Republicans push ahead with Trump's US$4.5 trillion 'mega-bill' amid backlash

New Straits Times

10 hours ago

WASHINGTON: US senators raced towards a final vote Tuesday on President Donald Trump's mammoth domestic policy bill, as Republicans voiced lingering misgivings over deep welfare cuts it proposes and the US$3 trillion it will pile onto the national debt.
Republican leaders had struggled to corral support during a record 24-hour "vote-a-rama" amendment session on the Senate floor, as Democrats offered dozens of challenges to the most unpopular aspects of the divisive package.
But Republican Senate Majority Leader John Thune voiced tentative confidence mid-morning that he had achieved a breakthrough.
Asked if Republican leaders had a deal to move ahead in the coming hours with a vote on final passage, Thune told reporters: "I believe we do."
"I'm of Scandinavian heritage, so always a bit of a realist," he added. "So we'll see what happens."
Trump's "One Big Beautiful Bill" proposes a US$4.5 trillion extension of his first term tax cuts, contentiously offset with US$1.2 trillion in cuts mainly to health care coverage for low-income Americans that will leave an estimated 12 million uninsured.
It also rolls back billions of dollars in green energy tax credits while providing a US$350 billion infusion for border security and Trump's mass deportation program.
The president made clear that the goal remains to sign the package into law by Friday's Independence Day holiday, although he acknowledged that the self-imposed deadline could slip.
"It's going to get in, it's going to pass, and we're going to be very happy," he told reporters as arrived in Florida for trip to view migrant detention facilities.
Polls show the bill is among the most unpopular ever considered across multiple demographic, age and income groups, and Democrats hope to leverage public anger ahead of the 2026 midterm elections when they aim to retake the House.
Backed by extensive independent analysis, they say the bill's tax cuts would disproportionately benefit the wealthy at the expense of social safety net programs for the poorest Americans.
"It's bad legislation," Arizona senator Mark Kelly told MSNBC. "If this passes, this is a political gift for Democrats."
A handful of senators in the Republican majority had also threatened to upset the apple cart, echoing Democratic concerns that the bill would add more than US$3.3 trillion to the nation's already yawning budget deficits over a decade.
The most high-profile opposition has come from outside Congress, however, in the shape of tech billionaire and estranged former Trump aide Elon Musk, who balked at the bill's debt implications and stripping of clean energy subsidies.
In a dramatic reignition of his feud with Trump, Musk vowed to launch a new political party to challenge lawmakers who campaigned on reduced federal spending only to vote for the bill.
Musk – whose businesses include rocket company and government contractor SpaceX, which has about US$22 billion in federal contracts – has been campaigning against the bill since quitting as a Trump advisor in May.
A furious Trump on Tuesday said he would consider deporting Musk and ending federal funds for his companies.
"Elon may get more subsidy than any human being in history, by far," Trump posted in a retort on social media, "and without subsidies, Elon would probably have to close up shop and head back home to South Africa."
Although the House of Representatives has already passed their own version of the bill, it will have to come back to the lower chamber for a final rubber stamp before it reaches Trump's desk.
House Republicans were watching anxiously from the sidelines to see if their Senate colleagues would adopt changes that would be hard for Speaker Mike Johnson to sell to his lawmakers.
Fiscal hawks in the lower chamber are furious at what they say is US$651 billion of extra deficit spending in the Senate's tweaks.
A House vote could come as early as Wednesday but even with full attendance, House Republicans can only afford to lose three votes.