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Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” inched closer to passage as a marathon voting session in the US Senate on the flagship tax and spending legislation dragged into the early hours of Tuesday morning.
But while Trump insisted the bill was “moving along nicely”, it remained uncertain whether the sweeping legislation would get buy-in from enough Republicans on Capitol Hill to be signed into law by the end of the week.
Trump has set a July 4 deadline to sign the bill, which was passed by the House of Representatives last month, into law.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Monday that Trump had been “working the phones” and met Senate Republican leader John Thune and Republican Speaker of the House Mike Johnson in a renewed push to stamp out intraparty squabbling and get the bill over the line.
“The White House and the president are adamant that this bill is passed, and this bill makes its way to his desk,” Leavitt said. “Republicans need to stay tough and unified during this home stretch, and we are counting on them to get the job done.”
The bill would fund an extension of the tax cuts introduced in Trump’s first term by slashing spending on healthcare and social welfare programmes.
On Monday, the Senate began a marathon series of votes on amendments to the bill.
But with Democrats unified in their opposition, Trump’s party can only afford to lose three votes in the Senate if the legislation is to pass the upper chamber of Congress by a simple majority. Two Republican senators — Kentucky’s Rand Paul and Thom Tillis of North Carolina — have already said they would vote against the legislation.
Several others have expressed reservations about the bill’s size and scope, including specific provisions that would cut spending on Medicaid, the public health scheme for low-income and disabled Americans, and reverse tax incentives for the renewable energy industry.
The House of Representatives last month passed its own version of the legislation but any version that passes the Senate will need to be sent back to the House for approval before the final text can be sent to Trump’s desk to be signed into law.
Several House Republicans have already sounded alarm bells about the Senate version of the bill — raising the possibility that even if senators pass the legislation this week, it could stall again in the House. Johnson is contending with a razor-thin majority and can only afford to lose a handful of votes.
The House Freedom Caucus, an influential group of conservative lawmakers, has threatened to torpedo the legislation. The group of fiscal hawks railed against the bill on Monday, saying the Senate’s version added $651bn to the deficit, not including the cost of interest.
“That’s not fiscal responsibility. It’s not what we agreed to,” the caucus said in a statement on X. “The Senate must make major changes and should at least be in the ballpark of compliance with the agreed upon House budget framework.”
The bill has also been repeatedly attacked by Elon Musk, Trump’s billionaire backer who fell out with the president earlier this month, in part over the legislation.
In a series of posts to X on Monday, Musk slammed the bill and threatened to launch a new political party to challenge incumbents if the legislation passes.
“It is obvious with the insane spending of this bill, which increases the debt ceiling by a record FIVE TRILLION DOLLARS that we live in a one-party country — the PORKY PIG PARTY!!” Musk wrote.
“Every member of Congress who campaigned on reducing government spending and then immediately voted for the biggest debt increase in history should hang their head in shame!” he added. “And they will lose their primary next year if it is the last thing I do on this Earth.”
Leavitt nevertheless remained bullish on the bill’s prospects, telling reporters: “The president is very well aware that this bill needs to not only pass out of the Senate, but it needs to go back to the House. We need the full weight of the Republican conference to get behind this bill. We expect them to, and we are confident that they will.”
The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office on Sunday said the Senate proposals would add $3.3tn to US national debt over 10 years.
The White House has repeatedly rejected CBO estimates and insisted that stronger economic growth and revenues from Trump’s tariff regime would more than cover the cost of the legislation.
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