Republican Sens. John Barrasso of Wyoming, John Thune of South Dakota, Mike Crapo of Idaho and Lindsey Graham of South Dakota speak to reporters after passage of their sweeping tax break and spending cut bill on Tuesday, July 1, 2025. (Photo by Ashley Murray/States Newsroom)
This report has been updated.
WASHINGTON — U.S. Senate Republicans approved their signature tax break and spending cuts package Tuesday with a tie-breaking vote cast by Vice President JD Vance, following days of tense, closed-door negotiations that went until the few last minutes of a marathon amendment voting session.
The 51-50 mostly party-line vote sends the legislation back to the House, where GOP leaders hope to clear the bill for President Donald Trump’s signature this week. But frustrations throughout the conference over changes made in the Senate could delay or even block final approval.
Republican Sens. Susan Collins of Maine, Rand Paul of Kentucky and Thom Tillis of North Carolina voted against approving the legislation over concerns it would not benefit the country’s finances or Republican voters.
Changes made in final negotiations were not immediately clear or publicly available.
Majority Leader John Thune said the passage marked “a historic day.”
“We’re very excited to be a part of something that is going to make America stronger, safer and more prosperous, and it really starts with the agenda that President Trump laid out when he was running last year.
“He talked about modernizing our military, securing our borders, restoring energy dominance in this country, bringing tax relief to working families and low income taxpayers in this country, and doing something about the runaway, spiraling spending and debt,” the South Dakota Republican said minutes after the vote.
“So this was an incredible victory for the American people, and we as a team are delighted to be a part of it.”
The bill now heads back to the House. The chamber’s Committee on Rules is expected to meet Tuesday afternoon, which will be the final stop for the bill before it reaches the House floor.
Thune said he believes Senate Republicans have given the House “a really strong product.”
“I think we took what they sent us and strengthened and improved upon it. And so I’m hopeful that now, when it gets sent over there, as they deliberate about how they want to handle it, we’ll find the votes that are necessary to pass it and want to put it on the president’s desk,” he said.
Trump praised the Senate’s passage on his Truth Social media platform, saying “Almost all of our Great Republicans in the United States Senate have passed our ‘ONE, BIG, BEAUTIFUL BILL.’”
He added: “We can have all of this right now, but only if the House GOP UNITES, ignores its occasional “GRANDSTANDERS” (You know who you are!), and does the right thing, which is sending this Bill to my desk. We are on schedule — Let’s keep it going, and be done before you and your family go on a July 4th vacation.”
Several House conservatives have railed against the Senate version, including Reps. Andy Ogles of Tennessee, Ralph Norman of South Carolina and others.
House Speaker Mike Johnson issued a joint statement with House Republican leaders saying the chamber “will work quickly to pass the One Big Beautiful Bill that enacts President Trump’s full America First agenda by the Fourth of July. The American people gave us a clear mandate, and after four years of Democrat failure, we intend to deliver without delay.”
“Republicans were elected to do exactly what this bill achieves: secure the border, make tax cuts permanent, unleash American energy dominance, restore peace through strength, cut wasteful spending, and return to a government that puts Americans first,” the Louisiana Republican said in the statement that included House Majority Leader Steve Scalise of Louisiana, Majority Whip Tom Emmer of Minnesota and conference chair Lisa McClain of Michigan.
Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski , whose support had been unclear until the vote, and Majority Whip John Barrasso, of Wyoming, left the chamber to catch an elevator together just after 9:30 a.m. Eastern.
Asked if the bill was in the hands of the parliamentarian, Murkowski quipped, “I think it’s in the hands of the people that operate the coffee machine.”
Barrasso said “Yes” when asked if it would pass this morning.
Murkowski: ‘difficult and agonizing legislative 24-hour period’
Flooded by reporters after the vote, Murkowski said “we do not have a perfect bill by any stretch of the imagination.”
“My hope is that the House is gonna look at this and recognize that we’re not there yet, and I would hope that we would be able to actually do what we used to do around here, which is work back and forth in the two bodies to get a measure that’s gonna be better for the people in this country and more particularly, for the people in Alaska,” she said.
“This is probably the most difficult and agonizing legislative 24-hour period that I have encountered, and I’ve been here quite a while, and you all know I’ve got a few battle scars underneath me,” Murkowski added. “But I think I held my head up and made sure that the people of Alaska are not forgotten in this, but I think that there is more that needs to be done, and I’m not done.”
“I am gonna take a nap, though,” she said.
When asked about Murkowski’s decision to vote for the bill, Thune said, “She, as you know, is a very independent thinker and somebody who studies the issues really, really hard and well. And I’m just grateful that at the end of the day, she included what the rest of us did, or at least most of the rest of us did, and that is that this was the right direction for the future of our country.”
