Giant Trump tax bill faces make-or-break vote in Congress

News.com.au

3 days ago

Donald Trump is seeking final approval Wednesday in the US Congress for his marquee tax and spending bill, with Republicans pinning their hopes on a narrow victory that will help seal the president's legacy.
The party's senators passed the sprawling package by a tie-breaking vote Tuesday after a bruising 27 hours of infighting over provisions set to balloon the national debt while launching a historic assault on the social safety net.
It was originally approved by the House of Representatives in May but must return for a rubber stamp of the Senate's revisions -- and success is far from guaranteed.
House Speaker Mike Johnson is facing down rebels on all sides of his fractious party, and the voting timetable has been thrown into doubt by thunderstorms in Washington that are threatening attendance.
"This bill is President Trump's agenda, and we are making it law," Johnson said in a statement, projecting confidence that Republicans were "ready to finish the job."
The package honors many of Trump's campaign promises, boosting military spending, funding a mass migrant deportation drive and committing $4.5 trillion to extend his first-term tax relief.
But it is estimated to pile an extra $3.4 trillion over a decade onto the country's ballooning debt, while forcing through the largest cuts to the Medicaid health insurance program since its 1960s launch.
Fiscal hawks in the House, meanwhile, are chafing over spending cuts that they say fall short of what they were promised by hundreds of billions of dollars.
Johnson has to negotiate incredibly tight margins, and can likely only lose three lawmakers among more than two dozen who have declared themselves open to rejecting the bill.
- Canceled flights -
Lawmakers were aiming to return from recess Wednesday morning to begin voting, although they have a cushion of two days before Trump's self-imposed July 4 deadline.
But severe weather prompted the cancelation of more than 300 flights into Reagan National Airport in the 24 hours before Congress gaveled in, according to the flight-tracking service FlightAware.
Several lawmakers booked alternative flights or embarked on long road journeys to the US capital, but Johnson has warned that travel issues could still push back the vote to Thursday.
The 887-page text only passed in the Senate after a flurry of tweaks that pulled the House-passed text further to the right.
Republicans lost one conservative who was angry about adding to the country's $37 trillion debt burden and two moderates worried about almost $1 trillion in health care cuts.
Some estimates put the total number of recipients set to lose their health insurance at 17 million, while scores of rural hospitals are expected to close.
Meanwhile changes to federal nutrition assistance are set to strip millions of the poorest Americans of their access to the program.
Republicans Chip Roy and Ralph Norman -- angry over provisions adding to the deficit and softening of cuts to clean energy tax credits -- voted against the bill as it narrowly passed the powerful Rules Committee overnight.
Johnson will be banking on Trump leaning on waverers, as he has in the past to turn around contentious House votes that were headed for failure.
Desperate for what might end up being the only landmark legislative achievement of his second term, the president has spent weeks cajoling Republicans torn between angering welfare recipients at home and incurring his wrath.
The president pressured House Republicans to get the bill over the line in a post on his Truth Social platform Wednesday that set out what he saw as the sky-high stakes.
"Our Country will make a fortune this year, more than any of our competitors, but only if the Big, Beautiful Bill is PASSED!" he said.
House Democrats have signaled that they plan to campaign on the bill to flip the chamber in the 2026 midterms, pointing to analyses showing that it represents a historic redistribution of wealth from the poorest Americans to the richest.