Washington: Senate Republicans hauled President Donald Trump’s big tax breaks and
spending cuts Bill to passage Tuesday on the narrowest of votes, pushing past opposition from Democrats and their own GOP ranks after a turbulent overnight session.
Vice President JD Vance broke a 50-50 tie to push it over the top. The three Republicans opposing the
Bill were Sens Thom Tillis of North Carolina, Susan Collins of Maine and Sen Rand Paul of Kentucky.
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.
The difficulty it took for Republicans, who have the majority hold 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 had warned senators not to deviate too far from what his chamber
had already approved.
But the Senate did make changes, particularly to Medicaid, risking
more problems as they race to finish by Trump’s Fourth of July deadline.
The outcome is a pivotal moment for president and his party, which have been consumed by
the 940-page “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” as it’s formally titled, and
invested their political capital in delivering on the GOP’s 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 said.
“I don’t like cuts.” What started as a routine but laborious day of amendment voting, in a process called vote-a-rama, spiralled into a round-the-clock slog as Republican leaders were buying time to shore up support.
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.