WASHINGTON: Debate is underway in the Senate for an all-night session Sunday, with Republicans wrestling President Donald Trump\u2019s big bill of tax breaks and spending cuts over mounting Democratic opposition \u2014 and even some brake-pumping over the budget slashing by the president himself.
\nThe outcome from the weekend of work in the Senate remains uncertain and highly volatile. GOP leaders are rushing to meet Trump\u2019s Fourth of July deadline to pass the package, but they barely secured enough support to muscle it past a procedural hurdle in a tense scene the day before. A handful of Republican holdouts revolted, and it took phone calls from Trump and a visit from Vice President JD Vance to keep it on track.
\nGOP Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina announced Sunday he would not seek reelection after Trump badgered him for saying he could not vote for the bill with its steep Medicaid cuts. A new analysis from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget<\/p>\n
Office found that 11.8 million more Americans would become uninsured by 2034 if the bill became law. It also said the package would increase the deficit by nearly $3.3 trillion over the decade.
\nBut other Senate Republicans, along with conservatives in the House, are pushing for steeper cuts, particularly to health care, drawing their own unexpected warning from Trump.
\n\u201cDon\u2019t go too crazy!\u201d the president posted on social media. \u201cREMEMBER, you still have to get reelected.\u201d
\nAll told, the Senate bill includes some $4 trillion in tax cuts, making permanent Trump\u2019s 2017 rates, which would expire at the end of the year if Congress fails to act, while adding the new ones he campaigned on, including no taxes on tips.
\nThe Senate package would roll back billions in green energy tax credits that Democrats warn will wipe out wind and solar investments nationwide, and impose $1.2 trillion in cuts, largely to Medicaid and food stamps, by imposing work requirements and making sign-up eligibility more stringent.
\nAdditionally, the bill would provide a $350 billion infusion for border and national security, including for deportations, some of it paid for with new fees charged to immigrants.
\nIf the Senate can push through overnight voting and pass the bill, it would need to return to the House. Speaker Mike Johnson has told lawmakers to be on call for a return to Washington this coming week.
\nDemocrats ready to fight all night<\/p>\n
Unable to stop the march toward passage of the 940-page bill, the Democrats as the minority party in Congress is using the tools at its disposal to delay and drag out the process.
\nDemocrats forced a full reading of the text, which took some 16 hours. Then senators took over the debate, filling the chamber with speeches, while Republicans largely stood aside.
\n\u201cReckless and irresponsible,\u201d said Sen. Gary Peters of Michigan. \u201cA gift to the billionaire class,\u201d said Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont.
\nSen. Patty Murray, the ranking Democrat on the Appropriations Committee, raised particular concern about the accounting method being used by the Republicans, which says the tax breaks from Trump\u2019s first term are now \u201ccurrent policy\u201d and the cost of extending them should not be counted toward deficits.
\n\u201cIn my 33 years here in the United States Senate, things have never \u2014 never \u2014 worked this way,\u201d said Murray, the longest-serving Democrat on the Budget Committee.
\nShe said that kind of \u201cmagic math\u201d won\u2019t fly with Americans trying to balance their own household books.
\n\u201cGo back home and try that game with your constituents,\u201d she said. \u201cWe still need to kick people off their health care \u2014 that\u2019s too expensive. We still need to close those hospitals \u2014 we have to cut costs. And we still have to kick people off SNAP \u2014 because the debt is out of control.\u201d
\nSanders said Tillis\u2019 decision not to seek reelection shows the hold that Trump\u2019s cult of personality has over the GOP.
\n\u201cWe are literally taking food out of the mouths of hungry kids,\u201d Sanders said, while giving tax breaks to Jeff Bezos and other wealthy billionaires.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
WASHINGTON: Debate is underway in the Senate for an all-night session Sunday, with Republicans wrestling President Donald Trump\u2019s big bill of tax breaks and spending cuts over mounting Democratic opposition \u2014 and even some brake-pumping over the budget slashing by the president himself. The outcome from the weekend of work in the Senate remains uncertain …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":83040,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-83023","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83023","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=83023"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83023\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":83042,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83023\/revisions\/83042"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/83040"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83023"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=83023"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=83023"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}