How the Republican ‘big, beautiful bill' exposes democracy flaws
Senate Republicans unveiled a 940-page bill with wide-ranging changes to numerous policy areas just before midnight local time last Friday – planning to vote on the legislation less than a week later.
It was put together so quickly and secretly that even members themselves don't understand how certain
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1News
10 hours ago
- 1News
Elon Musk reignites feud with Trump as 'big, beautiful bill' passes
Elon Musk may find out what happens when DOGE bites man. The billionaire SpaceX, Tesla and X owner who catapulted his zealous embrace of US President Donald Trump into a powerful position slashing government spending now risks sweeping cuts to his own bottom line after resuming the feud that led to their very public bitter split last month. Musk's renewed heckling of Trump's big tax breaks and spending cuts "One Big Beautiful Bill Act", which passed the Senate on Wednesday, threatens to put billions of dollars of his government contracts in jeopardy if Trump retaliates. The rupture of their tenuous peace has resulted in a wobbling of the stock price of a market-moving company and led the president to muse about deporting Musk to his native South Africa. In a Frankenstein-style twist, as Musk volleyed fresh critiques about the cost of Trump's signature legislation, Trump mused Wednesday about turning Musk's Department of Government Efficiency back on its creator. (Source: Associated Press) ADVERTISEMENT "DOGE is the monster that might have to go back and eat Elon," Trump told reporters as he left the White House for a tour of a new immigration detention centre in Florida. Trump also suggested in an early morning social media post that if Musk lost his government contracts, he "would probably have to close up shop and head back home to South Africa". Asked by a reporter later if he would deport Musk, Trump paused and said, "I don't know. We'll have to take a look." In response, Musk wrote on X: "So tempting to escalate this. So, so tempting. But I will refrain for now." Tesla and SpaceX did not respond to messages seeking comment about their chief executive. The big bill divide Musk has called Trump's big bill a financial boondoggle for America that would kill jobs and bog down burgeoning industries. He's not limiting himself to harsh assessments on social media. On Monday, he threatened to reinsert himself into politics and try to oust every member of Congress who votes for the bill. "They will lose their primary next year if it is the last thing I do on this Earth," Musk said in one post. ADVERTISEMENT In other posts, he branded Republicans "the PORKY PIG PARTY!!" and threatened to create a new political party. Trump has said Musk is actually irritated by the legislation's dramatic rollback of the Biden-era green energy tax breaks for electric vehicles and related technologies. Musk has denied this, but the rollback could hurt Tesla's finances. The morning's headlines in 90 seconds, including Australia's weather bomb, the surprising costs of getting one more dog, and BTS are back. (Source: 1News) "Elon may get more subsidy than any human being in history, by far, and without subsidies, Elon would probably have to close up shop and head back home to South Africa," Trump wrote in a post on his Truth Social media network. Musk became a US citizen in 2002, according to a biography of him by Walter Isaacson. It's unclear if Trump would take the extraordinary step of having the government explore the rare process of removing his citizenship, known as denaturalization. Feud has high stakes for Musk Musk's rocket and satellite company, SpaceX, is also in Trump's crosshairs. ADVERTISEMENT "No more Rocket launches, Satellites, or Electric Car Production, and our Country would save a FORTUNE," Trump said in his post. "BIG MONEY TO BE SAVED!!!" SpaceX has received billions of federal dollars to help to send astronauts into space and other work for NASA, including a contract to send a team from the space agency to the moon next year. But the most immediate fallout of their feud was the tumbling stock in Tesla down 5% in early afternoon trading Tuesday. Tesla stock's performance can have an outsize impact on the stock market index funds in which millions of Americans 401(k)s have invested their retirement savings. The electric vehicle maker is one of the Magnificent Seven, the group of companies that includes Apple and Google parent Alphabet and that account for about a third of the value of the S&P 500. Musk's social media outbursts come at a delicate time for his car company. Tesla is just a week into its test run of its self-driving "robotaxi" service in Austin, Texas. Musk needs that test to succeed if he hopes to make good on his promise to investors that he will be able to quickly offer the service in other cities over the next few months. One possible hurdle to that: federal safety regulators. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration requested information from Tesla last week after videos began circulating on social media of a few of its autonomous cabs in Austin driving erratically, including one heading down an opposing lane. ADVERTISEMENT That followed a NHTSA request for data last month on how the driverless taxis will perform in low-visibility conditions, which itself followed an investigation last year into 2.4 million Teslas equipped with full self-driving software after several accidents, including one that killed a pedestrian. Musk needs robotaxis to take off because Tesla's main business of selling cars is going poorly. New fallout from the spat Musk has acknowledged that boycotts by people angry with his political views have hurt sales, but he has largely blamed a less frightening, temporary factor: People are so excited about Tesla's forthcoming latest version of their Model Y SUV that they decided to hold off on purchases for a few months. But now that new version is available, and sales are still tanking. Figures out last week showed sales in Europe plunged 28% in May over the prior year, the fifth month in a row of big drops. A new batch of sales data for other parts of the world, including the US, is coming out Thursday. The irony is that Musk's social media spat with Trump threatens his businesses from both sides. People won't buy his cars because of the memories of his friendship with Trump, and now that and his other businesses could get hurt because that friendship has soured. "In a bizzarro world, he's alienated both sides," said Dan Ives, a Wedbush Securities financial analyst. "It seems impossible, but he's actually done it."