Democrats react
Senate Democrats walking off the floor seemed somber, a sentiment that Senate Leader Chuck Schumer said also extended to Republicans after the bill’s passage.
“On the Republican side, when the bill passed, there was a bit of somberness that I don’t think was expected, and that’s because they knew deep in their hearts how bad this bill is for them, their states and the Republican Party,” Schumer said.
“When people start losing their Medicaid, when they start losing their jobs, when their electric bills go up, when their premiums go up, when kids and parents lose SNAP funding, the people of America will remember this vote,” the New York Democrat continued.
Criticism poured in from others as well, including the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, which likened the Senate’s bill passage to jumping “off a budget cliff.”
“The level of blatant disregard we just witnessed for our nation’s fiscal condition and budget process is a failure of responsible governing. These are the very same lawmakers who for years have bemoaned the nation’s massive debt, voting to put another $4 trillion on the credit card,” the organization’s president Maya MacGuineas said in a statement.
CRFB estimates the Senate version of the bill would add $600 billion to the national deficit just in 2027.
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office released a calculation Sunday showing the bill would add $3.25 trillion to deficits over 10 years.
Trump weighs in ahead of vote
Trump told reporters on Tuesday morning before leaving for a Florida visit to the “Alligator Alcatraz” immigrant detention site that “it’s very complicated stuff” when asked about Senate Republicans’ debate over spending cuts.
“We’re going to have to see the final version. I don’t want to go too crazy with cuts. I don’t like cuts. There are certain things that have been cut, which is good. I think we’re doing well,” Trump said. “We’re going to have to see, it’s some very complicated stuff. Great enthusiasm as you know. And I think in the end we’re going to have it.”
The heart of the nearly 1,000-page legislation extends and expands the 2017 tax law to keep individual income tax rates at the same level and makes permanent some tax breaks on business investments and research and development costs.
The bill would also put in motion some of Trump’s campaign promises, including no tax on qualifying tips, overtime or car loan interest, but only for a few years.
And it slashes spending on the Medicaid program for low-income people and some people with disabilities as well as shifting significant costs of the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, to states for the first time. It also overhauls federal education aid.
It would also bolster spending on border security and defense by hundreds of billions of dollars, including line items for the “golden dome” missile defense system and additional barriers along the southern border.
The measure would provide a substantial funding increase for federal immigration enforcement for detention and removal of people without permanent legal status, aiding the president in carrying out his campaign promise of mass deportations.
The Senate version of the bill also would revive the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act fund, a bipartisan measure championed by Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri. The fund provides money to victims of certain types of cancer and surviving family members in several states affected by the United States atomic bomb testing program and radioactive waste left behind.
Uranium miners would also be eligible under the measure. While reviving the fund has received wide bipartisan approval in the Senate, the House has not shown the same support.
The Senate bill would raise the debt limit by $5 trillion, a figure designed to get Congress past next year’s midterm elections before the country would once again bump up against the borrowing limit.
On to the House
House approval is far from guaranteed.
Johnson can only lose four Republicans if all lawmakers in that chamber attend the vote. Several GOP members have voiced frustration with how the Senate has reworked the legislation, signaling an uphill climb for the bill.
House Ways and Means Chair Jason Smith said as he left the Senate cloakroom just after 9:20 a.m. Eastern that lawmakers are “getting closer to a bill signing on July Fourth.”
“If you followed this journey over the last six months, over and over, people said that we could not accomplish a budget (reconciliation bill). We did. They said we would never pass it out of the House. We did. The Senate is going to pass it. The House is going to pass it, and the president’s going to sign it into law,” the Missouri Republican said.
Three amendments succeed
The Senate had adopted three amendments to the bill following an all-night amendment voting session, known as a vote-a-rama.
Tennessee Republican Sen. Marsha Blackburn was able to remove language from the package that would have blocked state and local governments from regulating artificial intelligence for five years if they wanted access to a $500 million fund. That vote was 99-1 with only North Carolina’s Tillis voting to keep the language in the package.
Blackburn said the change was necessary because lawmakers in Congress have “proven that they cannot legislate on emerging technology.”
Senators approved an amendment from Iowa GOP Sen. Joni Ernst by voice vote that would disqualify “anyone making a million dollars or more from being eligible for unemployment income support.”
Louisiana Republican Sen. John Kennedy was able to get an amendment adopted by a voice vote that would move up the date when Medicaid administrators must begin checking the Social Security Administration’s death master file to determine if a new enrollee is alive before adding them to the health program. It was set to begin on Jan. 1, 2028, but will now begin one year earlier.
Senators rejected dozens of amendments offered by both Democrats and Republicans, some of which deadlocked on 50-50 votes. Maine’s Collins and Alaska’s Murkowski broke with their party several times to vote with Democrats.
