Trump plans to sign his tax and spending cut bill at the White House July 4 picnic
Against odds that at times seemed improbable, Trump achieved his goal of celebrating a historic — and divisive — legislative victory in time for the nation's birthday. Fighter jets and a stealth bomber are expected to streak the sky over the annual White House Fourth of July picnic where Trump plans to sign the bill.
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Toronto Sun
44 minutes ago
- Toronto Sun
Trump signs his tax and spending cut bill at White House July 4 picnic
Published Jul 04, 2025 • 4 minute read U.S. President Donald Trump (centre) prepares to sign the "Big Beautiful Bill Act" at the White House in Washington, D.C., Friday, July 4, 2025. Photo by BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI / POOL / AFP / Getty Images WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump signed his package of tax breaks and spending cuts into law Friday in front of Fourth of July picnickers after his cajoling produced almost unanimous Republican support in Congress for the domestic priority that could cement his second-term legacy. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. THIS CONTENT IS RESERVED FOR SUBSCRIBERS ONLY Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account. Get exclusive access to the Toronto Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on. Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists. Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists. Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword. SUBSCRIBE TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account. Get exclusive access to the Toronto Sun ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition that you can share, download and comment on. Enjoy insights and behind-the-scenes analysis from our award-winning journalists. Support local journalists and the next generation of journalists. Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword. REGISTER / SIGN IN TO UNLOCK MORE ARTICLES Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account. Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments. Enjoy additional articles per month. Get email updates from your favourite authors. THIS ARTICLE IS FREE TO READ REGISTER TO UNLOCK. Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience. Access articles from across Canada with one account Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments Enjoy additional articles per month Get email updates from your favourite authors Don't have an account? Create Account Flanked by Republican legislators and members of his Cabinet, Trump signed the multitrillion-dollar legislation at a desk on the White House driveway, then banged down a gavel gifted to him by House Speaker Mike Johnson that was used during the bill's final passage Thursday. Against odds that at times seemed improbable, Trump achieved his goal of celebrating a historic — and divisive — legislative victory in time for the nation's birthday, which also was his self-imposed deadline for Congress to send the legislation to his desk. Fighter jets and stealth bombers streaked through the sky over the annual White House Fourth of July picnic. 'America's winning, winning, winning like never before,' Trump said, noting last month's bombing campaign against Iran's nuclear program, which he said the flyover was meant to honour. 'Promises made, promises kept, and we've kept them.' This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. The White House was hung with red, white and blue bunting for the Independence Day festivities. The U.S. Marine Band played patriotic marches — and, in a typical Trumpian touch, tunes by 1980s pop icons Chaka Khan and Huey Lewis. There were three separate flyovers. Trump spoke for a relatively brief 22 minutes before signing the bill, but was clearly energized as the legislation's passage topped a recent winning streak for his administration. That included the Iran campaign and a series of U.S. Supreme Court ruling she's fought for. Vice President JD Vance was traveling in the Dakotas with his family and missed the ceremony. A line on the bill where he would have signed because of his role as president of the Senate was crossed out and Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., added his name instead, photographs show. Cotton has the responsibility of stepping in when the vice president isn't available for his Senate duties. Your noon-hour look at what's happening in Toronto and beyond. By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc. Please try again This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. The budget legislation is the president's highest-profile win yet. It includes key campaign pledges like no tax on tips or Social Security income. Trump, who spent an unusual amount of time thanking individual Republican lawmakers who shepherded the measure through Congress, contended 'our country is going to be a rocket ship, economically,' because of the legislation. Big cuts to Medicaid and food stamps Critics assailed the package as a giveaway to the rich that will rob millions more lower-income people of their health insurance, food assistance and financial stability. 'Today, Donald Trump signed into law the worst job-killing bill in American history. It will rip health care from 17 million workers to pay for massive tax giveaways to the wealthy and big corporations, amounting to the country's largest money grab from the working class to the ultra-rich,' AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler said in a statement. 'Every member of Congress who voted for this devastating bill picked the pockets of working people to hand billionaires a $5 trillion gift.' This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. The legislation extends Trump's 2017 multitrillion-dollar tax cuts and cuts Medicaid and food stamps by $1.2 trillion. It provides for a massive increase in immigration enforcement. Congress' nonpartisan scorekeeper projects that nearly 12 million more people will lose health insurance under the law. The legislation passed the House on a largely party-line vote Thursday, culminating a monthslong push by the GOP to cram most of its legislative priorities into a single budget bill that could be enacted without Senate Democrats being able to block it indefinitely by filibustering. It passed by a single vote in the Senate, where North Carolina Republican Thom Tillis announced he would not run for reelection after incurring Trump's wrath in opposing it. Vance had to cast the tie-breaking vote. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. In the House, where two Republicans voted against it, one, conservative maverick Tom Massie of Kentucky, has also become a target of Trump's well-funded political operation. The legislation amounts to a repudiation of the agendas of the past two Democratic presidents, Barack Obama and Joe Biden, in rolling back Obama's Medicaid expansion under his signature health law and Biden's tax credits for renewable energy. The 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. Democrats vow to make bill a midterm issue Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin on Friday called the bill 'devastating' and said in a statement that Trump's signature on the legislation 'sealed the fate of the Republican Party, cementing them as the party for billionaires and special interests — not working families.' This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. He predicted Republicans would lose their majority in Congress over it. 