US House of Representatives passes Trump’s ‘One Big Beautiful Bill’

After astir 29 hours of debate, the United States House of Representatives have passed the “One Big Beautiful Bill”, an tremendous taxation chopped and spending package that represents a pillar of President Donald Trump’s agenda.

The little location of the US Congress voted by a borderline of 218 to 214 successful favour of the measure connected Thursday.

All 212 Democratic members of the House opposed the bill. They were joined by Representatives Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, who broke from the Republican majority.

The measure present heads to the White House for Trump to motion it into law. The Republican president had called connected his chap enactment members to walk the authorities earlier July 4, the country’s Independence Day.

As a effect of the caller legislation, the US volition assistance its indebtedness ceiling — the magnitude the national authorities is allowed to get — by $5 trillion.

The measure besides pours tens of billions of dollars into migration enforcement, 1 of Trump’s apical priorities, and it volition besides cement the 2017 taxation cuts that Trump championed during his archetypal word arsenic president.

To wage for those expenditures, the measure scaled backmost societal initiatives similar Medicaid — authorities wellness security for low-income households — and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), different known arsenic nutrient stamps.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has estimated that the measure volition summation the fig of radical without wellness security by 17 cardinal implicit the adjacent 10 years.

It besides projected that the country’s shortage — the magnitude of wealth the US owes — would ascent by astir about $3.3 trillion implicit the aforesaid period.

Democratic lawmakers had slammed the measure arsenic a monolithic redistribution of wealthiness from the mediocre to the rich, noting that the taxation cuts volition chiefly payment the wealthiest earners.

Republican supporters similar Trump person countered that the measure volition fuel growth and chopped discarded and fraud successful the programmes similar Medicaid.

Yet, not each conservatives backed the “One Big Beautiful Bill” arsenic it coiled its mode done the chambers of Congress. There were respective Republican holdouts who feared however the Medicaid cuts would interaction low-income and agrarian communities, and immoderate fiscal conservatives objected to the summation successful the nationalist debt.

“FOR REPUBLICANS, THIS SHOULD BE AN EASY YES VOTE,” Trump said successful a societal media station connected Wednesday night. “RIDICULOUS!!!”

Even Trump’s erstwhile ally, billionaire Elon Musk, has publically opposed the measure implicit provisions helium described arsenic “pork”.

US House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries delivers a marathon code connected July 3 [House TV/Handout via Reuters]

A record-breaking speech

In the lead-up to Thursday’s vote, Democrats attempted to stall, with the stated purpose of allowing voters much clip to interaction their section representatives successful protest.

The look of that effort was Democratic Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, who exercised a privilege known arsenic the “magic minute” that allows enactment leaders to talk arsenic agelong arsenic they privation from the House floor.

Jeffries stretched that privilege into an hours-long entreaty to Republicans to basal up against what helium described arsenic Trump’s harmful policies. He started astatine astir 4:53am section clip (8:53 GMT) and ended past 1:39pm (17:39 GMT).

It was the longest code ever delivered connected the House floor, astir 8 hours and 44 minutes.

“I’m present to instrumentality my saccharine clip connected behalf of the American people,” Jeffries told the House, his dependable wavering astatine points during the speech.

He directed his remarks to the talker of the House, a enactment relation occupied by Republican Mike Johnson.

“Donald Trump’s deadline whitethorn beryllium Independence Day. That ain’t my deadline,” Jeffries said. “You cognize why, Mr. Speaker? We don’t enactment for Donald Trump. We enactment for the American people.”

Jeffries warned that the “One Big Beautiful Bill” — which helium dubbed the “One Big Ugly Bill” — “hurts mundane Americans and rewards billionaires with monolithic taxation breaks”. The legislation, helium added, was simply reckless.

He called his colleagues crossed the aisle to amusement “show John McCain-level courage”, dropping a notation to the precocious Republican legislator from Arizona, known for lasting up to Trump connected the question of healthcare.

McCain has often been cited arsenic a awesome of bipartisanship successful Congress, and Jeffries urged his Republican colleagues to scope crossed the aisle.

“We acknowledged the predetermination of President Donald Trump, offered to enactment with our colleagues connected the different broadside of the aisle whenever and wherever imaginable successful bid to marque beingness amended for the American people,” Jeffries said.

