(AFP) – US President Donald Trump’s Republicans moved closer Wednesday to finalizing a giant bill encompassing most of his domestic agenda, although its fate remains uncertain amid a bitter row over spending cuts to health care.
After marathon meetings that went through the night, two key House committees approved their portions of Trump’s much-touted “big, beautiful” bill, led by a $5 trillion extension of his first-term tax cuts. But members clinging to seats in liberal districts, and with tough reelection fights in next year’s midterms, have voiced deep misgivings about the health care cuts attached to the package.
The House Energy and Commerce Committee on Wednesday approved a more than $700 billion reduction in health care spending — mostly by slashing the Medicaid program that insures 70 million low-income people. That would leave more than eight million Americans without coverage, according to a nonpartisan estimate by the Congressional Budget Office.
Democrats have angrily defended the at-risk entitlements and say the proposed tax cuts are a debt-inflating gift to the rich, funded by the middle class. House Republicans are slated to attend a briefing Thursday to iron out remaining misgivings, before a final floor vote next week. House Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters nevertheless he was “very optimistic” about getting dissidents on board before the crucial vote.
He can only afford to lose three members, and is already facing a rebellion from several Republicans in high-tax areas, who have refused to back the package without bigger deductions to state and local levies. Johnson is also facing pressure from fiscal hawks on the party’s right who are angry that the cuts do not go far enough to arrest the country’s slide deeper into debt.
If it passes the House, the bill must next run the gauntlet of a vote in the Senate, where some members have criticized the Medicaid cuts and others have complained that the bill does little to address the deficit. “The ‘big, beautiful bill,’ I think that’s the Titanic,” Senator Ron Johnson, a conservative from the swing state of Wisconsin, said during an event in Washington hosted by Politico. “I think that’s going down because I think I have enough colleagues in the Senate that this has resonated with, that say, ‘yeah, we have to return to a reasonable pre-pandemic spending.'”
If the package fails in either the House or Senate, the timetable for ushering in Trump’s priorities would be upended. As the Republican billionaire seeks to cement his legacy with lasting legislation, every week is considered crucial ahead of the 2026 midterms that could see his grip on the levers of power weakened.
© 2024 AFP
