The House gives final approval to Trump’s big tax bill in a milestone for his second-term agenda

WASHINGTON AP House Republicans propelled President Donald Trump s big multitrillion-dollar tax breaks and spending cuts bill to final passage Thursday in Congress overcoming multiple setbacks to approve his signature second-term protocol package before a Fourth of July deadline The tight roll call - came at a potentially high political cost with two Republicans joining all Democrats opposed GOP leaders worked overnight and the president himself leaned on a handful of skeptics to drop their opposition Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York delayed voting for more than eight hours by seizing control of the floor with a record-breaking speech against the bill Trump celebrated his political domination in Iowa where he attended the kickoff for a year of events marking the country s upcoming th anniversary I want to thank Republican congressmen and women because what they did is incredible he noted The president complained that Democrats voted against the bill because they hate Trump but I hate them too Trump announced he plans to sign the regulation on Friday at the White House The outcome delivers a milestone for the president and for his party It was a long-shot effort to compile a lengthy list of GOP priorities into what they called his one big beautiful bill at nearly pages With Democrats unified in opposition the bill will become a defining measure of Trump s return to the White House aided by Republican control of Congress You get tired of winning yet stated House Speaker Mike Johnson R-La invoking Trump as he called the vote With one big beautiful bill we are going to make this country stronger safer and more prosperous than ever before he commented Republicans celebrated with a rendition of the Village People s Y M C A a song the president often plays at his rallies during a ceremony afterward Tax breaks and safety net cuts At its core the package s priority is trillion in tax breaks enacted in during Trump s first term that would expire if Congress failed to act along with new ones This includes allowing workers to deduct tips and overtime pay and a deduction for preponderance older adults earning less than a year There s also a hefty stake particular billion in national defense and Trump s deportation agenda and to help develop the Golden Dome defensive system over the U S To help offset the lost tax revenue the package includes trillion in cutbacks to the Medicaid soundness care and food stamps largely by imposing new work requirements including for certain parents and older people and a major rollback of green capacity tax credits The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates the package will add trillion to the deficit over the decade and million more people will go without healthcare coverage This was a generational opportunity to deliver the majority of comprehensive and consequential set of conservative reforms in modern history and that s exactly what we re doing disclosed Rep Jodey Arrington R-Texas the House Budget Committee chairman Democrats united against the big ugly bill Democrats unified against the bill as a tax giveaway to the rich paid for on the backs of the working class and bulk vulnerable in society what they called trickle down cruelty Jeffries began the speech at a m EDT and finished at p m EDT hours minutes later a record as he argued against what he called Trump s big ugly bill We re better than this reported Jeffries who used a leader s prerogative for unlimited debate and read letter after letter from Americans writing about their reliance of the soundness care programs I never thought that I d be on the House floor saying that this is a crime scene Jeffries disclosed It s a crime scene going after the soundness and the safety and the well-being of the American people And as Democrats he noted We want no part of it Tensions ran high As fellow Democrats chanted Jeffries name a top Republican Rep Jason Smith of Missouri chairman of the House Methods and Means Committee called his speech a bunch of hogwash Hauling the package through the Congress has been challenging from the start Republicans have struggled mightily with the bill nearly every step of the way quarreling in the House and Senate and often succeeding only by the narrowest of margins just one vote The Senate passed the package days earlier with Vice President JD Vance developing the tie vote The slim majority in the House left Republicans little room for defections It wasn t beautiful enough for me to vote for it announced Rep Thomas Massie R-Ky Also voting no was Rep Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania who declared he was concerned about cuts to Medicaid Once Johnson gaveled the tally Republicans cheered USA and flashed Trump-style thumbs-up to the cameras Political costs of saying no Despite their discomfort with various aspects of the sprawling package in specific tactics it became too big to fail in part because Republicans revealed it challenging to buck Trump As Wednesday s stalled floor action dragged overnight Trump railed against the delays What are the Republicans waiting for the president reported in a midnight-hour post Johnson relied heavily on White House Cabinet secretaries lawyers and others to satisfy skeptical GOP holdouts Moderate Republicans worried about the severity of cuts while conservatives pressed for steeper reductions Lawmakers announced they were being informed the administration could provide executive actions projects or other provisions in their districts back home The alternative was clear Republicans who staked out opposition to the bill including Massie of Kentucky and Sen Thom Tillis of North Carolina were being warned by Trump s well-funded political operation Tillis soon after reported he would not seek reelection Rollback of past presidential agendas In various options the package is a repudiation of the agendas of the last two Democratic presidents a chiseling away at the Medicaid expansion from Barack Obama s Affordable Care Act and a pullback of Joe Biden s context change strategies in the Inflation Reduction Act Democrats have described the bill in dire terms warning that cuts to Medicaid which certain million Americans rely on would aftermath in lives lost Food stamps that help feed more than million people would rip food from the mouths of hungry children hungry veterans and hungry seniors Jeffries stated Republicans say the tax breaks will prevent a tax hike on households and grow the financial sector They maintain they are trying to rightsize the safety net programs for the population they were initially designed to serve mainly pregnant women the disabled and children and root out what they describe as waste fraud and abuse The Tax Strategy Center which provides nonpartisan analysis of tax and budget plan projected the bill would conclusion next year in a tax break for the lowest quintile of Americans a tax cut for the middle quintile and a tax cut for the top quintile That s compared with what they would face if the tax cuts expired