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What's inside Donald Trump's ‘One Big Beautiful Bill': Tax cuts, medicaid & food aid slashed, no EV credits & more

What's inside Donald Trump's ‘One Big Beautiful Bill': Tax cuts, medicaid & food aid slashed, no EV credits & more

Mint6 hours ago
Senate Republicans have passed on July 1 President Donald Trump's massive tax and spending bill after a voting marathon, clearing the way for a final showdown in the House before the July 4 deadline the president set to sign the legislation.
Dubbed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, the nearly 900-page package would extend Trump's 2017 tax cuts, create new benefits for workers and businesses, roll back clean energy incentives, and impose cuts to safety net programs including Medicaid and food assistance.
State and Local Tax Deduction: Temporarily raises the SALT cap to $40,000 through 2029, phasing out for incomes above $500,000. Some GOP holdouts, like Rep. Nick LaLota (R-NY), still oppose the provision, arguing it should be extended for at least a decade.
No Tax on Tips and Overtime: Exempts up to $25,000 in annual tips and $12,500 in overtime pay per individual through 2028, with phase-outs starting at $150,000 in income.
Child Tax Credit: Increases to $2,200 per child and permanently adjusts for inflation.
Trump Child Accounts: Allows up to $5,000 a year in tax-deferred contributions for children. Newborns between 2025 and 2028 would get a $1,000 federal contribution.
Auto Loan Deduction: Creates a new deduction up to $10,000 for auto loan interest on U.S.-assembled vehicles.
Business Tax Breaks: Makes three corporate deductions permanent, including 100% bonus depreciation, a move likely to benefit manufacturers and banks.
Semiconductors: Expands the chip investment credit from 25% to 35%.
Medicaid: Nearly $1 trillion in cuts over a decade. The Congressional Budget Office estimates 11.8 million Americans could lose coverage.
Work Requirements: New mandates for Medicaid recipients who aren't elderly, disabled, or caring for young children.
Food Stamps: Expands work requirements up to age 65 and shifts some costs to states. Alaska and Hawaii won partial waivers to secure support from Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK).
Clean Energy: Accelerates phase-out of wind and solar tax credits, requiring projects to be operational by end of 2027. Also eliminates an excise tax targeting Chinese components.
Electric Vehicles: Ends the $7,500 EV tax credit by September 30, 2025.
Border Security: Allocates $92 billion for border infrastructure and migrant detention, including new funding for Trump's wall.
Remittance Tax: Imposes a 1% fee on money sent abroad, down from 3.5% in the House version.
Rural Hospitals: Creates a $50 billion fund to cushion Medicaid cuts in rural communities.
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau: Slashes its funding cap nearly in half.
Endowment Tax: Raises rates on wealthy universities, with a top rate of 8% on large endowments.
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How South Africa could harness Donald Trump's wrath
How South Africa could harness Donald Trump's wrath

