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Donald Trump’s sweeping tax and spending bill is edging closer to becoming law, as Republicans race to meet the president’s July 4 deadline — but it must still overcome a host of hurdles.
On Monday, the US Senate was preparing to vote on the “big, beautiful bill”, which would extend Trump’s 2017 tax cuts, slash healthcare and welfare spending and increase borrowing. But factional fighting within his Republican party threatens to derail the timeline.
Will the Senate approve the bill — and when?
The Senate on Monday began weighing a series of amendments to the bill in a process that was expected to drag on throughout the day. A final vote in the Senate was expected to take place late on Monday or early on Tuesday.
Trump insisted on Monday morning that the bill was “moving along nicely”. But its progress depends on Republican leaders’ ability to win over sceptical senators. Deficit hawks in the party are concerned that the bill will increase US debt. Others worry about its deep cuts to healthcare for low-income and disabled Americans.
Two Republican senators — Rand Paul of Kentucky and Thom Tillis of North Carolina — have said they would vote against the bill. Others, including Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, have also expressed concerns.
Democrats have accused Republicans of trying to rush the bill through “in the dead of night” and have sought to delay it, forcing a full reading of the 940-page bill on the Senate floor and amendments to the text.
If Republicans control Congress, why is Trump struggling to pass the bill?
Republicans hold slim majorities in both the House of Representatives and Senate, meaning a small number of lawmakers can hold up the bill.
In the Senate, where Republicans have a 53-47 majority, fiscal hawks including Paul and Johnson say the bill will further swell the US debt pile. The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office has said the legislation would increase the national debt by $3.3tn by 2034.
Others, such as Tillis, have objected to its cuts to Medicaid, the government health insurance programme for people on low incomes. The bill would strip millions of people of health insurance over the next decade.
The House, where Republicans have a 220-212 majority, passed its own version of the legislation last month. But it must approve any changes made by the Senate before the legislation can be signed into law.
A handful of Republicans in the House Freedom Caucus have already raised objections to the price tag of the Senate bill, while more moderate members oppose the Senate version’s deeper cuts to Medicaid.
Republicans in New York and New Jersey are also trying to strike an agreement on deducting more state and local taxes.
How could all this congressional wrangling be resolved?
While most bills need to clear a 60-vote “filibuster” threshold to pass the 100-member Senate, Republicans are trying to pass the “big, beautiful bill” through a special process known as budget reconciliation. This allows legislation to be approved with a simple majority of 51 votes, and a 50-50 tie could be broken by vice-president JD Vance.
After passing the Senate, the bill will need to go back to the House, probably later this week. The House only passed its version of the bill by one vote in May, so there could be more wrangling before the lower chamber approves yet another version.
If the House disagrees with the Senate bill, there are a couple of different options. The House could amend it and send it back to the Senate, where it would need yet another vote. Or the two chambers could send members to a conference committee to strike a compromise.
What happens if Congress misses Trump’s deadline?
Not much — the deadline was imposed by the White House and Republican leaders in Congress to pressure members to pass the bill. The longer they negotiate, the harder it will be to enact the legislation by July 4, the independence day holiday.
Last week, Trump appeared to concede that deadline may slip. “It’s not the end-all,” he said. “We can go longer, but we’d like to get it done by that time if possible.”
In June, a series of polls showed that the legislation was broadly unpopular. Nearly half (49 per cent) of Americans oppose the legislation, while 29 per cent favour it, according to a Pew Research poll.
“Polls show that this bill is political suicide for the Republican party,” Elon Musk, Trump’s top donor in 2024, recently posted on X.
At some point in the coming months, Congress needs to extend the debt limit for the US government to pay for accrued bills. The legislation would avoid that crisis by raising the so-called debt ceiling by $4tn or $5tn, which stands at $36.1tn.
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