Vice President JD Vance Breaks 50-50 Tie To Pass Trump Tax Bill
The Senate narrowly passed President Trump’s ‘Big, Beautiful Bill’ 51-50 Tuesday, with Vice President JD Vance casting the tie-breaking vote.
GOP Sens. Rand Paul (KY), Thom Tillis (NC), and Susan Collins (ME) joined Democrats in voting no. Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) ultimately voted yes at the 11th hour after overnight negotiation granted her state of Alaska special carve-outs on Medicaid that eventually won her vote.
The amended legislation, which will now return to the House for a second vote, extends trillions of dollars in tax cuts from Trump’s first term and allocates billions to his immigration and border crackdown agenda.
WHAT’S IN THE BILL
In total, those measures reduce government revenue by $4.5 trillion. To offset the cost, the legislation imposes new requirements on Medicaid and food stamps that are expected to save about $1 trillion — but it is still set to increase the national debt by more than $3 trillion over the next decade. Government borrowing limit were raised by $5 trillion to $40+ trillion — $1 trillion more than the House version — in order for the U.S. not to default on the growing debt.
New work requirements for Medicaid recipients could also leave more than 12 million Americans uninsured over the next 10 years, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.
In the end, the controversial AI moratorium was killed from the bill.
Overall bill impact: The Senate bill would cost the bottom 20% of taxpayers an average of $560 a year, while putting an average of about $6,000 in the pockets of the top 20%, according to Yale University’s Budget Lab.
WHAT’S NEXT
The House is expected to vote on the updated bill as soon as Wednesday, with Republicans able to lose no more than three votes. The Freedom Caucus and other fiscal conservatives have voiced concerns over the Senate's increase to the bill's price tag. Trump has pushed for passage by Friday but said Tuesday, “I’d love to do July 4, but I think it’s very hard to do July 4.”
