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Trump’s “big, beautiful bill,” briefly explained
House Republicans just voted to cut taxes and Medicare.
Cameron Peters is a staff editor at Vox.
Welcome to The Logoff: President Donald Trump is one step closer to getting his “big, beautiful bill” after it passed the House in a close vote early this morning.
What would the bill do? As my colleague Andrew Prokop has explained, the bill has four major pillars:
- Renewing Trump’s 2017 tax cuts
- Implementing new tax cuts, such as Trump’s “no tax on tips” proposal
- Spending billions on a border wall, US Customs and Border Protection, and the military
- Increasing the debt ceiling, a recurring, necessary step that will likely have to get done by July
It would also lift the cap on the state and local tax deduction, or SALT — a political hot button important to frontline Republicans. And it would make deep cuts to Medicaid, clean energy programs, student loans, and food assistance.
What happened last night? House Republicans had been staring down a self-imposed Memorial Day deadline to advance their bill. Early Thursday morning, they passed the bill 215 votes to 214.
What happens now? The bill will head to the Senate, where the only certainty is another contentious process. Republican senators have a long list of sometimes-contradictory changes to iron out before their next deadline on July 4, and a relatively slim margin of error with their 53-member majority.
Will this actually make it to Trump’s desk? No one knows. The bill is the centerpiece of Trump’s legislative agenda and passed the House despite a fractious Republican conference, but a number of Republican senators have already expressed concerns about elements of the bill. And it will need to pass the House again after the Senate makes its changes, potentially a tall ask given the number of Republican hardliners in the lower chamber.
And with that, it’s time to log off…
The penny is officially on its way out, as of this morning. But as we bid farewell, it’s a perfect opportunity to read Caity Weaver’s incredible history of the one-cent coin, past efforts to do away with it, and the mounting absurdity of its existence. One fun fact from her story: Did you know the US has produced at least enough pennies — some 240 billion — to give two to every human who has ever lived?
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