Senate passes Trump’s big tax and spending cuts bill as Vance breaks a 50-50 tie

Senate Majority Leader John Thune R-S D is followed by reporters as he walks from the chamber to his office as Republicans begin a final push to advance President Donald Trump's tax breaks and spending cuts package at the Capitol in Washington Monday June AP Photo Manuel Balce Ceneta AP Manuel Balce Ceneta Senate Majority Leader John Thune R-S D is followed by reporters as he walks from the chamber to his office as Republicans begin a final push to advance President Donald Trump's tax breaks and spending cuts package at the Capitol in Washington Monday June AP Photo Manuel Balce Ceneta AP Manuel Balce Ceneta WASHINGTON AP Senate Republicans hauled President Donald Trump s big tax breaks and spending cuts bill to passage Tuesday by the narrowest of margins pushing past opposition from Democrats and their own GOP ranks after a turbulent overnight session The 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 - 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 noted afterward The difficulty for Republicans who have the majority 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 of Louisiana 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 scheduled a Wednesday vote and vowed to put it on Trump s desk by his July Fourth deadline which is Friday It s a pivotal moment for the president and his party as they have been consumed by the now -page One Big Beautiful Bill Act which was its formal title before Democrats filed an amendment to strip out the name Republicans are investing their political capital in delivering on their 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 announced I don t like cuts Senators work around the clock What started as a routine but laborious day of amendment voting in a process called vote-a-rama spiraled into an all-night slog as Republican leaders bought time to shore up encouragement 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 largest part conservative flank which yearned even steeper cuts to hold down deficits ballooning with the tax cuts The GOP leaders had no room to spare Thune could lose no more than three Republican senators and two Tillis who warned that millions of people will lose access to Medicaid medical care and Paul who opposes raising the debt limit by trillion had already indicated opposition Attention hurriedly turned to two other key senators Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Collins who also raised concerns about wellbeing care cuts as well as a loose coalition of four conservative GOP senators pushing for even steeper reductions Murkowski in particular became the subject of GOP leaders attention as they sat beside her for talks Then all eyes were on Paul after he returned from a visit to Thune s office Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer of New York revealed Republicans are in shambles because they know the bill is so unpopular An analysis from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office discovered million more Americans would become uninsured by if the bill became law The CBO declared the package would increase the deficit by nearly trillion over the decade Pressure built from all sides Billionaire Elon Musk revealed anyone 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 revealed his own decision over the weekend not to seek reelection Senators insist on changes Limited Republicans appeared fully satisfied as the final package emerged in either the House or the Senate Collins fought to include 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 commented 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 agonizing She secured provisions to temporarily spare Alaska and other states from several food stamp cuts but her efforts to bolster Medicaid reimbursements fell short She voted yes What s in the big bill All reported the Senate bill includes trillion in tax cuts according to the latest CBO analysis making permanent Trump s 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 ability tax credits which Democrats warn will wipe out wind and solar investments nationwide It would impose trillion in cuts largely to Medicaid and food stamps by imposing work requirements on able-bodied people including particular parents and older Americans making sign-up eligibility more stringent and changing federal reimbursements to states Additionally the bill would provide a billion infusion for frontier and national protection including for deportations particular of it paid for with new fees charged to immigrants The big not so beautiful bill has passed Paul announced Democrats fight 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 Sen 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 program and the cost of extending them should not be counted toward deficits She commented that kind of magic math won t fly with Americans trying to balance their own household books Associated Press writers Joey Cappelletti Darlene Superville Seung Min Kim and Kevin Freking contributed to this analysis Source