After nearly 29 hours of debate, the US House of Representatives passed “One Big Beautiful Bill.” This is a huge tax cuts and spending package that represents the pillars of President Donald Trump’s agenda.
The U.S. House of Representatives voted on Thursday with a margin of 218 to 214 in support of the bill.
All 212 Democrats in the House opposed the bill. They were joined by Kentucky leader Thomas Massey and Pennsylvania’s Brian Fitzpatrick.
The bill is now heading to the White House for Trump to sign the law. The Republican president had called on his fellow party members to pass the law by July 4th, the country’s Independence Day.
As a result of the new law, the US will increase its debt cap (the amount the federal government is allowed to borrow) by $5 trillion.
The bill also pours hundreds of billions of dollars into one of Trump’s top priorities, immigration enforcement, and solidifies the 2017 tax cuts that Trump defended during his first term as president.
To pay for these expenditures, the bill expanded social initiatives such as Medicaid (the government health insurance for low-income households) and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), also known as Food Stamps.
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates the bill will increase the number of people without health insurance over the next decade by 17 million.
It also predicted that the country’s deficit — the amount owed by the US — would rise by around $3.3 trillion over the same period.
Democrats denounced the bill as a massive redistribution of wealth from the poor to the rich, noting that tax cuts would primarily benefit the wealthiest earners.
Republican supporters like Trump have refuted that the bill will drive the growth of programs like Medicaid and reduce waste and fraud.
But not all conservatives supported “one big beautiful bill” to allow them to pass through the chambers of Congress. Several Republican holdouts feared how Medicaid cuts would affect low-income and rural communities, and some fiscal conservatives opposed the rise in national debt.
“For Republicans, this should be a simple vote,” Trump said in a social media post Wednesday night. “Silly!!!”
Even billionaire Elon Musk, Trump’s former ally, has publicly opposed the bill against the provisions he described as “pork.”
Record-breaking speech
Leading the vote on Thursday, Democrats are trying to stall, with the aim of increasing the time voters can go against local representatives.
The face of that effort was Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic minority leader. He exercised a privilege known as the “Magic Minute.”
Jeffries extended that privilege to hours of appeal to Republicans to confront what he described as a harmful policy for Trump. He started at 4:53am local time (8:53 GMT) and finished past 1:39pm (17:39 GMT).
This was the longest speech ever delivered on the floor of the house, taking about 8 hours and 44 minutes.
“I’m here to take my sweet time on behalf of the Americans,” Jeffries told the house.
He directed the chairperson of the house, the leadership role occupied by Republican Mike Johnson, to his remarks.
“Donald Trump’s deadline may be Independence Day, which isn’t my deadline,” Jeffries said. “Why, Speaker? We don’t work for Donald Trump. We work for Americans.”
Jeffries warned that “one big beautiful bill” (called “one big ugh bill”) and “injuring Americans every day and rewarding billionaires with massive tax cuts.” He added that the law was simply reckless.
He crossed the aisle to call his colleagues, showing them “Show me John McCain-level courage,” and dropped a reference to the late Republican senator in Arizona, known for confronting Trump on healthcare issues.
McCain is often cited as a bipartisan symbol of Congress, and Jeffries urged Republican colleagues to cross the aisle.
“We have recognized President Donald Trump’s election, which offered to work with colleagues on the other side of the aisle whenever possible, at any time to improve the lives of Americans,” Jeffries said.
“But, Mr. Speaker, filmed by House Republicans, is to do it alone and try and stuff this big, ugly bill – filled with extreme right-wing policy priorities – bringing down the throats of the American people.”
For example, last week’s Kinnipiac University poll showed that only 29% of respondents were in favor of the law, while 55% were against it.
Jeffries later added, “We are not here to bend our knees to any aspiring king,” comparing his resistance to Trump to the US era of revolutionary war. When he finally said he would give in the floor, Democrats exploded with applause and chanted his name: “Hakeem! Hakeem! Hakeem!”
The long road to voting
The House remained in the overnight session as part of the marathon session to reach Thursday’s vote.
However, minutes before the dramatic vote, Speaker Johnson himself spoke to the House for a brief moment, bringing together Republicans to show a unified front.
He also took a jab with Jeffries’ record-breaking speech.
“We waited long enough. Some of us were literally awake for days,” Johnson continued. “With this one big beautiful bill, we intend to make this country stronger, safer and more prosperous than ever before.
He added that “one big beautiful bill” would make programs like Medicaid “stronger to our reforms.”
It’s a long way for Republicans to reach Thursday’s vote, going back several months ago. The House first passed “One Big Beautiful Bill” in another night vote on May 22nd.
In that vote, the law was passed with the narrowest margin, with 215 votes in favor and 214 votes against. Kentucky’s representative Thomas Massey and Ohio’s Warren Davidson joined the unified Democratic front by voting against the bill at the time, while Maryland’s Andy Harris voted “now.” Two more Republicans completely missed the vote.
It pushed the bill to the Senate, where it faced another difficult fight. The 100-seat Chamber of Commerce has 53 Republicans, 47 Democrats and a left-leaning independent.
To avoid facing a Democrat filibuster, Republicans have submitted “one big beautiful bill” to Bird Rules.
However, to comply with the Bird Rules, Republicans had to attack clauses that had little or no impact on the budget.
Still, the revised Senate version of the bill faced a nail bitter for votes. On July 1st, after another vigil, the vote was between 50 and 50 years old, with three Republicans with Democrats. Vice President JD Vance cast a tiebreaker to move the bill forward.
But Democrats notched a small, iconic victory, with Sen. Chuck Schumer knocking the name “one big beautiful bill” from the final legislation.
The House voted on Thursday was a version of the Senate bill. At least one Republican Senator, Alaska’s Lisa Murkovsky, has expressed dislike for the law since voting to pass.
“The people in Alaskan are the most concerned about the social safety net programs that our most vulnerable groups rely on (the potential loss of Medicaid compensation and SNAP benefits),” she wrote in a statement earlier this week.
“Don’t make yourself a child. This was a terrible process. A desperate rush to meet the artificial deadlines that tested all the restrictions of this institution.”
