(AFP) – US senators were in a marathon session of amendment votes Tuesday as Republicans sought to pass Donald Trump’s flagship spending bill, an unpopular package set to slash social welfare programs and add an eye-watering $3 trillion to the national debt. The president wants his “One Big Beautiful Bill” to extend his expiring first-term tax cuts at a cost of $4.5 trillion, boost military spending, and fund his plans for unprecedented mass deportations and border security.
But senators eyeing the 2026 midterm congressional elections are divided over provisions that would strip around $1 trillion in subsidized health care from millions of the poorest Americans and add more than $3.3 trillion to the nation’s already yawning budget deficits over a decade. Trump wants to have the package on his desk by the time Independence Day festivities begin on Friday. Progress in the Senate slowed to a glacial pace Monday, however, with no end in sight as the so-called “vote-a-rama” — a session allowing members to offer unlimited amendments before a bill can move to final passage — went into a 17th hour.
Trump defended the bill in a series of Truth Social posts overnight Tuesday, describing it as “perhaps the greatest and most important of its kind in history” and warned that failure to pass it would mean a “whopping 68 percent tax increase, the largest in history.” With little sign of the pace picking up ahead of a final floor vote that could be delayed until well into the early hours of Tuesday, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt called for Republicans to “stay tough and unified.” Vote-a-ramas have been concluded in as little as nine or ten hours in the recent past, and Democrats accused Republicans of deliberately slow-walking the process.
“They’ve got a lot of members who were promised things that they may not be able to deliver on. And so they’re just stalling,” Senate Democratic Minority Leader Chuck Schumer told reporters. “But we’re just pushing forward amendment after amendment. They don’t like these amendments. The public is on our side in almost every amendment we do.”
Given Trump’s iron grip on the party, he is expected to eventually get what he wants in the Senate, where Republicans hold a razor-thin majority and can overcome what is expected to be unified Democratic opposition. That would be a huge win for the Republican leader, who has been criticized for imposing many of his priorities through executive orders that sidestep the scrutiny of Congress. However, approval by the Senate is only half the battle, as the 940-page bill next heads to a separate vote in the House of Representatives, where several rebels in the slim Republican majority are threatening to oppose it.
Trump’s heavy pressure to declare victory has put more vulnerable Republicans in a difficult position. Nonpartisan studies have concluded that the bill would ultimately pave the way for a historic redistribution of wealth from the poorest 10 percent of Americans to the richest. Cuts to the Medicaid program — which helps low-income Americans get coverage in a country with notoriously expensive medical insurance — and cuts to the Affordable Care Act would result in nearly 12 million more uninsured people by 2034, independent analysis shows.
Polls show the bill is among the most unpopular ever considered across multiple demographic, age, and income groups. Senate Democrats have been focusing their amendments on highlighting the threats to health care, as well as cuts to federal food aid programs and clean energy tax credits. Republican Majority Leader John Thune can only lose one more vote, with conservatives Rand Paul and moderate Thom Tillis already on the record as Republican rebels. A House vote on the Senate bill could come as early as Wednesday.
However, ultra-conservative fiscal hawks in the lower chamber have complained that the bill would not cut enough spending, and moderates are worried about the defunding of Medicaid. Trump’s former close aide Elon Musk — who had an acrimonious public falling out with the president earlier this month over the bill — reprised his sharp criticisms and renewed his calls for the formation of a new political party as voting got underway. The tech billionaire, who headed Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency before stepping down at the end of May, accused Republicans of supporting “debt slavery.” He vowed to launch a new political party to challenge lawmakers who campaigned on reduced federal spending only to vote for the bill.
– Frankie TAGGART
© 2024 AFP
