US Senate in final push to pass Trump spending bill

eNCA

18 hours ago

WASHINGTON - US senators were in a marathon session of amendment votes as Republicans sought to pass Donald Trump's flagship spending bill, an unpopular package set to slash social welfare programs and add an eye-watering $3-trillion to the national debt.
The president wants his "One Big Beautiful Bill" to extend his expiring first-term tax cuts at a cost of $4.5-trillion, boost military spending and fund his plans for unprecedented mass deportations and border security.
But senators eyeing 2026 midterm congressional elections are divided over provisions that would strip around $1-trillion in subsidised health care from millions of the poorest Americans and add more than $3.3-trillion to the nation's already yawning budget deficits over a decade.
Trump wants to have the package on his desk by the time Independence Day festivities begin on Friday.
Progress in the Senate slowed to a glacial pace Monday, however, with no end in sight as the so-called "vote-a-rama" -- a session allowing members to offer unlimited amendments before a bill can move to final passage -- went into a 17th hour.
Trump defended the bill in a series of Truth Social posts overnight Tuesday, as "perhaps the greatest and most important of its kind in history" and said failure to pass would mean a "whopping 68 percent tax increase, the largest in history."
With little sign of the pace picking up ahead of a final floor vote that could be delayed until well into the early hours of Tuesday, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt called for Republicans to "stay tough and unified."
Vote-a-ramas have been concluded in as little nine or 10 hours in the recent past and Democrats accused Republicans of deliberately slow-walking the process.
"They've got a lot of members who were promised things that they may not be able to deliver on. And so they're just stalling," Senate Democratic Minority Leader Chuck Schumer told reporters.
"But we're just pushing forward amendment after amendment. They don't like these amendments. The public is on our side in almost every amendment we do."
Given Trump's iron grip on the party, he is expected to eventually get what he wants in the Senate, where Republicans hold a razor-thin majority and can overcome what is expected to be unified Democratic opposition.
That would be a huge win for the Republican leader -- who has been criticized for imposing many of his priorities through executive orders that sidestep the scrutiny of Congress.
But approval by the Senate is only half the battle, as the 940-page bill next heads to a separate vote in the House of Representatives, where several rebels in the slim Republican majority are threatening to oppose it.