Hindustan Times

time29 minutes ago

  • Hindustan Times

How South Africa could harness Donald Trump's wrath

NO SAILOR LIKES a hurricane. But if the alternative is drifting in the doldrums without hope, even vicious gales have their uses. As South Africa is buffeted by criticism from President Donald Trump and other American conservatives—some of it unfair and pushed by bad-faith actors—centrist business and political leaders dream of riding that storm to hasten reforms. In February Mr Trump issued an executive order suspending American aid to South Africa, including funding for HIV medications that keep millions alive. His order accused South Africa's government of fuelling violence against the country's white minority and condemned a new law that, on paper, allows land to be taken without compensation. It said this was an attack on white South African farmers known as Afrikaners. These whites, of mostly Dutch, French and German descent, are invited to apply for asylum in America. For good measure the order called South Africa's foreign policies 'aggressive' towards America and its allies, notably Israel, which South Africa has accused of genocide before the International Court of Justice in The Hague. On May 21st South Africa's president, Cyril Ramaphosa, a glad-handing but paralysingly cautious stalwart of the ruling African National Congress (ANC), stepped into the tempest's eye. Invited to the White House with government ministers, a trade union boss and Mr Trump's golfing buddies, Mr Ramaphosa was ambushed in the Oval Office. He had hoped to lobby for his country to remain in AGOA, a trade pact that gives many African nations preferential access to American markets. After Mr Trump gave the word, video screens showed footage of a radical opposition leader chanting anti-white slogans. 'Officials' in South Africa are saying 'kill the farmer and take their land,' Mr Trump baselessly claimed. America's direct leverage is not what it was. After years of deepening ties with China and the rest of Africa, South Africa sent just 13% of its exports to America in 2023, of which about a quarter were covered by AGOA. Business groups estimate that between 200,000 and 300,000 jobs depend on AGOA, mostly in carmaking and farming. AGOA is formally in the gift of America's Congress, and long before Mr Trump's re-election Republicans and Democrats in Washington grumbled about South Africa's closeness to China, Iran and Russia, and its expressions of sympathy for Hamas, the Palestinian terror group. The port city of Cape Town faces 'quite concentrated AGOA risks' as a centre for exporting citrus fruit, wine and car engines, frets its mayor, Geordin Hill-Lewis. He is from the Democratic Alliance (DA), a business-friendly party and junior partner in Mr Ramaphosa's coalition government. Mr Hill-Lewis declares that South Africa has behaved 'appallingly' towards America for years. 'If there were a textbook for alienating friends, we have written it,' he says in his office overlooking the bustling docks. He suggests that big American firms have long chafed at post-apartheid laws that oblige many foreign firms to set up licensed local subsidiaries then sell 30% stakes in them to black business interests, under a system known as Black Economic Empowerment (BEE). Critics charge that BEE-related equity transfers enrich a few, well connected black executives. There have already been reforms in several sectors, allowing firms to invest in community projects and employ local suppliers, rather than hand over ownership stakes. In the words of an insider, previous governments hesitated to allow such workarounds in the digital-services industry, fearing a 'backlash' from ANC hardliners about the watering down of BEE. Now the government is asking regulators to allow Starlink, the satellite-internet firm owned by Elon Musk, a South African-born billionaire, to give free broadband services to 5,000 rural schools instead of sharing ownership rights. That responds to pressure from Mr Musk, who says BEE laws are racist. 'Hardball' American lobbying is unhelpful. But some pressure 'allows those who have pushed for reforms to say, you see, there are negative consequences' to rigid versions of BEE, says the DA leader, John Steenhuisen. Songezo Zibi leads Rise Mzansi, a small centrist party. He says fears about the expropriation law are exaggerated: it is a compromise that mirrors language in the constitution. Radicals wanted something harsher. In contrast, he worries that even old friends from the Democratic Party in Washington were confounded by South Africa's go-it-alone Gaza campaign. Mr Zibi would like his country to act in concert with China, Brazil and others. Shining a light on home-grown problems Weighing America's clout in South African public debate is not simple. For one thing, its former generosity was not always noticed. Sikelela Dibela serves tasty, home-roasted coffee in his café in Khayelitsha, a black township outside Cape Town. He only learned that American aid part-funded a local HIV clinic when doctors talked of job losses over coffee. Mr Dibela credits Mr Ramaphosa with keeping his cool in the Oval Office, so that: 'It was not an embarrassment like with Zelensky.' Still, he says that talk of a 'white genocide' is false and inspires widespread anger. Colin Mkosi, the founder of a bicycle-delivery service in Langa, a nearby township, defends BEE rules that hand equity to black executives. Without ownership, people 'can be sidelined', he says. He objects to foreign investors trying to 'dictate how we do things'. Importantly, external criticism is prompting self-reflection. 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University of Pennsylvania bans transgender women from women's sports, Ends Lia Thomas case
University of Pennsylvania bans transgender women from women's sports, Ends Lia Thomas case

Time of India

time35 minutes ago

  • Time of India

University of Pennsylvania bans transgender women from women's sports, Ends Lia Thomas case

