Senate Republicans scramble to pass Trump's ‘Big Beautiful Bill'
Agencies
Washington
Senate Republicans were racing to pass a budget bill that is pivotal to President Donald Trump's second-term agenda ahead of a self-imposed July 4 deadline.
Party leadership have been twisting arms for an initial vote on the 'Big Beautiful Bill' by Saturday afternoon, following the release of its latest version - all 940 pages - shortly after midnight.
Republicans have been divided over how much to cut from welfare programmes in order to cover the cost of extending some $3.8tn in Trump tax breaks. The sprawling tax and spending measure narrowly passed the House of Representatives two weeks ago.
In a memo sent on Saturday to Senate offices, the White House endorsed the latest revisions to the bill and called for its passage. The memo reportedly warned that failure to approve the budget 'would be the ultimate betrayal'.
The latest version of the bill is designed to appease some backbench Republican holdouts. It includes an increase in funding for rural hospitals, after some party moderates argued the original proposal would harm their constituents.
Another tweak was made to State and Local Taxes (Salt) - a bone of contention for representatives from high-tax states such as New York.
There is currently a $10,000 cap on how much taxpayers can deduct from the amount they owe in federal taxes. In the new bill, Senate Republicans have raised the Salt limit to $40,000 for married couples with incomes up to $500,000 - in line with what the House of Representatives approved.
But the latest Senate version ends the $40,000 cap after five years - when it would drop back to $10,000.
The legislation still contains some of its core components, including extending tax cuts passed by Republicans in 2017, as well as the addition of new cuts that Trump campaigned on, such as a tax deduction on Social Security benefits and the elimination of taxes on overtime work and tips.
More contentious measures are also still in place, including restrictions and requirements on Medicaid - a healthcare programme used by millions of elderly, disabled and low-income Americans.
Democrats have heavily criticised this piece of the bill, saying it will limit access to affordable healthcare for millions of Americans.
The Congressional Budget Office estimates that 7.8 million people would become uninsured due to such Medicaid cuts.
Senator Patty Murray, a Washington state Democrat, took to social media on Saturday to argue the bill contains 'the largest healthcare cuts in history'.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune called a possible Saturday vote 'aspirational', and it is still unclear whether Republicans can advance the bill.
One Republican senator from Wisconsin, Ron Johnson, told the Fox & Friends programme on Saturday he will be voting 'no', saying he still needed time to read it.
'We just got the bill,' Johnson said. 'I got my first copy at about 01:23 in the morning.'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Welcome Qatar
4 hours ago
- Welcome Qatar
Qatar busts Trump's claims on Iran-Israel ceasefire; airbase attack main reason?
Qatar busts Trump's claims on Iran-Israel ceasefire; airbase attack main reason? | Janta Ka Reporter
Al Jazeera
5 hours ago
- Al Jazeera
Senate Republicans vote to advance Trump's ‘Big, Beautiful Bill'
The Republican-controlled Senate of the United States has voted to take President Donald Trump's so-called 'Big Beautiful Bill' into the next phase of discussion, making it more likely to pass in the coming days. The measure, which is Trump's top legislative goal, passed its first procedural hurdle in a 51 to 49 vote on Saturday, with two Republican senators joining all Democrats in voting against it. The result came after several hours of negotiation as Republican leaders and Vice President JD Vance sought to persuade last-minute holdouts in a series of closed-door negotiations. Trump has pushed his party to get the bill passed and on his desk for him to sign into law by July 4, the US's Independence Day. He was monitoring the vote from the Oval Office late into the night, according to a senior White House official. One Big Beautiful Bill Act Al Jazeera's Mike Hanna, reporting from Washington, DC, said the 940-page 'One Big Beautiful Bill Act' was released shortly before midnight on Friday, and senators are still attempting to understand exactly what it means. 'One of the clear things in the bill is that it provides a $150bn boost to military spending. It also adds funding for mass deportations and building that border wall. Now, in order to get this money, what has happened is that there are cuts to Medicare, as well as to the Clean Energy funding programme,' he said. 'The other issue is that there are 53 Republicans and 47 Democrats in the Senate. Now all the Democrats are opposed to the bill. That means every single Republican vote will count,' Hanna added. The procedural vote on Saturday, which would start a debate on the megabill, began after hours of delay. It then remained open for more than three hours of standstill as three Republican senators – Thom Tillis, Ron Johnson and Rand Paul – joined Democrats to oppose the legislation. Three others – Senators Rick Scott, Mike Lee and Cynthia Lummis – negotiated with Republican leaders into the night in hopes of securing bigger spending cuts. In the end, Wisconsin Senator Johnson flipped his no vote to yes, leaving only Paul and Tillis opposed among Republicans. Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York said Republicans unveiled the bill 'in the dead of night' and are rushing to finish the bill before the public fully knows what is in it. He immediately forced a full reading of the text in the Senate, which would take an estimated 15 hours. 'Future generations will be saddled with trillions in debt. Debt is abstract, but what does it mean for the average American? Raising your costs, raising your costs to buy a home, raising your costs to buy a car, raising your costs on credit card bills. And why are they doing all this?' he asked. 