Trump’s ‘Big, Beautiful Bill’ Narrowly Passes in House, Heads to Senate

The Republican-led House narrowly passed President Donald Trump’s sweeping tax and spending bill early Thursday morning, sending the package to the Senate where it is likely to be revised.

The vote was 215-214, with one Republican voting present, and came after a key House committee voted late Wednesday evening to advance the bill, clearing a major hurdle after days of internal Republican infighting.

That breakthrough was the product of frenzied, late-night negotiations that yielded just enough concessions to bring key GOP holdouts back on board, despite deep divisions over the bill’s cost and proposed changes to Medicaid. Reps. Warren Davidson of Ohio and Thomas Massie of Kentucky were the only Republicans to vote against the measure, arguing it didn’t do enough to rein in deficit spending. Another two Republicans—Reps. David Schweikert of Arizona and Andrew Garbarino of New York—missed the vote. All Democrats voted against the bill.

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Passing the bill out of the House marked a major win for Trump, who has been lobbying aggressively for Congress to pass his “One Big, Beautiful Bill” to cement a host of conservative priorities central to his second-term agenda. Trump had grown increasingly impatient with Republican holdouts, labeling some of them as "grandstanders" who should leave the party.

“Great job by Speaker Mike Johnson, and the House Leadership, and thank you to every Republican who voted YES on this Historic Bill!” Trump posted on Truth Social. “Now, it’s time for our friends in the United States Senate to get to work, and send this Bill to my desk AS SOON AS POSSIBLE! There is no time to waste.”

The House vote happened just hours after White House and Republican leaders released a number of changes to the  bill to address concerns from members of the House Freedom Caucus, who were demanding faster, larger spending cuts and energy tax-credit phaseouts. The previous day, Trump had invited House Speaker Mike Johnson and key holdouts to meet at the White House to bridge their differences. Several of those holdouts emerged from that meeting saying it helped them get on the same page as Trump.

A review of the revised House bill text shows that it was changed to accelerate new Medicaid work requirements to December 2026; end many tax credits for wind energy, solar energy, and battery storage by 2028; nix a tax on firearm silencers; formally lock in a $40,000 cap on the state and local tax (SALT) deduction; and provide $12 billion in funding to reimburse states for assisting with border security since January 2021.

The D.C. Brief: Why the House’s ‘Big Beautiful Bill’ Reads Like a Republican Oppo File

House Republicans are operating with  one of the thinnest majorities in the chamber’s history, with 220 Republicans and 212 Democrats. That means Johnson could only afford to lose three members of his caucus if all Democrats were opposed. Johnson’s room for dissent would have been even tighter if three elderly House Democrats had not passed away in recent months, including 75-year-old Gerry Connolly, who died Wednesday. 

House Freedom Caucus Chair Andy Harris, one of the holdouts who ultimately voted ‘present’ to advance the legislation, told reporters he still wants to see more deficit reduction.

“I don’t think it was completely where I would need it to be,” Harris said, “but it was a vote to move along. Obviously if I voted no, it would’ve gone nowhere today.” He added that House Republicans “do need to eliminate all the waste, fraud and abuse in Medicaid—and the bill didn’t do it.”

Johnson had insisted that the House pass the bill before Memorial Day so that it could be sent to Trump’s desk by July 4, about a month before the U.S. is expected to run out of cash to cover its obligations. The bill raises the nation's debt ceiling by $4 trillion. 

The package now heads to the Senate, where Republicans have a slim 53-47 majority, and more changes are likely. Republicans are moving the bill using a parliamentary process called reconciliation, which allows them to pass it in the Senate with a simple majority, rather than the 60 votes they would need to overcome a filibuster. 

Trump’s legislation, at more than 1,100 pages, would permanently extend his 2017 tax cuts set to expire at the end of this year while introducing new policies like tax exemptions for tips and overtime wages. It also boosts spending on defense and border security, while reducing spending on Medicaid and food stamps. The measure would also roll back green energy tax credits from the Biden Administration, including the $7,500 electric vehicle tax credit incentive.

Nonpartisan research groups studying the proposal have estimated that it would add more than $2.5 trillion to the federal debt over the next ten years. A senior White House official refuted those projections to TIME, claiming that the legislation would actually reduce the nation’s debt by generating an additional $2.6 trillion in revenue over the next ten years through increased economic growth.

Some hardline conservatives were previously not convinced the legislation cuts spending enough, complaining that the bill should halt clean-energy tax breaks sooner than proposed, and that new work requirements for some Medicaid recipients should start earlier than 2029.

Democrats have warned that the measure would force millions of low-income Americans off Medicaid and food assistance programs, to fund tax cuts for the wealthy. “The structure of this bill is such that low- and middle-income households bear the brunt, while the wealthy reap significant benefits,” says Daniel Hornung, the former Deputy Director of the National Economic Council under President Joe Biden. 

An analysis from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released Tuesday shows that the wealthiest households are expected to gain from the bill, while the lowest-income households would lose out on resources because of the spending cuts. A separate CBO report estimated that the proposed changes to Medicaid could leave 7.6 million Americans without insurance. 

“President Trump promised to lower the high cost of living in America. He has failed,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said in a statement on Wednesday. “Costs aren’t going down, they are going up. The GOP Tax Scam will make life more expensive for everyday Americans and it’s his toxic legislation that represents the ultimate betrayal.”

—With reporting by Chad de Guzman