Live Events (You can now subscribe to our (You can now subscribe to our Economic Times WhatsApp channel The University of Pennsylvania has decided to renounce its decision, which allowed transgender women to compete in female-only sports under past National Collegiate Athletic Association rules. This comes as the university has agreed with the Trump administration's broader attempt to remove transgender athletes from girls' and women's a part of the agreement, Penn has said that it will erase any athletic records and titles they earned by them and will also update records set by transgender swimmer Lia Thomas . She became the first openly transgender athlete to win an NCAA Division 1 championship in 2022 while competing on the UPenn women's swim also apologized to female athletes "disadvantaged" by Thomas' participation on the women's swimming team, part of a resolution of a federal civil rights accord announced on Tuesday, July 1, 2025, settles a U.S. Education Department investigation opened against the Ivy League school in late April 2025 under Title IX, the civil rights law prohibiting sex discrimination in education programs receiving federal probe stemmed from an uproar sparked three years ago when a transgender athlete, Thomas, last competed for the Ivy League school in Philadelphia in 2022 and won a Division I outcome did not go down well with several fans and athletes who questioned the equity of opening all-women's sports to contestants who self-identify as female contrary to their assigned male birth gender. Critics see transgender women as tending to possess more masculine physicality regardless of identity or presentation, giving them an unfair edge in size and strength on the women athletes also have balked at having to share locker room and shower facilities with transgender teammates. In a statement on behalf of the university, UPenn President J. Larry Jameson said his school does not set its transgender sports policies but follows applicable Title IX and U.S.-wide intercollegiate rules, including those in effect during the 2021-2022 swim season when Thomas assuming office following the victory in the US Presidential elections, President Donald Trump signed an executive order in February 2025 banning transgender athletes from participating in all-female school noted that the NCAA, the governing body for U.S. college-level athletics, has since altered its own rules to limit competition in female-only sports to individuals assigned the gender of female at birth and that UPenn already abides by those "we acknowledge that some student-athletes were disadvantaged" by the previous rules, Jameson wrote. He added, "We recognize this and will apologize to those who experienced a competitive disadvantage or experienced anxiety because of the policies in effect at the time."The university also will update women's swimming records set at UPenn three years ago to reflect "who would now hold the records under current eligibility guidelines," he Jameson said UPenn would release a public statement reaffirming its commitment to current Title IX policies, including "definitions of sex—with respect to women's athletics—that have been set out through two specific (Trump) executive orders."The Education Department's announcement differed sharply in tone, referring to transgender women athletes as "male athletes allowed to compete in female athletic categories and occupy female-only intimate facilities." It also described Trump's executive orders as "Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism" and "Keeping Men Out of Women's Sports."No mention was made of the $175 million in federal funding the administration suspended from UPenn in March over the issue of transgender competition in student sports. Trump has threatened to withhold federal dollars from educational institutions over a range of issues, from pro-Palestinian protests to affirmative action. The debate over transgender women in sports has resonated as a question of basic fair play across the political divide.

"Biggest winner will be American people," says Donald Trump as Senate passes 'One Big Beautiful Bill'
"Biggest winner will be American people," says Donald Trump as Senate passes 'One Big Beautiful Bill'

Time of India

time36 minutes ago

  • Time of India

"Biggest winner will be American people," says Donald Trump as Senate passes 'One Big Beautiful Bill'

Live Events (You can now subscribe to our (You can now subscribe to our Economic Times WhatsApp channel As the US Senate passed the 'One Big Beautiful Bill' with Vice President JD Vance casting the tie-breaking vote, President Donald Trump called it a "major policy win", saying the American people would be the biggest beneficiaries of the described the bill as "everyone's bill" and highlighted its potential impact, lower taxes, higher wages, secure borders, and a stronger military, while asserting that the American people were the "biggest winner.""Almost all of our Great Republicans in the United States Senate have passed our 'ONE, BIG, BEAUTIFUL BILL.' It is no longer a 'House Bill' or a 'Senate Bill'. It is everyone's Bill. There is so much to be proud of, and EVERYONE got a major Policy WIN -- But, the Biggest Winner of them all will be the American People, who will have Permanently Lower Taxes, Higher Wages and Take Home Pay, Secure Borders, and a Stronger and More Powerful Military. Additionally, Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security Benefits are not being cut, but are being STRENGTHENED and PROTECTED from the Radical and Destructive Democrats by eliminating Waste, Fraud, and Abuse from those Programs," Trump wrote on his social media platform, Truth the Bill is now set to be presented at the House of Representatives (lower chamber), Trump urged that the bill is presented to his desk before July 4 (Independence Day of the US)"We can have all of this right now, but only if the House GOP UNITES, ignores its occasional 'GRANDSTANDERS' (You know who you are!), and does the right thing, which is sending this Bill to my desk. We are on schedule -- Let's keep it going, and be done before you and your family go on a July 4th vacation. The American People need and deserve it. They sent us here to, GET IT DONE!" Trump also predicted a wave of economic expansion following the bill's enactment. "Our Country is going to explode with Massive Growth, even more than it already has since I was Re-Elected. Between the Growth, this Bill, our Tariffs, and more, 'THE ONE, BIG, BEAUTIFUL BILL' sets the United States down a fiscal path by greatly reducing our Federal Deficit, and setting us on course for enormous Prosperity in the new and wonderful Golden Age of America," he bill cleared the Senate in a 51-50 vote after days of intense negotiations. Lawmakers worked through the weekend before launching a 27-hour marathon of amendment votes, during which Republican leaders worked to win over dissenting its Senate passage, the bill now faces a tougher path in the House, where at least six Republican lawmakers have publicly opposed it due to proposed deeper Medicaid cuts, changes to clean energy incentives, and modifications to the SALT (state and local tax) deduction provisions originally approved in the House version. Representative Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) has also indicated he may vote against the bill, citing concerns over its projected USD 3 trillion addition to the national Mike Johnson now faces the challenge of rallying the House Republican majority to pass what could become one of the most ambitious and defining legislative achievements of Donald Trump's political legacy.

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