'Why are they doing the biggest Medicaid cuts in history? Now it's getting close to a trillion dollars, just in Medicaid alone, all to cut taxes for the ultra-rich and special interests.' Elon Musk renews criticism If passed in the Senate, the bill would go back to the House of Representatives for approval, where Republicans can only afford to lose a handful of votes – and are facing stiff opposition from within their own ranks. Republicans are split on the Medicaid cuts, which will threaten scores of rural hospitals and lead to an estimated 8.6 million Americans being deprived of healthcare. The spending plan would also roll back many of the tax incentives for renewable energy that were put in place under Trump's predecessor, Joe Biden. Nonpartisan analysts estimate that a version of Trump's tax cut and spending bill would add trillions to the $36.2 trillion US government debt. They also say that the bill would pave the way for a historic redistribution of wealth from the poorest 10 percent of Americans to the richest. The bill is unpopular across multiple demographic, age and income groups, according to extensive recent polling. On Saturday, billionaire Elon Musk, with whom Trump had a public falling out this month over his criticism of the bill, again doubled down on his criticism of the draft legislation. The Tesla and Space X CEO called the package 'utterly insane and destructive'. 'The latest Senate draft bill will destroy millions of jobs in America and cause immense strategic harm to our country,' he wrote on X. 'It gives handouts to industries of the past while severely damaging industries of the future.' He later posted that the bill would be 'political suicide for the Republican Party.'
Qatar Tribune
12 hours ago
- Qatar Tribune
Trump halts all trade talks with Canada over digital tax
Agencies President Donald Trump said Friday that he's suspending trade talks with Canada over its plans to continue with its tax on technology firms, which he called 'a direct and blatant attack on our country.' Trump, in a post on his social media network, said Canada had just informed the U.S. that it was sticking to its plan to impose the digital services tax, which applies to Canadian and foreign businesses that engage with online users in Canada. The tax is set to go into effect Monday. 'Based on this egregious Tax, we are hereby terminating ALL discussions on Trade with Canada, effective immediately. We will let Canada know the Tariff that they will be paying to do business with the United States of America within the next seven day period,' Trump said in his post. Trump's announcement was the latest swerve in the trade war he's launched since taking office for a second term in January. Progress with Canada has been a roller coaster, starting with the U.S. president poking at the nation's northern neighbor and repeatedly suggesting it would be absorbed as a U.S. state. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said Friday that his country would 'continue to conduct these complex negotiations in the best interests of Canadians. It's a negotiation.'Trump later said he expects that Canada will remove the tax. 'Economically we have such power over Canada. We'd rather not use it,' Trump said in the Oval Office. 'It's not going to work out well for Canada. They were foolish to do it.' When asked if Canada could do anything to restart talks, he suggested Canada could remove the tax, predicted it will but said, 'It doesn't matter to me.' Carney visited Trump in May at the White House, where he was polite but firm. Trump last week traveled to Canada for the G7 summit in Alberta, where Carney said that Canada and the U.S. had set a 30-day deadline for trade talks. The digital services tax will hit companies including Amazon, Google, Meta, Uber and Airbnb with a 3% levy on revenue from Canadian users. It will apply retroactively, leaving U.S. companies with a $2 billion U.S. bill due at the end of the month. 'We appreciate the Administration's decisive response to Canada's discriminatory tax on U.S. digital exports,' Matt Schruers, chief executive of the Computer & Communications Industry Association, said in a statement. Canada and the U.S. have been discussing easing a series of steep tariffs Trump imposed on goods from America's neighbor. The Republican president earlier told reporters that the U.S. was soon preparing to send letters to different countries, informing them of the new tariff rate his administration would impose on them. Trump has imposed 50% tariffs on steel and aluminum as well as 25% tariffs on autos. He is also charging a 10% tax on imports from most countries, though he could raise rates on July 9, after the 90-day negotiating period he set would expire. Canada and Mexico face separate tariffs of as much as 25% that Trump put into place under the auspices of stopping fentanyl smuggling, though some products are still protected under the 2020 U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement signed during Trump's first reporters after a private meeting with Republican senators Friday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent declined to comment on news that Trump had ended trade talks with Canada. 'I was in the meeting,' Bessent said before moving on to the next question. About 60% of U.S. crude oil imports are from Canada, and 85% of U.S. electricity imports as is also the largest foreign supplier of steel, aluminum and uranium to the U.S. and has 34 critical minerals and metals that the Pentagon is eager to obtain. About 80% of Canada's exports go to the U.S. Daniel Beland, a political science professor at McGill University in Montreal, said it is a domestic tax issue, but it has been a source of tensions between Canada and the United States for a while because it targets U.S. tech giants. 'The Digital Services Tax Act was signed into law a year ago so the advent of this new tax has been known for a long time,' Beland said. 'Yet, President Trump waited just before its implementation to create drama over it in the context of ongoing and highly uncertain trade negotiations between the two countries.'