'This was a full betrayal of the American people,' Martin said. Trump exulted in his political victory Thursday night in Iowa, where he attended a kickoff of events celebrating the country's 250th birthday next year. 'I want to thank Republican congressmen and women, because what they did is incredible,' he said. The president complained that Democrats voted against the bill because 'they hate Trump — but I hate them, too.' The package is certain to be a flashpoint in next year's midterm elections, and Democrats are making ambitious plans for rallies, voter registration drives, attack ads, bus tours and even a multiday vigil, all intended to highlight the most controversial elements. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below. Upon his return to Washington early Friday, Trump described the package as 'very popular,' though polling suggests that public opinion is mixed at best. For example, a Washington Post/Ipsos poll found that majorities of U.S. adults support increasing the annual child tax credit and eliminating taxes on earnings from tips, and about half support work requirements for some adults who receive Medicaid. But the poll found majorities oppose reducing federal funding for food assistance to low-income families and spending about $45 billion to build and maintain migrant detention centres. About 60% said it was 'unacceptable' that the bill is expected to increase the $36 trillion U.S. debt by more than $3 trillion over the next decade. Toronto Blue Jays Editorial Cartoons Editorials Celebrity News
Toronto Star
an hour ago
- Toronto Star
Judge briefly blocks immigrants' deportation to South Sudan, but legal path eventually cleared
Despite a federal judge briefly halting deportations of eight immigrants to war-torn South Sudan, he and a second judge eventually cleared the wat for the Trump administration to relocate the immigrants the day after the Supreme Court greenlighted their removal. The unusually-busy Fourth of July court schedule began with District Judge Randolph Moss in Washington, D.C., putting a temporary hold on the deportations while he evaluated a last-ditch appeal by the immigrants' lawyers. In an afternoon hearing, he decided he was powerless to halt their removals and that the person best positioned to rule on the request was Brian Murphy, the federal judge in Boston whose rulings led to the initial halt of the administration's effort to begin deportations to the eastern African country.
Vancouver Sun
an hour ago
- Vancouver Sun
Letters to The Sun: U.S. isn't capable of making a trade deal with Canada
Re: Carney has no choice: Trade deal with U.S. requires end of supply management Since 'supply management' (along with inter-provincial trade barriers) has been on the Fraser Institute's naughty list as supposedly reducing 'economic freedom' in Canada, it is no surprise that it is tossed out as a trade bargaining chip. Would this supposed bargaining position be discarded in exchange for nothing like the digital services tax was? I wrote to the federal minister of agriculture during the original General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade talks, explaining how supply management is actually an animal-rights issue, since you can't raise animals humanely on speculation. But now, with Canada's hard right-turn federally, all 'soft' issues standing in the way of economic freedom are jettisoned, along with Indigenous rights, the environment, entitlements and, apparently, Canada's sovereignty. We do not need a 'trade agreement' with the U.S. Any bargaining chips should be used to convince that rogue nation to conform to international law, and allow normal trade to proceed under WTO rules. America is not agreement-capable. A daily roundup of Opinion pieces from the Sun and beyond. By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc. A welcome email is on its way. If you don't see it, please check your junk folder. The next issue of Informed Opinion will soon be in your inbox. Please try again Interested in more newsletters? Browse here. Kathleen McCroskey, Surrey Prime Minister Mark Carney does have a choice. Certainly there are problems with the current system, but not with the principle of supply management. For one thing, quotas should not be a marketable commodity. If you can afford to pay a million dollars to buy a quota, you can afford to sell your produce at a lower price. U.S. President Donald Trump keeps saying they don't need anything that Canada produces. So what makes him think we need their dairy products? Oh yes, he can't think. Farmers are easy to throw under the bus. The prairie farmers were certainly tossed when it was decided to tariff electric cars coming from China. The auto industry is important, but so is agriculture. Bruce Frankard, Vancouver Chickens and cows aren't widgets. They are living creatures that experience both physical and emotional pain. Ending supply management would initiate a race-to-the-bottom in dairy prices, and therefore in animal health and welfare. As Trump's big beautiful bill so clearly reveals that current U.S. leaders are willing — even eager — to sacrifice the health and welfare of their own citizens for the sake of bloated corporate profits and tax cuts. Given they don't even care about their own people, no way do U.S. leaders flinch at treating domestic animals as machine slaves. At what point do we become the 51st state simply by doing as Trump would like us to do, whether we're a separate nation or not? Keep Canada's supply management system. Deborah Jones, Delta Re: NDP alters course on supportive housing projects Low-barrier housing — such as supportive housing — is a necessity if there is to be a decrease in 'tent cities' and street use of substances. But after volunteering with an outreach support group for people who use substances, including many who live in supportive housing, it's been made clear to me that the existing situations are untenable. When there are suites crawling with cockroaches, broken elevators, flooding, thefts, and untreated overdoses, the residents have little reason to respect rules. The management needs to be accountable as well as the residents. Primarily, seniors with disabilities having no experience with substances should not be forced to live in supportive housing. Many fear for their safety in an unknown environment, and their isolation only increases. Secondly, people who are in recovery from substance use should not be forced to live in supportive housing. If our aim is to assist those folks, they should not be surrounded by triggers that can cause relapses. Thirdly, those living in supportive housing must be formally consulted and included in decision-making and allowed to take ownership of the circumstances where they live. Debbie Picco, Maple Ridge Re: 'There's a fear of coming to America': B.C. to Washington State travel down five months in a row 'There's a fear of coming to America' is just part of the story. Our decision to cancel our Alaska cruise was not only based on fear of border hassles, it was also because we did not want to support the Trump regime financially. As Canadians, we have no political clout in the U.S. But voting with our feet is still effective and satisfying. Steen Petersen, Nanaimo Letters to the editor should be sent to sunletters@