National private school voucher program
Hawaii Democratic Sen. Mazie Hirono tried to eliminate a sweeping private school voucher program that’s baked into the reconciliation package, but that vote failed 50-50. Collins, Nebraska Republican Sen. Deb Fischer and Murkowski voted in support.
The original proposal called for $4 billion a year in tax credits beginning in 2027 for people donating to organizations that provide private and religious school scholarships.
But the parliamentarian last week deemed the program to not comply with the “Byrd Bath,” a Senate process named for the late Sen. Robert Byrd, forcing senators to rework the program.
Details on the finalized version of the program remain unknown as the final bill text has not been released.
Safety funding for Virginia airport across from D.C.
Virginia Democratic Sen. Mark Warner tried to add language to the bill that would have increased safety funding for airports near Washington, D.C., and established a memorial for the victims who died in a crash this January. The vote failed on a tied 50-50 vote, with Collins, Kansas GOP Sen. Jerry Moran and Murkowski voting with Democrats in support.
“Colleagues, we all know that on January 29 of this year, 67 individuals lost their lives when a military helicopter and a passenger jet collided near Reagan National Airport. This tragedy underscores the need for more safety improvements at National Airport,” Warner said. “The reconciliation bill increases, actually doubles, the amount of rent that National and Dulles pay the government but doesn’t use any of that money to make those airports and the people who use them any safer.”
He argued there was “no good rationale for increasing those rents and not using them for aviation safety.”
Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz spoke against Warner’s amendment, saying the rents for the two airports in Virginia near the nation’s capital haven’t been updated in decades.
“The federal government originally calculated the rent in 1987 at $7.5 million dollars, massively below market rates,” Cruz said. “This bill increases that to $15 million, still dramatically below market rates.”
Cruz — chairman of the Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation — said the legislation includes $12.5 billion for the Federal Aviation Administration to “transform the air traffic control system” and said his panel is looking into the collision in order to prevent something similar from happening again.
Trump budget director’s office targeted
Maryland Democratic Sen. Chris Van Hollen also got within one vote of having an amendment adopted when he tried to remove a section from the bill that would increase funding for the White House budget office by $100 million.
“This is at a time when (Federal Emergency Management Agency) grants to many of our states have been canceled, grants for law enforcement have been frozen, grants for victims of crimes are on hold,” Van Hollen said. “That is not efficiency. That is creating chaos and uncertainty. And I ask my colleagues, why in the world would we want to send another $100 million to OMB?”
Wisconsin Republican Sen. Ron Johnson opposed the efforts, saying “the Office of Management and Budget needs to identify budgeting and accounting efficiencies in the executive branch. They need the resources to do it.”
The amendment was not added to the bill following another tied 50-50 vote with Collins, Murkowski and Paul voting with Democrats in favor.
Had GOP leadership wanted either of those proposals added to the package, they could have had Vance break the tie, but they did not.
Collins loses vote on rural hospital fund
Maine’s Collins tried to get an amendment added to the legislation that would have increased “funding for the rural health care provider fund to $50 billion dollars and expand the list of eligible providers to include not only rural hospitals but also community health centers, nursing homes, ambulance services, skilled nursing facilities and others.”
Collins said the additional $25 billion in funding for the fund would be paid for by “a modest increase in the top marginal tax rate, equal to the pre-2017 rate for individuals with income above $25 million and married couples with income above $50 million.”
Collins’ amendment was subject to a Senate procedural limit known as a budget point of order. She was unable to get the votes needed to waive that on a 22-78 vote.
Oregon Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden spoke against Collins’ proposal, calling it “flawed,” and introduced the budget point of order against her amendment.
“The danger Senate Republicans are causing for rural hospitals is so great, Republicans have had to create a rural hospital relief fund so they can look like they are fixing the problem they are causing,” Wyden said. “It is a Band-Aid on an amputation. It provides just a tiny fraction of the nearly $1 trillion in cuts the bill makes to Medicaid. It would be much more logical to simply not cut $1 trillion from Medicaid in the first place.”
Collins received a mix of support from Republicans, including West Virginia Shelley Moore Capito, Louisiana’s Bill Cassidy, Utah’s John Curtis, Nebraska’s Fischer, South Carolina’s Lindsey Graham, Missouri’s Josh Hawley, Ohio’s Jon Husted and Bernie Moreno, Mississippi’s Cindy Hyde-Smith and Roger Wicker, Louisiana’s Kennedy, Kansans Roger Marshall and Moran, Kentucky’s Mitch McConnell, Alaskans Dan Sullivan and Murkowski and Indiana’s Todd Young.
Also voting to waive the point of order and move forward with the amendment were Georgia’s Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock and Virginia’s Warner, all Democrats, and independent Maine Sen. Angus King.
