House Republicans are pushing Trump's big bill to the brink of passage
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There’s also a hefty investment, $350 billion, in national security and Trump’s deportation agenda
WASHINGTON (AP) — House Republicans are preparing to vote on President Donald Trump’s $4.5 trillion tax breaks and spending cuts bill early Thursday, up all night as GOP leaders and the president himself worked to persuade skeptical holdouts to drop their opposition and deliver by their Fourth of July deadline.
Final debates began in the predawn hours after another chaotic day, and night, at the Capitol. House Speaker Mike Johnson insisted the House would meet the holiday deadline, with just days to go after the Senate approved the package on the narrowest of margins and Vice President JD Vance breaking a tie vote.
“Our way is to plow through and get it done,” Johnson said, emerging in the middle of the night from a series of closed-door meetings. “We will meet our July 4th deadline.”
The outcome would be milestone for the president and his party, a longshot effort to compile a long list of GOP priorities into what they call his “one big beautiful bill,” an 800-plus page package. With Democrats unified in opposition, the bill will become a defining measure of Trump’s return to the White House, with the sweep of Republican control of Congress.
Tax breaks and safety net cuts
At it core, the package’s priority is $4.5 trillion in tax breaks enacted in Trump’s first term, in 2017, that would expire if Congress failed to act, along with new ones. This includes allowing workers to deduct tips and overtime pay, and a $6,000 deduction for most older adults earning less than $75,000 a year.
There’s also a hefty investment, $350 billion, in national security and Trump’s deportation agenda and to help develop the “Golden Dome” defensive system over the U.S..
To help offset the costs of lost tax revenue, the package includes $1.2 trillion in cutbacks to the Medicaid health care and food stamps, largely by imposing new work requirements, including for some parents and older people, and a massive rollback of green energy investments.
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates the package will add $3.3 trillion to the deficit over the decade and 11.8 million more people will go without health coverage.
“This was a generational opportunity to deliver the most comprehensive and consequential set of conservative reforms in modern history, and that’s exactly what we’re doing,” said Rp. Jodey Arrington, R-Texas, the House Budget Committee chairman.
Democrats united against ‘ugly bill’
Democrats unified against the bill as a tax giveaway to the rich paid for on the backs of the most vulnerable in society, what one called “trickle down cruelty.”
“Have you no shame?” said Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn. “Have the moral courage to oppose this bill.”
The House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries called it “one big ugly bill.”
Pushing the package this far in Congress has been difficult rom the start. Republicans have struggled mightily with the bill nearly every step of the way in the House and Senate, often succeeding only by the narrowest of margins: just one vote. The slim 220-212 majority in the House leaves Republicans little room for defections.