1News
10 hours ago
- 1News
Trump's 'big, beautiful bill' passes Senate with JD Vance's tie-break
Senate Republicans hauled US President Donald Trump's big tax breaks and spending cuts bill to passage on Wednesday on the narrowest of margins, pushing past opposition from Democrats and their own GOP ranks after a turbulent overnight session. The sudden 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. In the end, that tally was 50-50, with Vice President JD Vance casting the tie-breaking vote. Three Republican senators — Thom Tillis of North Carolina, Susan Collins of Maine and Rand Paul of Kentucky — joined all Democrats in voting against it. "In the end, we got the job done," Senate Majority Leader John Thune of South Dakota said afterward. What exactly is in the bill? - Find out here ADVERTISEMENT The difficulty 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 overhaul what his chamber had already approved. But the Senate did make changes, particularly to Medicaid, risking more problems ahead. House GOP leaders vowed to put it on Trump's desk by his Fourth of July deadline. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of N.Y., speaks during a news conference after passage of the budget reconciliation package of President Donald Trump's signature bill . (Source: Associated Press) It's a pivotal moment for the president and his party, as they have been consumed by the 940-page "One Big Beautiful Bill Act", as it was formally titled before Democrats filed an amendment to strip out the name, 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." ADVERTISEMENT What started as a routine but laborious day of amendment voting, in a process called vote-a-rama, spiralled into a round-the-clock slog as Republican leaders were buying time to shore up support. The morning's headlines in 90 seconds, including Australia's weather bomb, the surprising costs of getting one more dog, and BTS are back. (Source: 1News) The droning roll calls in the chamber belied the frenzied action to steady the bill. Grim-faced scenes played out on and off the Senate floor, amid exhaustion. Thune worked around the clock desperately reaching for last-minute agreements between those in his party worried the bill's reductions to Medicaid will leave millions more people without care and his most conservative flank, which wants even steeper cuts to hold down deficits ballooning with the tax cuts. The GOP leaders had no room to spare, with narrow majorities. Thune could lose no more than three Republican senators, and two — Tillis, who warned that millions of people will lose access to Medicaid health care, and Paul, who opposed raising the debt limit by $5 trillion — had already indicated opposition. Attention quickly turned to two other key senators, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Collins, who also raised concerns about health care cuts, as well as a loose coalition of four conservative GOP senators pushing for even steeper reductions. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, walks from the chamber. (Source: Associated Press) ADVERTISEMENT Murkowski in particular became the subject of the GOP leadership's attention, as they sat beside her for talks. She was huddled intensely for more than an hour in the back of the chamber with others, scribbling notes on papers. Then all eyes were on Paul after he returned from a visit to Thune's office with a stunning offer that could win his vote. He had suggested substantially lowering the bill's increase in the debt ceiling, according to two people familiar with the private meeting and granted anonymity to discuss it. Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer of New York said "Republicans are in shambles because they know the bill is so unpopular." An analysis from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office found 11.8 million more Americans would become uninsured by 2034 if the bill became law. The CBO said the package would increase the deficit by nearly US$3.3 trillion (NZ$5.4 trillion) over the decade. Pressure built from all sides. Billionaire Elon Musk said those who voted for the package should "hang their head in shame" and warned he would campaign against them. But Trump had also lashed out against the GOP holdouts including Tillis, who abruptly announced his own decision over the weekend not to seek reelection. (Source: Associated Press) Senators insist on changes ADVERTISEMENT Few Republicans appeared fully satisfied as the final package emerged, in either the House or the Senate. Collins fought to include US$50 billion (NZ$82 billion) for a new rural hospital fund, among the GOP senators worried that the bill's Medicaid provider cuts would be devastating and force them to close. While her amendment for the fund was rejected, the provision was inserted into the final bill. Still she voted no. The Maine senator said she's happy the bolstered funding was added, "but my difficulties with the bill go far beyond that". And Murkowski called the decision-making process "agonising". She secured provisions to spare Alaska and other states from some food stamp cuts, but her efforts to bolster Medicaid reimbursements fell short. She voted yes. What's in the big bill ADVERTISEMENT All told, the Senate bill includes US$4.5 trillion (NZ$7.3 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 US$1.2 trillion (NZ$1.9 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. Additionally, the bill would provide a US$350 billion (NZ$574.6 billion) infusion for border and national security, including for deportations, some of it paid for with new fees charged to immigrants. "The big not so beautiful bill has passed," said Paul. 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 passed. More were considered in one of the longer such sessions in modern times. Senator Patty Murray of Washington, the ranking Democrat on the Appropriations Committee, raised particular concern about the accounting method being used by the Republicans, which says the tax breaks from Trump's first term are now 'current policy' and the cost of extending them should not be counted toward deficits. She said that kind of "magic math" won't fly with Americans trying to balance their own household books.
NZ Herald
12 hours ago
- NZ Herald
How the Republican ‘big, beautiful bill' exposes democracy flaws
THE FACTS Senate Republicans unveiled a 940-page bill with wide-ranging changes to numerous policy areas just before midnight local time last Friday – planning to vote on the legislation less than a week later. It was put together so quickly and secretly that even members themselves don't understand how certain
