House Republicans propelled President Donald Trump’s US$4.5-trillion tax breaks and spending cuts bill to final congressional passage Thursday, overcoming multiple setbacks to approve his signature second-term policy package before a July 4 deadline.
The tight roll call vote, 218–214, came at a potentially high political cost, with two Republicans joining all Democrats in opposition. GOP leaders worked overnight, and the president himself leaned on a handful of skeptics to drop their opposition and send the bill to him to sign into law. Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York delayed voting by holding the floor for more than eight hours with a record-breaking speech against the bill.
“We have a big job to finish,” said House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La. “With one big beautiful bill we are going to make this country stronger, safer and more prosperous than ever before.”
The outcome delivers a milestone for the president — by his Friday goal — and for his party. It was a long-shot effort to compile a lengthy list of GOP priorities into what they called his “one big beautiful bill,” an 800-plus-page measure. With Democrats unified in opposition, the bill will become a defining measure of Trump’s return to the White House, aided by Republican control of Congress.
Tax breaks and safety net cuts
At its core, the package’s priority is preserving US$4.5 trillion in tax breaks enacted in 2017 during Trump’s first term that would otherwise expire, along with introducing new ones. These include allowing workers to deduct tips and overtime pay, and a US$6,000 deduction for most older adults earning less than US$75,000 a year.
There’s also a hefty investment — about US$350 billion — in national security, Trump’s deportation agenda and to help develop a “Golden Dome” defensive system over the U.S.
To help offset the lost tax revenue, the package includes US$1.2 trillion in cutbacks to Medicaid and food stamps, largely by imposing new work requirements — including for some parents and older people — and rolling back green energy tax credits.
The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office estimates the package will add US$3.3 trillion to the deficit over the next decade, and 11.8 million more people will go without health coverage.
“This was a generational opportunity to deliver the most comprehensive and consequential set of conservative reforms in modern history, and that’s exactly what we’re doing,” said Rep. Jodey Arrington (R-Texas), the House Budget Committee chairman.
Democrats united against ‘ugly bill’
Democrats unified against the bill, calling it a tax giveaway to the rich paid for on the backs of the working class and the most vulnerable — what they called “trickle-down cruelty.” Tensions ran high in the chamber.
Jeffries began his speech at 4:53 a.m. EDT and finished at 1:37 p.m., a record 8 hours and 44 minutes, as he argued against what he called Trump’s “big ugly bill.”
“We’re better than this,” Jeffries said. He used a leader’s prerogative for unlimited debate and read letter after letter from Americans writing about their reliance on health care programs.
“I never thought that I’d be on the House floor saying that this is a crime scene,” Jeffries said. “It’s a crime scene, going after the health and the safety and the well-being of the American people.”
And as Democrats, he said, “We want no part of it.”
Political costs of saying no
Hauling the package through Congress has been difficult from the start. Republicans have struggled with the bill nearly every step of the way, quarrelling in the House and Senate and often succeeding only by the narrowest of margins — just one vote.
A week ago, Congressional Republicans agreed to remove the so-called revenge tax provision. Section 899 would have allowed the federal government to impose taxes on companies with foreign owners, as well as investors from countries judged as charging “unfair foreign taxes” on U.S. companies.
The Senate passed the package a few days ago, with Vice-President JD Vance breaking the tie. The slim majority in the House left Republicans with little room for defections.
Despite their discomfort with various aspects of the sprawling package, in some ways it became too big to fail — in part because Republicans found it difficult to buck Trump.
As Wednesday’s stalled floor action dragged on overnight, Trump railed against the delays.
“What are the Republicans waiting for???” the president said in a midnight post. “What are you trying to prove???”
Johnson relied heavily on White House cabinet secretaries, lawyers and others to satisfy skeptical GOP holdouts. Moderate Republicans worried about the severity of the cuts, while conservatives pressed for steeper reductions. Lawmakers said they were being told the administration could provide executive actions, projects or other provisions in their home districts.
Rollback of past presidential agendas
In many ways, the package is a repudiation of the agendas of the last two Democratic presidents — chiselling away at the Medicaid expansion from Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act, and pulling back Joe Biden’s climate change strategies in the Inflation Reduction Act.
Democrats have described the bill in dire terms, warning that cuts to Medicaid — which some 80 million Americans rely on — would result in lives lost. Food stamps that help feed more than 40 million people would “rip food from the mouths of hungry children, hungry veterans and hungry seniors,” Jeffries said.
Republicans argue the tax breaks will prevent a tax hike on households and grow the economy. They say they are trying to right-size the safety net programs for the population they were initially designed to serve — mainly pregnant women, the disabled and children — and root out what they describe as waste, fraud and abuse.
The Tax Policy Center, which provides non-partisan analysis of tax and budget policy, projected the bill would result next year in a US$150 tax break for the lowest quintile of Americans, a US$1,750 tax cut for the middle quintile and a US$10,950 tax cut for the top quintile — compared with what they would face if the 2017 tax cuts expired.