(AFP) – US President Donald Trump’s signature domestic policy bill faced major roadblocks Friday, as his Republicans struggled to overcome differences and many of the spending cuts proposed to pay for his tax breaks were deemed against Senate rules. Trump is hoping to seal his legacy with the so-called “One, Big Beautiful Bill” — extending his expiring first-term tax cuts at a cost of $4.5 trillion and beefing up border security.
But Republicans eying 2026 midterm congressional elections are divided over the package, which would strip health care from millions of the poorest Americans and add more than $3 trillion to America’s burgeoning debt pile. Trump ratcheted up pressure on Congress to get the package to his desk by July 4, posting on social media Friday: “We can get it done. It will be a wonderful Celebration for our Country.”
Senate Republican leaders had planned to begin a weekend of votes beginning Friday to pass the sprawling legislation, but that timetable was in limbo, with negotiations mired in rows. Republicans are using an arcane process called “reconciliation,” which allows them to pass the package on a simple majority, without Democratic buy-in.
But there are strict rules governing the provisions allowed in such legislation, adjudicated by the chamber’s independent “referee,” Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough. The savings come largely from decimating funding for Medicaid, the health insurance program for low-income Americans, but MacDonough called some of those cuts out-of-bounds. That leaves around $250 billion in savings on the cutting room floor, and Republicans scrambling to offset the $4.5 trillion cost of Trump’s tax relief elsewhere.
Republicans are split in any case on the Medicaid cuts, which will threaten scores of rural hospitals and lead to an estimated 8.6 million Americans being deprived of health care. Independent analysis also shows that the bill would pave the way for a historic redistribution of wealth from the poorest 10 percent of Americans to the richest. It is unpopular across multiple demographic, age, and income groups, according to extensive recent polling.
Although the House has already passed its own version, both chambers have to agree on the same text before it can be signed into law. Republican leaders worked Friday to hammer out a version that can get a quick rubber-stamp in the House without returning to the negotiating table. But more than a dozen House Republicans — enough to tank the package — have said they will not vote for the Medicaid cuts. Meanwhile, there are conservatives in both chambers who are adamant that the cuts do not go far enough.
“Every Republican senator is committed,” Trump said at a White House press conference Friday. But he acknowledged the bill’s precarious status, telling reporters that “a couple of grandstanders” could derail his plans. “And it’s very dangerous, because our country would go from being the most successful country in the world to, who knows what,” he said.
© 2024 AFP
