The United States Senate has begun debating President Donald Trump’s 940-page “Big, Beautiful Bill” of tax breaks and sweeping cuts to healthcare and food programmes.The all-night session on Sunday came as the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) said the bill would add an estimated $3.3 trillion to the US debt over a decade.
It also said that 11.8 million more Americans would become uninsured by 2034 if the bill became law.
Republican leaders, who reject the CBO’s estimates, are rushing to meet Trump’s deadline of July 4, the country’s Independence Day.
But they barely secured enough support to muscle the bill past a procedural vote on Saturday night. A handful of Republican holdouts revolted, and it took phone calls from Trump and a visit from Vice President JD Vance to keep the legislation on track.
Republican Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina, who voted against the bill on Saturday, announced he would not seek re-election after Trump threatened to back a primary challenger in retribution for his “no” vote.
Tillis said he could not vote for the bill with its steep cuts to Medicaid, which provides health cover for low-income people.
Trump welcomed Tillis’s decision not to run again, saying in a post on TruthSocial: “Great News! ‘Senator’ Thom Tillis will not be seeking reelection.”
Other Senate Republicans, along with conservatives in the House of Representatives, are …
