House passes Trump's 'big, beautiful' bill

Republicans in the US House of Representatives pushed President Donald Trump's massive $4.5 trillion tax breaks and spending cuts bill past the finish line ahead of the Friday deadline, overcoming the issues with the signature legislation that had threatened to derail the process.

The House voted 218 to 214 in favor of the bill, as two Republicans joined the Democrats who were united against the legislation. The bill had only narrowly passed in the Senate on Tuesday.

Representative Thomas Massie, a Republican from Kentucky, one of two from the political right who voted against the bill, explained why he did so as he left the Capitol on Thursday.

"Well, it looks like the big bill is going to pass, but it wasn't beautiful enough for me to vote for it," Massie told reporters.

The defectors couldn't stop the One Big Beautiful Bill Act from being approved as GOP leaders gave it all they had overnight to ensure that it would be on Trump's desk on Friday to be signed.

It signals a historic win for the president's signature package of legislation in his second term. He was set to sign it into law on Friday afternoon, the US Independence Day.

Trump told reporters on Thursday, before boarding Air Force One, that when he signs it, there will be a celebration with F-22 planes and fighter jets flying past.

The bill act is over 800 pages long and is chock-full of issues that the Republicans want to see done. It benefited from the GOP being in control of Congress — as that smoothed its path. The Democrats were united in their opposition against it.

House Speaker Mike Johnson showed signs of emotion as he was surrounded by his upbeat Republican colleagues ahead of his bill signing ceremony. He gave thanks to "an audacious plan" that "did not waste the opportunity" of a unified government, The Associated Press reported.

Johnson then attacked Trump's Democratic predecessor saying: "Everything was an absolute disaster under the Biden-Harris radical, woke, progressive, Democrat regime."

GOP members were also united in their praise for their leader Trump as the legislation lays out most of his conservative agenda.

As the political right cheered the passage of the bill, Democrats reacted negatively to the vote in the House, some looked visibly upset.

The bill will extend tax cuts first enacted in 2017 that had been due to expire at the end of 2025.

It will also fulfill some of Trump's key promises on the campaign trail before he was reelected, such as increasing money to shore up border security and defense and no taxes on overtime pay or tips.

But, in a contentious move, decried by the political left, it not only cuts around $1 trillion from Medicaid, but will also gut important food assistance programs such as SNAP, known as food stamps.

"People are going to go hungry; people are going to get sick on a scale unlike anything we've ever seen," Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a New York Democrat, told reporters after the vote. "And all of it is just to finance tax cuts for billionaires and the wealthiest corporations who don't need it."

Record long speech

Before the vote, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries had attempted to delay the bill by speaking for a record eight hours and 44 minutes. The rules say he can speak for as long as he wants. He expressed concern for people who will lose access to food and healthcare.

"Our job is to stand up for the poor, the sick and the afflicted, the least, the lost and the left behind, the everyday American," Jeffries said. "That's not what's happening in this one big, ugly bill."

The Congressional Budget Office, which is nonpartisan, predicts that the cuts to Medicaid from the bill will cause 11.8 million US citizens to be without health insurance by 2034.

Some political analysts suggest that the bill will benefit the wealthy the most. One economist believes that withdrawing food benefits could weaken the strength of the economy.

"Withdrawing SNAP and healthcare access from low-income persons will damage near-term economic resilience," Thomas Fullerton, a professor of economics and finance at the University of Texas at El Paso, told China Daily.

The bill will also kill many of the clean energy initiatives championed by former president Joe Biden's administration, such as tax credits.

"This bill is an all-out assault on the healthcare of the people of the United States of America, hardworking American taxpayers," Jeffries added in his marathon speech. "These are the people we should be standing up to, work hard to lift up. But instead, they're victims of this legislation."

belindarobinson@chinadailyusa.com