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House GOP Pushing Bill Near Passage 07/03 06:12
House Republicans are ready to vote on President Donald Trump's $4.5
trillion tax breaks and spending cuts bill early Thursday, up all night as GOP
leaders and the president himself worked to persuade skeptical holdouts to drop
their opposition by his Fourth of July deadline.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- House Republicans are ready to vote on President Donald
Trump's $4.5 trillion tax breaks and spending cuts bill early Thursday, up all
night as GOP leaders and the president himself worked to persuade skeptical
holdouts to drop their opposition by his Fourth of July deadline.
Final debates began in the predawn hours after another chaotic day, and
night, at the Capitol. House Speaker Mike Johnson insisted the House would meet
the holiday deadline after the Senate approved Trump's signature domestic
policy package on the narrowest vote.
"Our way is to plow through and get it done," Johnson said, emerging in the
middle of the night from a series of closed-door meetings. "We will meet our
July 4th deadline."
The outcome would be a milestone for the president and his party, a longshot
effort to compile a long list of GOP priorities into what they call his "one
big beautiful bill," an 800-plus page package. With Democrats unified in
opposition, the bill will become a defining measure of Trump's return to the
White House, with the sweep of Republican control of Congress.
Tax breaks and safety net cuts
At it core, the package's priority is $4.5 trillion in tax breaks enacted in
Trump's first term, in 2017, that would expire if Congress failed to act, along
with new ones. This includes allowing workers to deduct tips and overtime pay,
and a $6,000 deduction for most older adults earning less than $75,000 a year.
There's also a hefty investment, some $350 billion, in national security and
Trump's deportation agenda and to help develop the "Golden Dome" defensive
system over the U.S.
To help offset the costs of lost tax revenue, the package includes $1.2
trillion in cutbacks to the Medicaid health care and food stamps, largely by
imposing new work requirements, including for some parents and older people,
and a massive rollback of green energy investments.
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates the package will add
$3.3 trillion to the deficit over the decade and 11.8 million more people will
go without health coverage.
"This was a generational opportunity to deliver the most comprehensive and
consequential set of conservative reforms in modern history, and that's exactly
what we're doing," said Rep. Jodey Arrington, R-Texas, the House Budget
Committee chairman.
Democrats united against 'ugly bill'
Democrats unified against the bill as a tax giveaway to the rich paid for on
the backs of the most vulnerable in society, what they called "trickle down
cruelty."
"Have you no shame?" said Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn. "Have the moral courage
to oppose this bill."
House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries invoked the powerful history of the
nation's Independence Day holiday, and asked: "What does any of that have to do
with this one, big ugly bill?"
He read for nearly two hours from a binder of letters, written by people
across the country explaining how the health care programs have helped their
families -- and how devastating cuts would hurt.
Hauling the package this far in Congress has been difficult from the start.
Republicans have struggled mightily with the bill nearly every step of the way
in the House and Senate, often succeeding only by the narrowest of margins:
just one vote. In the Senate, Vice President JD Vance broke the tie vote. The
slim 220-212 majority in the House leaves Republicans little room for
defections.
Political costs of saying no
But few GOP lawmakers have been fully satisfied with the final product.
Several more moderate Republicans had reservations about the cuts to Medicaid
health care and the loss of green energy credits that could derail solar, wind
and other renewable projects in their districts.
At the same time, conservatives, including those from the House Freedom
Caucus, held out for steeper reductions. Republicans had warned the Senate
against making changes to the House-passed bill, but senators put their own
stamp on the final draft.
The House ground to a standstill Wednesday as a handful of holdouts refused
to move so quickly. A morning roll call dragged for about seven hours, while an
evening vote stalled for more than five, and Trump himself worked the phones
and lashed out on social media.
"What are the Republicans waiting for??? What are you trying to prove???"
Trump railed in a post-midnight vote.
Johnson, who has pulled close to Trump, relied on White House officials --
including Cabinet secretaries, lawyers and others -- to work skeptical
Republicans through the details. Lawmakers were being told the administration
could provide executive actions, projects or other provisions they needed in
their districts back home.
"The president's message was, 'We're on a roll,'" said Rep. Ralph Norman,
R-S.C. "He wants to see this."
And the alternative, of bucking the president on his signature second-term
package, carried grave political risks.
Trump has publicly threatened to campaign against the defectors. One House
Republican who has staked out opposition to the bill, Rep. Thomas Massie of
Kentucky, is being targeted by Trump's well-funded political operation.
And Senate Republican Thom Tillis of North Carolina, who had been on the
receiving end of Trump's lashings, announced he would not seek reelection
shortly before voting against the bill.
Rollback of past presidential agendas
In many ways, the package is a repudiation of the agendas of the last two
Democratic presidents, a chiseling away at the Medicaid expansion from Barack
Obama's Affordable Care Act, and a pullback of Joe Biden's climate change
strategies in the Inflation Reduction Act.
Democrats have described the bill in dire terms, warning that cuts to
Medicaid, which some 80 million Americans rely on, would result in lives lost.
Food stamps that help feed more than 40 million people would "rip food from the
mouths of hungry children, hungry veterans and hungry seniors," Jeffries said.
Republicans say the tax breaks will prevent a tax hike on households and
grow the economy. They maintain they are trying to rightsize the safety net
programs for the population they were initially designed to serve, mainly
pregnant women, the disabled and children, and root out what they describe as
waste, fraud and abuse.
The Tax Policy Center, which provides nonpartisan analysis of tax and budget
policy, projected the bill would result next year in a $150 tax break for the
lowest quintile of Americans, a $1,750 tax cut for the middle quintile and a
$10,950 tax cut for the top quintile. That's compared with what they would face
if the 2017 tax cuts expired.
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