Senate Republicans on Tuesday narrowly passed their massive package of tax and spending cuts, capping a tumultuous marathon voting-and-negotiating session that lasted more than 26 hours by delivering what could be a resounding and historic win for President Donald Trump’s agenda — albeit one that is expected to markedly worsen the nation’s fiscal trajectory and weaken social safety net programs, which could also make it an albatross around the necks of Republicans in 2026 and beyond.
Polls have found the legislation to be deeply unpopular with voters, and more than a few Republicans in the Senate expressed concerns about various elements of the package. In the end, senators were evenly divided on the bill, but enough Republicans rallied behind the effort to secure a 50-50 tie, which Vice President JD Vance broke with a vote in favor of passage.
Republican Sens. Susan Collins of Maine, Rand Paul of Kentucky and Thom Tillis of North Carolina joined with 47 Democrats in opposing the package. Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, considered a potential swing vote, backed the legislation after winning a host of concessions that would protect her state from some of the harshest cuts in the bill.
The vote sends the package back to the House, where it may face renewed opposition from conservatives angered by Senate changes that would increase the cost of the legislation and from moderates concerned about sweeping Medicaid cuts. Still, Republicans are progressing toward their goal of having the bill to Trump’s desk by July 4.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune hailed the GOP victory, saying that the bill will spur economic growth, strengthen the military, secure U.S. borders, ramp up American energy production and cut waste, fraud and abuse from federal programs. “With this legislation, we are fulfilling the mandate we were entrusted with last November and setting our country — and the American people — up to be safer, stronger, and more prosperous,” he said in remarks on the Senate floor.
What’s in the megabill: As a reminder, the Republican plan is poised to
- Permanently extend the party’s 2017 tax cuts;
- Enact the new tax cuts Trump campaigned on, including those for tip income (up to $25,000 a year) and overtime pay (up to $12,500 a year) as well as new tax breaks for seniors and interest on certain auto loans;
- Cut more than $1 trillion in healthcare funding, primarily from Medicaid. The plan would introduce new work requirements for both Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), commonly known as food stamps, and would require some states to bear some of the costs of the food aid;
- Phase out clean energy tax credits enacted by Democrats;
- Lift the cap on the state and local tax deduction from $10,000 to $40,000 until 2030, with the benefit phasing out for those making more than $500,000 a year;
- Provide funding boosts of about $157 billion for the Pentagon and $175 billion for immigration enforcement;
- Expand the Child Tax Credit;
- Lift the federal debt limit by $5 trillion.
A massive bill with massive costs: In all, a version of the Senate plan analyzed by the Congressional Budget Office was found to include roughly $4.5 trillion in net tax cuts and $1.2 trillion in net spending cuts, meaning that it would add about $3.3 trillion to deficits over 10 years, or closer to $4 trillion including additional interest costs.
The Senate did not abide by an agreement, made to win over conservatives in the House, to tie the amount of tax cuts to the level of spending cuts. The House budget reconciliation instructions called for up to $2 trillion in spending cuts to go with $4.5 trillion in tax cuts, with changes on one side of the ledger to be matched on the other side. The Senate bill includes the full $4.5 trillion in tax cuts but falls short by $600 billion or more on the spending side, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a nonprofit that advocates for deficit reduction.
“The level of blatant disregard we just witnessed for our nation’s fiscal condition and budget process is a failure of responsible governing. These are the very same lawmakers who for years have bemoaned the nation’s massive debt, voting to put another $4 trillion on the credit card,” said CRFB President Maya MacGuineas. “If made permanent, the Senate bill would cost more than the CARES Act, the American Rescue Plan, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, and the CHIPS Act, combined.”
The plan is also expected to result in at least 17 million Americans losing their health coverage due by 2034 to the Medicaid cuts and the expiration of enhanced subsidies for Affordable Care Act plans, which would raise out-of-pocket costs for people signing up through those marketplaces. Those losses would undo gains seen in the years since the ACA was enacted — and they run contrary to a promise from Trump that the plan would only go after waste, fraud and abuse in Medicaid and that Americans would not feel a change.
