Senate approves Republican plan for trillions in tax breaks and spending cuts

Senate Republicans plugged away overnight and into early Saturday morning to approve their multitrillion-dollar tax breaks and spending cuts framework, hurtling past hardened Democratic opposition toward what Donald Trump calls the “big, beautiful bill” that is central to his agenda.

The vote, 51-48, fell along mostly party lines, but with sharp dissent from two prominent GOP senators. It could not have come at a more difficult political moment. The US economy is churning after the president’s vast tariff scheme sent stocks plummeting, and experts are warning of soaring costs for consumers at home and threats of a potential recession. Republican senators Susan Collins of Maine and Rand Paul of Kentucky both voted against the bill.

But with a nod from Trump, GOP leaders held on, determined to march ahead. Approval paves the way for Republicans, in the months ahead, to try to power a tax cut bill through both chambers of Congress over the objections of Democrats, just as they did in Trump’s first term with unified party control in Washington.

“Let the voting begin,” the Republican Senate majority leader, John Thune of South Dakota, said on Friday night.

The evening kicked off what’s called “vote-a-rama” as Democrats were intent on making the effort as politically painful as possible, with action on about two dozen amendments to the package that GOP senators will have to defend before next year’s midterm elections.

Among them were proposals to ban tax breaks for the super-wealthy, end Trump’s tariffs, clip his efforts to shrink the federal government, and protect Medicaid, social security and other services. One, in response to the Trump national security team’s use of Signal, sought to prohibit military officials from using any commercial messaging application to transmit war plans. They all failed, though a GOP amendment to protect Medicare and Medicaid was accepted.

Democrats accused Republicans of laying the groundwork for cutting key safety net programs to help pay for more than $5tn in tax cuts they say disproportionately benefit the rich.

“Trump’s policies are a disaster,” said the Democratic Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer of New York, as is Elon Musk’s “department of government efficiency”. “Republicans could snuff it out tonight, if they wanted.”

The Republicans framed their work as preventing a tax increase for most American families, arguing that unless Congress acts, the individual and estate tax cuts that Republicans passed in 2017 will expire at the end of this year.

The Senate package pulls in other GOP priorities – including $175bn to bolster Trump’s mass deportation effort, which is running short of cash, and another $175bn for the Pentagon to build up the military – from an earlier budget effort.

John Barrasso of Wyoming, the No 2 ranking Republican senator, said voters gave his party a mission in November, and the Senate budget plan delivers.

“It fulfills our promises to secure the border, to rebuild our economy and to restore peace through strength,” Barrasso said.

The framework now goes to the House, where the speaker, Louisiana Republican Mike Johnson, could bring it up for a vote as soon as next week as he works toward a final product by Memorial Day.

The House and Senate need to resolve their differences. The House Republicans had already approved their version, with $4.5tn in tax breaks over 10 years and about $2tn in budget cuts pointed at changes to Medicaid, food stamps and other programs, and some have panned the Senate’s approach.

One crucial challenge ahead will be for the House to accept the way the Senate’s budget plan allows for extending the tax cuts under a scoring method that treats them as not adding to future deficits, something many House Republicans reject. A new estimate from the joint committee on taxation projects the tax breaks will add $5.5tn in debt over the next decade when including interest, and $4.6tn not including interest.

On top of that, the senators added an additional $1.5tn that would allow some of Trump’s campaign promises, such as no taxes on tips, social security benefits and overtime, swelling the overall the price tag to $7tn.