U.S. Congress passes Trump’s sprawling domestic policy bill

Open this photo in gallery:

Congress has given its final approval to U.S. President Donald Trump’s sprawling One Big Beautiful Bill Act, funding his mass deportations and border wall, cutting taxes, taking away health care coverage and food stamps from millions of low-income Americans, and cancelling programs to fight climate change.

The House of Representatives passed the legislation 218 to 214 on Thursday afternoon after a session lasting nearly 24 hours, during which Mr. Trump and Speaker Mike Johnson cajoled reluctant members of their Republican caucus and Democratic Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries staged a record-breaking speech.

The vote broke down mostly along party lines, with just two Republicans joining all Democrats to vote against the law.

The President planned a White House signing ceremony at 5 p.m. on Friday, marking Independence Day, the deadline he imposed on his party to deliver the legislation. It is the first significant legislative achievement of his second term, in which he has so far tried to do as much as possible by executive order.

“What a great night it was. One of the most consequential Bills ever. The USA is the ‘HOTTEST’ Country in the World, by far!!!” Mr. Trump wrote on Truth Social Thursday.

In one fell swoop, the bill, which is expected to add US$3.3-trillion to the national debt over 10 years, will implement the core of his domestic agenda.

U.S. Congress just passed Trump’s massive tax and spending cuts bill. Here’s what to know

Over the next four years, it allocates US$46-billion for the wall on the Mexican border, US$45-billion for immigration detention facilities and US$14-billion to ramp up his program of rounding up and deporting undocumented immigrants.

It’s a major funding increase for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which currently has a US$10-billion budget. ICE is expected to nearly triple its number of agents and spend more money annually than the entire military budgets of many countries.

The bill also makes permanent the cuts to corporate and personal income-tax rates first passed in 2017, during Mr. Trump’s first term, and adds temporary tax relief for tipped workers and a higher child tax credit.

It further contains US$125-billion in defence spending, including US$25-billion for the “Golden Dome” missile defence system, which Canada has expressed interest in joining.

The legislation partly offsets these costs by cutting more than US$1.3-trillion out of health care and food aid. The steepest cuts will hit Medicaid, a program that provides government-funded health insurance to the poorest Americans, and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, colloquially known as food stamps.

Smaller cuts will affect Medicare, the health insurance program for senior citizens and people with disabilities, and subsidies for people buying private insurance on the Obamacare markets.

The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that nearly 12 million people will lose health care and 4.7 million will lose food stamps as a result.

The legislation also rolls back US$488-billion in subsidies for wind and solar electrical power projects, and electric-vehicle tax credits, while adding some new subsidies for burning coal.

“People will die. Tens of thousands, perhaps year after year after year, as a result of the Republican assault on the health care of the American people,” Mr. Jeffries thundered during his marathon speech, in which he described the bill as “a crime scene” for its Medicaid and food-stamp cuts.

Throughout the debate, Democrats pointed to analyses, including by Mr. Trump’s alma mater at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, that 70 per cent of the bill’s tax benefits would go to the top 10 per cent of income earners.

Mr. Jeffries began speaking at 4:52 a.m. and continued for eight hours and 45 minutes, the longest anyone has spoken in the House, finishing at 1:37 p.m.

The speech followed an all-night session during which Mr. Johnson spent nine hours on a single procedural vote to give himself and Mr. Trump time to lobby holdout Republicans.

Tony Keller: Trump has yet to kill the golden goose that is the U.S. economy. But he’s working on it

The bill had originated in the House, which passed an earlier version in May by a single vote. But the Senate made a suite of changes – deepening both the tax and health care cuts, and adding to the debt required to finance the bill – meaning the House had to vote again.

The Senate’s changes complicated the legislation both for the handful of remaining fiscal conservatives in the Republican House caucus as well as for moderates. Mr. Trump used meetings, phone calls and public berating to cajole his caucus into line.

“MAGA IS NOT HAPPY, AND IT’S COSTING YOU VOTES!!!,” he wrote on Truth Social shortly after midnight. His policy chief, Stephen Miller, chimed in with tweets saying the bill will “liberate America from invasion” and represented “the moment to save civilization.”

Mr. Johnson took a lighter touch, extolling the law’s virtues before the final vote. “If you’re for a secure border, safer communities and a strong military, this bill is for you,” he said.

Open this photo in gallery:

In the end, the only Republicans to vote against were Thomas Massie, a Kentucky deficit hawk, and Brian Fitzpatrick, who represents a swing district in Pennsylvania.

Now, both Democrats and Republicans will try to win the messaging war on the legislation.

A Quinnipiac University poll shows 55 per cent of respondents oppose the bill and 29 per cent support it, and Democrats will be hoping to leverage pain caused by safety-net cuts in Republican communities to argue that Mr. Trump has broken campaign promises not to roll back health care.

Republicans, for their part, will be playing up the tax cuts and pushing the mass deportations as the fulfilment of Mr. Trump’s central policy agenda.

The bill also drove a wedge between Mr. Trump and Elon Musk, who spent US$277-million helping Republicans get elected last year. The Tesla billionaire, upset with the legislation’s big-spending ways and its cut to electric-vehicle subsidies, is now musing about starting his own political party.

Mr. Trump has fired back by saying Mr. Musk should be sent back to his native South Africa.