Trump’s ‘big beautiful bill’ clears final hurdle before House floor vote

Bleary-eyed House Republicans advanced the One Big Beautiful Bill Act past the Rules Committee after a marathon hearing Wednesday, overcoming the final hurdle needed to bring it up for a floor vote.

In an 8-4 vote shortly before 11 p.m., the colossal legislation cleared the GOP-led committee along party lines.

The panel convened at 1 a.m. Wednesday to consider the measure due to requirements that Democrats get two days to file minority views.

A “Manager’s Amendment” making last-minute tweaks to the mammoth bill — including a provision cementing a deal to increase the State and Local Tax (SALT) deductions cap by 400% — was unveiled to the committee after more than 20 hours of debate.

More than 500 amendments introduced by Democrats were rejected over the course of the punishingly drawn-out hearing.

Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has been hoping to push the megabill through the House by Memorial Day before the lower chamber breaks for a one-week recess next week, but is still grappling with multiple holdouts and a razor-thin margin.

The Rules Committee’s approval means that the legislative bundle only needs a simple majority to clear the House, rather than a two-thirds majority if leadership were forced to bypass the gatekeeping committee.

Still, Republicans can only afford to lose three votes at most if there’s full attendance, given their 220 to 213 majority.

To get to President Trump’s desk, the measure will also have to clear the Senate and has been specifically designed to take advantage of the upper chamber’s reconciliation process, enabling it to bypass a Democratic filibuster, which requires 60 votes to overcome.

Several senators, such as Sens. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) and Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), have voiced opposition to the measure in its current form. Republicans have a 53 to 47-seat majority in the Senate.

Trump met with House Republicans at the Capitol on Tuesday in a bid to pressure them to get the monster bill over the finish line and commended Johnson for his efforts to build consensus around it.

“It’s not a question of holdouts, we have a tremendously unified party,” Trump told reporters about the chances of getting the votes. “I don’t think we’ve ever had a party like this. There are some people that want a couple of things that maybe I don’t like or they’re not going to get.”

The One Big Beautiful Bill Act is intended to be Trump’s signature legislative achievement of the year and possibly his second term in office, serving as an “everything bill” of sorts for conservative wishlist policy items.

It features an extension of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, no taxes on tips, no taxes on overtime pay, a barrage of spending cuts, beefed-up border security, bolstered defense spending and energy policy reforms.

Here are the highlights of what’s inside the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act:”

• Permanent extension of the individual income tax cuts in the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, with some adjustments.
• Temporary elimination of taxes on qualified tips, overtime pay and car loan interest payments.
• An additional deduction for senior Americans in lieu of no taxes on Social Security (there are procedural reasons why Republicans can’t do no taxes on Social Security, namely the Byrd Rule).
• SALT cap increase to $40,000 for households with adjusted gross incomes below $500,000.
• Hikes debt ceiling by $4 trillion, which is forecasted to become a problem sometime after July or August if Congress fails to act.
• $175 billion for border security, including $46.5 billion for the construction of a wall along the US-Mexico border specifically.
• $150 billion in additional funding for defense, including $25 billion for Trump’s space-based Golden Dome missile defense system, $34 billion to expand the Navy’s capacity and shipbuilding, $21 billion to replenish America’s ammunition stockpile and $5 billion for border security.
• A mandated 80-hour-per-month work requirement on able-bodied adults ages 19-64 enrolled in Medicaid. Volunteer work and school would count toward the requirement.
• States that provide Affordable Care Act expansion of Medicaid coverage for illegal immigrants will see their reimbursement rates drop.
• States with error rates on SNAP benefits would be required to pay a percentage of the program (historically, the feds paid for all of it).
• Set up a fast-track system for permitting natural gas if applicants pay either 1% of a project’s costs or $10 million, whichever amount is less.
• Ends the Biden-era electric vehicle mandate for two-thirds of new car sales to be EVS by 2032.
• Able-bodied adults without children would also see work requirements for SNAP, which currently last until the age of 54, jump to the age of 64.
• New “Trump” savings accounts for parents and guardians where the feds will pay $1,000 for children born between Jan. 1, 2024, and Dec. 31, 2028.
• Restrictions on large abortion providers such as Planned Parenthood from getting Medicaid funding.
• Restrictions on Medicaid funding for transgender surgeries.
• Eliminate the $200 tax on gun silencers.
• Tax of up to 21% on certain university endowments.
• Consolidate student loan payments into two options: 1.) standard program, encompassing monthly payments over a 10 to 25 year period 2.) “repayment assistance” program that is more lenient.
• Roll back key provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act.
• Air Traffic Control modernization.
  

Modifications in the 42-page Manager’s Amendment renamed “MAGA” savings accounts for children to “Trump” accounts; removed silencers from the National Firearms Act of 1934; eliminated language that would sell public lands in Nevada and Utah; moved to implement Medicaid work requirements from Jan. 1, 2029 to “no later than December 31, 2026” or earlier; and set up a $12 billion program to reimburse states for assisting with border security since January 2021, among other changes.

Throughout the drafting of the bill, there have been five major hang-ups for Republicans: the SALT cap, the timeline for implementing the Medicaid work requirements, adjustments to Medicaid’s reimbursements for states and the megabill’s impact on the deficit.

Fiscal hawks and blue-state, moderate Republicans have been at loggerheads over some of those issues for months.