US House passes Trump's 'big, beautiful bill' with cuts to Medicaid and food stamps

In a late night legislative session, House Republicans secured the passage of Donald Trump's colossal spending bill, often referred to as the "big, beautiful bill," swaying crucial GOP sceptics to back the highly controversial legislation.

The vote was tight at 218-214, with a handful of Republicans standing firm against changing their votes to yes, despite intense persuasion from House Speaker Mike Johnson and President Trump. However, the bill is now en route to Trump's desk for his signature, neatly aligning with his ambitious Fourth of July target date.

Republican support

Supporters of the bill, predominantly Republicans, are championing the tax reductions as a bulwark against tax increases for families and a catalyst for economic expansion.

They assert their commitment to recalibrating welfare programmes such as SNAP, Medicare, and Medicaid to better serve their original target groups - expectant mothers, the disabled, and children - while simultaneously eliminating what they describe as rampant inefficiencies and corruption.

The bill's passage marked a significant achievement for the president and the GOP, set to become a defining feature of Trump's second administration and testament to his power, with Republicans holding majority or control over both the House and the Senate, as well as the Executive Branch. Even the Supreme Court majority leans conservative.

The bill essentially overturns Democratic policies from Trump's predecessors, reports the MirrorUS.

The "big, beautiful bill" fundamentally rejects the agendas of the previous two Democratic presidents, Barack Obama and Joe Biden. It chips away at the Medicaid expansion of Obama's Affordable Care Act and rolls back Biden's climate strategies in the Inflation Reduction Act.

Democrats condemned the bill

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries spoke for over eight hours in protest of the spending bill. He recited letters and testimonies from constituents who argued that the bill would negatively affect their lives.

Critics have labelled the bill "ugly" due to its trillions in tax breaks and spending reductions, particularly because it proposes significant cuts to Medicare and Medicaid.

Many House Republicans were awake into the wee hours as party leaders and Trump himself laboured to convince the dissenters to withdraw their objections, aiming to get the bill across the line by the Fourth of July deadline set by Trump.

The final debates kicked off in the early hours following a tumultuous day and night at the Capitol from Wednesday into Thursday. House Speaker Mike Johnson was adamant that the House would meet the holiday deadline after the Senate narrowly approved the bill earlier in the week - it required a tiebreaker vote by Vice President JD Vance to pass it.

Emerging from a series of late-night, closed-door meetings, Johnson declared, as reported by The Associated Press: "Our way is to plow through and get it done. We will meet our July 4th deadline."

Rep. Hakeem Jeffries stood firm for more than eight hours, drawing on the profound significance of America's Independence Day, reciting from a compendium of missives from citizens nationwide. These letters detailed how vital healthcare programs, which faced severe reductions under the bill, significantly aided their kin and outlined the catastrophic consequences that such cuts would entail.

Tax boon

The legislation also came under fire for embodying what detractors described as "trickle-down cruelty," denouncing it as a tax boon for the affluent at the expense of society's most disadvantaged.

Even within the Republican ranks, there was notable dissent against the bill, seeing numerous Senators distancing themselves from the proposal, ultimately leading to a need for Vance's decisive tie-breaker vote. The razor-thin margin in the House did not come as a surprise, considering the Republicans' slender lead with a 220-212 advantage.

Potentially, the proposed reductions to Medicaid might affect any of the 80 million Americans dependent on it, while anticipated cutbacks to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), better known as food stamps, could adversely influence some of the 40 million beneficiaries.

Jeffries passionately protested the SNAP cuts, asserting they would "rip food from the mouths of hungry children, hungry veterans and hungry seniors."

National deficit

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has forecasted that the proposed financial plan will swell the national deficit by a staggering $3.3 trillion over the coming decade, leaving an estimated 11.8 million individuals without health insurance.

To counterbalance the shortfall in tax revenue and to bankroll President Trump's stringent immigration policies and his ambitious "Golden Dome" defence initiative across the States, the government is set to make cuts amounting to $350 billion, earmarked as crucial for national security.

The Tax Policy Center, an impartial tax and budget policy body, has calculated that under the new legislation, the poorest fifth of Americans could see a tax reduction of $150, the middle fifth could benefit from a $1,750 cut, and the wealthiest quintile might enjoy a substantial $10,950 reduction.

At the same time, analysis of many of the federal and local tax breaks in the bill reveals half of the $4.7 trillion (£3.7 trillion) in relief going to the top 1 per cent of earners.