This text appeared in the ‘Top Story’ email newsletter sent on May 24, 2025.
Well, they finally did it.Shortly after sunrise on Thursday, after 30 hours of nonstop debate and negotiation and not one but two meetings with the president, House Republicans passed H.R. 1, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
This bill is the springboard for Trump’s second-term agenda.
Republicans (mostly) love it. Democrats appear to universally hate it. Either way, the Big Beautiful Bill is a monumental piece of legislation that impacts nearly every aspect of American society.
It’s actually 11 tax and spending bills rolled into a 1,100-page package that includes many promises President Donald Trump made during his second campaign.
No tax on tips? Check. No tax on overtime? Check. $150 billion in new military spending? Yep. The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act made permanent? That too.
Plus rollbacks on the so-called Green New Deal tax subsidies, a few changes to Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, 3,000 new Border Patrol agents, 5,000 new customs officers, 10,000 new Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, and a $1.5 trillion haircut on federal spending over the next 10 years.
Republicans presented this bill as a commonsense effort to reform some of the things they think are broken in the country.
That includes the rapid increase in Medicaid spending over the last few years, what they see as the deterioration of military readiness, lack of control over the country’s borders, runaway inflation, and high energy prices.
Democrats have a different take. Their clear message—and a dress rehearsal of their 2026 campaign strategy—is that Republicans are cutting life-sustaining benefits for needy families to give giant tax breaks to billionaires.
To a person, they repeated those lines in endless hours of committee hearings and floor debate.
But why all the late-night meetings and the hard push from Trump in the final days?
Because Republican fiscal conservatives and moderates had deep disagreements about some parts of the bill. It was like an X-ray of the GOP rib cage. Every little crack showed up in black and white.
For the fiscal hawks, Medicaid was a key issue. Some saw this as a generational opportunity to overhaul the system, which they said is in danger of bankrupting the country due to rapid spending growth.
Moderates balked at any change in the payment rates made to states by the federal government.
The two sides settled on increasing the work requirements for some able-bodied people starting in 2027, and requiring people to verify their enrollment eligibility every six months instead of once a year.
The bill will also penalize states that enroll people living in the country illegally, of which by one government report, there are about 1.4 million people. And? It bars Medicaid for paying for “gender affirming care.”
Democrats are vehement in opposing changes to the program. They say it’s just a way to use paperwork and regulations to kick millions of people out of the program. Republicans say it will only affect people who didn’t qualify to begin with.
A handful of Republicans also pushed for an increase in the state and local tax federal tax deduction. It’s capped at $10,000, and an initial version of the bill increased that to $30,000. That was negotiated up to $40,000 for people making less than $500,000 per year.
Moderates said it’s only fair because people are being taxed twice on the same money—once by the state and once by the federal government. Others, including Trump, appeared to see it as a giveaway to high-tax states like New York and California.
So here’s the thing. Despite all the spending cuts, the Beautiful Bill still increases the federal deficit by $3.8 trillion over 10 years, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
That’s why a few Republicans wouldn’t vote for it. Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) was one of them; he called it “a debt bomb.”
So did Warren Davidson (R-Ohio) also voted against the bill. Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.), chair of the House Freedom Caucus, voted present.
Now it’s up to the Senate. They’ll consider the bill next and will likely make some changes.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said on Thursday morning that he hopes Senators won’t change too much. It took a delicate balance to get the bill passed, Johnson said.
The bill would also raise the national debt ceiling by $4 trillion. The Treasury said the country will exceed the current limit in August, so Senate action is expected by July.
