WASHINGTON (AP) — House Republicans pushed back on track Thursday toward passing President Donald Trump’s $4.5 trillion tax breaks and spending cuts bill before a Fourth of July deadline after a record eight-hour plus speech against the package by the Democratic leader.
Rep. Hakeem Jeffries of New York seized the floor in the early morning and kept speaking out into the afternoon arguing against the bill's cuts to health care and food stamps and other programs in what he called Trump's “big ugly bill.”
“We’re better than this,” Jeffries said. And as Democrats, he said, “We want no part of it.”
Utilizing a leader’s prerogative in the chamber for unlimited debate, he read letter after letter from Americans writing about how they depended on the safety net programs and would be harmed by cuts.
Tensions ran high. As he finished, fellow Democrats chanted his name. But a top Republican, Rep. Jason Smith of Missouri, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee that drafted the tax bill, called it “a bunch of hogwash.”
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., Johnson promised his own speech would be short, as lawmakers worked to finish up the bill after another chaotic day, and night, at the Capitol.
“We have a big job to finish,” Johnson said. "With one big beautiful bill we are going to make this country stronger, safer and more prosperous than ever before."
The outcome would be a milestone for the president and his party, compiling a long list of their 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 its core: $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.
It provides some $350 billion for national security, Trump's deportation agenda and development of the “Golden Dome” defensive system over the United States.
To help offset the costs of lost tax revenue, the package has $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 proposal will add $3.3 trillion to the nation's debt 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 stand united in opposition
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 of Connecticut, the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee.
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
In some ways, the bill became too big to fail, in part because Republicans found it difficult to buck Trump.
As Wednesday’s stalled floor action dragged overnight, Trump railed against the delays.
“What are the Republicans waiting for???” the president said in a midnight post. “What are you trying to prove???”
Johnson relied heavily on White House Cabinet secretaries, lawyers and others to satisfy skeptical GOP holdouts. Moderate Republicans worried about the severity of cuts while conservatives pressed for steeper reductions. Lawmakers said they were being told the administration could provide executive actions, projects or other provisions in their districts back home.
The alternative was clear. Republicans who staked out opposition to the bill, including Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, and Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina, were being warned by Trump’s well-funded political operation. Tillis soon after announced he would not seek reelection.
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 say 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 increase 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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Associated Press writers Kevin Freking, Joey Cappelletti and Matt Brown contributed to this report.
Lisa Mascaro, Mary Clare Jalonick And Leah Askarinam, The Associated Press
