and I are paying them. Ultimately, he will prove unsuccessful in convincing companies to keep paying for them.
The high growth sectors of the economy are next, to be automated away by AI.
We are not going to raise wages to hire more domestic workers instead of immigrants, we are going to give domestic workers no option but to take the low wage jobs. People are are disposable cogs, work until they drop. It may take a generation, but that’s the vision. They want to roll back every government program since FDR was president, and they’re trying to make it 1927 again.
If cornerstone industries like agriculture, hospitality, and construction don’t have enough labor to continue to be as productive, that will have ripple effects in all other industries. The bottom line is that we don’t have enough labor for these industries to only use domestic labor and if you hate inflation, what do you think raising wages in those industries would do anyway? Regarding clean energy subsidies, the reporting is out there and easy to find.
Some key statements from Politico and Yahoo! Finance articles recently:
“Hundreds of projects — overwhelmingly in Republican districts — hang in the balance. An analysis by POLITICO identified 794 wind farms, solar plants, battery storage facilities and other clean electricity generation projects that have not yet begun construction and could be at risk of losing two crucial tax breaks if the House prevails in rolling back Democrats’ 2022 climate law.”
“Some are even projecting double digit price increases in some utility bills by 2029.”
“Fossil fuels advocates meanwhile were largely ebullient at the last-minute changes which saw existing fossil fuel focused provisions — around issues like permitting, lease sales, and methane emissions fees — joined by some new credits for these producers including for coal.”
The bottom line is that subsidies incentivize growth where we want growth to happen. This bill disincentives the transition to a clean energy economy and hurts republican-led states overwhelmingly. Our energies bills are going to increase at the same time our quality of life deteriorates. But hey, at least we keep those tax breaks that you say losing will cause a recession without citing any evidence to support it.
Michael N., Nothing you mention there is a subsidy for coal or fossil fuels in general. How do you expect the economy to grow with wasteful inefficient regulations on fossil fuels? Abundant fossil fuels are the single biggest advantage the USA economy enjoys, so of course, the Progressive Leftists want to kill the industry. We’re better off if our economy prospers based on affordable energy than on cheap, illegal, labor.
Cite. Your. Sources.