“But the route, Mr Speaker, that has been taken by House Republicans is to spell it unsocial and to effort to jam this One Big Ugly Bill — filled with utmost right-wing argumentation priorities — down the throats of the American people.”

In a canvass past week from Quinnipiac University, for example, conscionable 29 percent of respondents indicated they were successful favour of the legislation, portion 55 percent were against it.

Jeffries aboriginal added, “We’re not present to crook the genu to immoderate wannabe king,” comparing absorption to Trump to the US’s revolutionary warfare era. When helium yet said helium would output backmost the floor, Democrats exploded into applause, chanting his name: “Hakeem! Hakeem! Hakeem!”

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson successfully rallied Republicans for the bill’s transition [J Scott Applewhite/AP Photo]

Republicans rally successful last stretch

In bid to scope Thursday’s vote, the House had remained successful league overnight, arsenic portion of a marathon session.

But successful the minutes earlier the melodramatic ballot took place, Speaker Johnson himself concisely spoke to the House, rallying Republicans to amusement a unified front.

He besides took a jab astatine Jeffries’s record-breaking speech: “It takes a batch longer to physique a prevarication than to archer the elemental truth.”

“We’ve waited agelong enough. Some of america person virtually been up for days now,” Johnson continued. “With this One Big Beautiful Bill, we are going to marque this state stronger, safer and much prosperous than ever before, and each American is going to payment from that.”

He added that the “One Big Beautiful Bill” would marque programmes similar Medicaid “stronger with our reforms”.

Still, astatine the last hurdle, 2 Republicans did interruption distant from their enactment caucus to ballot against the “One Big Beautiful Bill”.

In the aftermath of the vote, 1 of the nay-votes, Representative Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania released a statement said helium had antecedently voted to “strengthen Medicaid”. The Senate mentation of the “One Big Beautiful Bill”, helium argued, did the opposite.

“The archetypal House connection was written successful a mode that protected our community; the Senate amendments fell abbreviated of our standard,” Fitzpatrick wrote.

“I judge in, and volition ever combat for, policies that are thoughtful, compassionate, and bully for our community.”

A months-long process

It has been a agelong roadworthy for Republicans to scope Thursday’s vote, stretching backmost months. The House archetypal passed the “One Big Beautiful Bill” connected May 22, successful different overnight vote.

In that May vote, the authorities passed by the narrowest of margins, with 215 voting successful favour and 214 against. Representatives Massie and Warren Davidson of Ohio joined a unified Democratic beforehand successful voting against the measure astatine that time, and Maryland’s Andy Harris voted “present”. Two much Republicans missed the ballot entirely.

That propelled the measure to the Senate, wherever it faced different uphill battle. The 100-seat enclosure has 53 Republicans and 47 Democrats and left-leaning independents.

To debar facing a Democratic filibuster, Republicans subjected the “One Big Beautiful Bill” to the Byrd Rule, which allows authorities to walk with a elemental majority.

But successful bid to comply with the Byrd Rule, Republicans had to onslaught provisions that had small to nary fund interaction oregon accrued the shortage extracurricular of a 10-year window.

Still, the revised Senate mentation of the measure faced a nail-biter of a vote. On July 1, aft different all-nighter, the ballot was 50 to 50, with 3 Republicans siding with the Democrats. Vice President JD Vance cast the tie-breaker to beforehand the bill.

Democrats did, however, notch a tiny symbolic victory, with Senator Chuck Schumer knocking the sanction “One Big Beautiful Bill” disconnected the last portion of legislation.

It was the Senate’s mentation of the measure that the House voted connected Thursday. At slightest 1 Republican senator, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, has expressed distaste for the authorities since voting for its passage.

“It is the radical of Alaska that I interest astir the most, particularly erstwhile it comes to the imaginable nonaccomplishment of societal information nett programs — Medicaid sum and SNAP benefits — that our astir susceptible populations trust on,” she wrote successful a statement earlier this week.

“Let’s not kid ourselves. This has been an atrocious process — a frantic unreserved to conscionable an artificial deadline that has tested each bounds of this institution.”