Some late changes to the bill: The messy overnight process saw some amendments to the bill. The final Senate legislation still includes a harsher crackdown on Medicaid provider taxes, which states use to boost the federal funding they receive for the program. But a controversial new excise tax on wind and solar energy projects was removed from the final bill. “The bill still phases out solar and wind tax credits rather quickly, and will damage energy production that is needed to keep up with soaring demand,” writes David Dayen of The American Prospect, a liberal publication. “But it’s dialed down from apocalyptic to, well, nearly apocalyptic.”
The Senate also voted to establish a $50 billion, five-year stabilization fund for rural hospitals affected by healthcare cuts in the legislation, and, in a 99-1 vote, it stripped out a provision barring states from regulating AI.
Murkowski makes out big-time: Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski held plenty of leverage as the potential make-or-break vote in the Senate, and she used that leverage in backroom negotiations to win significant breaks for her state. Though some of the Alaska-specific provisions got thrown out by the parliamentarian, Murkowski reportedly succeeded in getting a waiver from the SNAP cost-sharing provision. Because of parliamentary rules, the change will reportedly also benefit other states with the highest SNAP payment error rates.
Murkowski reportedly also got a tax break for Alaskan fisheries and Native Alaskan subsistence whaling.
Still, in a post on X, she called the vote one of the hardest of her time in the Senate. “This has been an awful process—a frantic rush to meet an artificial deadline that has tested every limit of this institution. While we have worked to improve the present bill for Alaska, it is not good enough for the rest of our nation—and we all know it,” she wrote. “My sincere hope is that this is not the final product. This bill needs more work across chambers and is not ready for the President’s desk. We need to work together to get this right.”
Democrats were incensed: “Today, Senate Republicans betrayed the American people and covered this chamber in shame,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said after the vote. “In one fell swoop, Senate Republicans passed the biggest tax breaks for billionaires ever seen, paid for by ripping healthcare away from millions of Americans, taking food out of the mouths of hungry kids.”
Schumer also complained that Republicans “bent and twisted and pushed the rules and the norms of the Senate to get this bill done.” Republicans bypassed longstanding budget norms and set the official cost estimate for the bill using a “current policy baseline” that zeroed out the cost of $3.8 trillion in tax cuts.
Schumer predicted that the vote will haunt Republicans for years. “As the American people see the damage that is done, as hospitals close, as people are laid off, as costs go up, as the debt increases, they will see what our colleagues have done, and they will remember it,” he said.
The Senate’s top Democrat scored one tiny, largely meaningless win: Using Senate procedure, he forced Republicans’ official title for the legislation, “The One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” to be removed. (Republicans had done the same with Democrats’ 2022 Inflation Reduction Act.)
What’s next: The House is expected back in session on Wednesday to take up the bill again. With Trump’s July 4 deadline for the bill looming, House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries said that Democrats would do what they could to extend the process. But Democrats won’t be able to stop the bill if Republicans stick together.
House Speaker Mike Johnson had urged senators to minimize changes to the bill for fear of undoing the delicate balance he had struck among his members. That didn’t happen. “I’m not happy with what the Senate did to our product. We understand this is the process. It goes back and forth, and we’ll be working to get all of our members to yes,” Johnson said Tuesday.
Now, the question may be whether House conservatives who have warned that they will not back the Senate bill because of its higher deficit spending are willing to abide by that and anger Trump or whether moderates decide to make a stand over Medicaid cuts.
Reps. Andy Harris and Ralph Norman of the House Freedom Caucus both said Tuesday that they will vote against a procedural rule setting up debate on the bill, raising the prospect of a conservative revolt against the package. Republicans can lose only three votes. The House could still see some fireworks before July 4.