US Senate in final slog towards vote on Trump spending Bill
Mr Donald Trump wants to have the package on his desk by the time Independence Day festivities begin on July 5. PHOTO: REUTERS
US Senate in final slog towards vote on Trump spending Bill
WASHINGTON - US senators were bogged down in a marathon session of amendment votes June 30 as Republicans sought to pass US President Donald Trump's flagship spending Bill, an unpopular package expected to slash social welfare programs and add an eye-watering US$3 trillion (S$3.81 trillion) to the national debt.
Mr Trump wants the 'One Big Beautiful Bill' to extend his expiring first-term tax cuts at a cost of US$4.5 trillion, boost military spending and fund his plans for unprecedented mass deportations and border security.
But senators eyeing 2026 midterm congressional elections are divided over savings that would strip around US$1 trillion in subsidised health care from millions of the poorest Americans and add more than US$3.3 trillion to the nation's already yawning budget deficits over a decade.
Mr Trump wants to have the package on his desk by the time Independence Day festivities begin on July 5.
The process had ground to a glacial pace by early evening, however, after members considering dozens of amendments as part of the so-called 'vote-a-rama' required before final passage managed to complete only 14 votes in the first seven hours.
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 July 1, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt called for Republican resolve.
'Republicans need to stay tough and unified during the home stretch and we are counting on them to get the job done,' she told reporters at the White House.
Given Mr Trump's iron grip on the party, he is expected to get what he wants in the Senate, where Republicans hold a razor-tight majority. All Democrats in that chamber are expected to vote 'nay'.
It will be a huge win for the Republican leader – who has been criticised for imposing many of his priorities through executive orders that sidestep the scrutiny of Congress.
But approval by the Senate is only half the battle, as the 940-page text will have to pass a separate vote in the House of Representatives, where several rebels in the slim Republican majority are threatening to oppose it.
Debt slavery
Mr 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 per cent of Americans to the richest.
And 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.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune can only lose one more vote, with conservative 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 July 2.
However, ultra-conservative fiscal hawks in the lower chamber have complained that the Bill would not cut enough spending and moderates are worried at the defunding of Medicaid.
Former close Trump aide Elon Musk – who had an acrimonious public falling out with the president earlier in June over the Bill – reprised his sharp criticisms and renewed his calls for a new political party as voting got underway.
'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!!' Mr Musk wrote on social platform X, which he owns.
The tech billionaire, who headed Mr Trump's Department of Government Efficiency before stepping down at the end of May, had earlier described the text as 'utterly insane' for seeking to gut government subsidies for clean energy.
He accused Republicans of supporting 'debt slavery' and vowed to campaign for the removal of any lawmaker who ran on reduced federal spending only to vote for the Bill. AFP
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