By Associated Press’s KEVIN FREKING and LISA MASCARO
Washington (AP) With a final Senate vote expected late Monday or early Tuesday, Republicans are edging closer to passing their tax and spending cut measure.
The law, which is approximately 940 pages long, is a comprehensive set of tax incentives, budget reductions, and other Republican goals, such as additional funding for deportations and national security. Republicans, who have the majority in both the House and the Senate, have been urged by President Donald Trump to forgo their summer breaks and present the measure by July 4.
As the Senate labored through what is known as avote-a-rama on Monday, Democrats, who are united against the proposal, offered dozens of changes to change it. An infinite number of amendments may be proposed by senators, and each one will be put to a vote. Before Trump to sign the plan into law, it would need to pass the House after passing the Senate.
Here is the most recent information on the bill. As GOP lawmakers continue to negotiate, things might change.
Republicans claim that the plan is essential because, once tax incentives from Trump’s first term expire in December, there would be a significant tax increase. Approximately $4.5 trillion in tax savings are included in the proposal.
The law would make the current tax rates and brackets permanent. It would temporarily provide new tax incentives that Trump ran on, including the ability to deduct interest payments on some vehicle loans, overtime pay, tip taxes, and a $6,000 deduction for elderly persons making no more than $75,000.
It would increase the child tax credit from $2,000 to $2,200. Millions of lower-income households would not receive the entire amount.
SALT, a five-year cap on state and local deductions, would treble to $40,000. Despite the House’s desire for a ten-year extension, this measure is crucial for high-tax states like New York.
Numerous tax breaks for enterprises are available, such as the ability to instantly deduct 100% of the cost of research and equipment.
According to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimate of the House version, the plan would cost the poorest persons $1,600 annually while increasing the wealthiest households by $12,000.
According to the CBO, middle-class earners would receive a $500–1,500 tax relief.
In order to carry out his pledge to launch the biggest mass deportation operation in American history, the plan would allocate almost $350 billion for Trump’s border and national security agenda, which includes $46 billion for the wall between the United States and Mexico and $45 billion for 100,000 beds in migrant detention facilities.
Ten thousand new Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers would be hired, along with a surge of Border Patrol officers and signing incentives of $10,000. Deporting almost a million people annually is the aim.
A new $10 billion fund would be established by the homeland security secretary to provide funds to states that assist with federal immigration enforcement and deportation efforts.
Immigrants would be subject to a number of additional levies, including when applying for asylum protections, to help cover the cost.
The bill would give the Pentagon $25 billion to develop the Golden Dome missile defense system and billions for shipbuilding, weapons systems, and quality of life initiatives for service members. For border protection, the Defense Department would receive $1 billion.
Republicans want to reduce expenditure on Medicaid and food assistance for the poor in order to partially offset the extra spending and lost tax revenue.
Republicans claim they are attempting to eliminate what they characterize as waste, fraud, and abuse while also resizing the safety net programs to better serve the demographics they were originally intended to assist, primarily children, the disabled, and pregnant women.
The package imposes additional labor requirements of 80 hours per month on many adults, including those over 65, who get food stamps and Medicaid. The job requirements of the program would need to be fulfilled by parents of children aged 14 and up.
Additionally, individuals who use Medicaid services may be assessed a new $35 co-payment.
40 million individuals use the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program, while over 71 million people depend on Medicaid, which was increased under Obama’s Affordable Care Act. Analysts say most already function.
According to the Congressional Budget Office, if the measure were to pass into law, 11.8 million more Americans would lack health insurance by 2034, and an additional 3 million would not be eligible for food stamps.
A $25 billion Rural Hospital Transformation Program is being proposed by the Senate to help make up for the lost Medicaid funding. It’s a recent change meant to appease a group of House Republicans and recalcitrant Republican senators who have expressed concern that the planned Medicaid provider tax cuts would negatively impact rural hospitals.
Republicans are attempting to significantly reduce tax incentives intended to support clean energy projects powered by wind and other renewable energy sources. One of the main features of President Joe Biden’s historic 2022 bill, which addressed climate change and reduced healthcare costs, was the tax breaks.
Sen. Ron Wyden, a Democrat from Oregon, went so far as to say that the GOP’s proposals will kill America’s wind and solar sectors and inevitably result in higher electricity prices.
By the end of 2027, the law would remove a tax credit that supports the generation of electricity for any wind and solar plants that are not connected to the grid. Republicans want to impose a fee on new wind and solar projects that employ a specific percentage of Chinese components, in addition to repealing the tax breaks Biden imposed.
Instead of ending at the end of 2032 as is currently the case, a tax discount for those who purchase new or used electric vehicles will terminate on September 30 of this year.
In the meantime, metallurgical coal used to make steel will be included in a tax credit for the production of vital commodities.
Other GOP priorities are reflected in several more sections.
Both the Senate and the House have proposed a new children’s savings program called Trump Accounts, which could receive a $1,000 Treasury deposit.
To create Trump’s long-desired National Garden of American Heroes, the Senate contributed $40 million.
University endowments are subject to a new excise tax. There was no longer a $200 tax on shotguns, short-barreled rifles, or silencers. One clause prohibits funding for family planning organizations, such as Planned Parenthood, while $88 million is set up for an accountability committee for pandemic response.
For those affected by nuclear development and testing, another component extends the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act, a tenaciously fought measure by Missouri GOP Senator Josh Hawley.
Billions would be spent on Mars exploration and the Artemis moon mission.
By associating certain federal funds for AI infrastructure with upholding a freeze, the bill would discourage states from regulating AI. GOP leaders have been urged by 17 Republican governors to remove the clause.
Furthermore, a clause would raise the country’s debt ceiling by $5 trillion to permit further borrowing to settle outstanding debts.
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In total, the bill would raise federal deficits by almost $3.3 trillion between 2025 and 2034, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
Depending on how the math is done, it might or might not.
Since the present tax breaks are already part of the law, Senate Republicans are putting forth the novel idea of not recognizing them as new expenses. The chairman of the Senate Budget Committee has the power to establish the starting point for the preferred strategy, according to Republican senators.
According to the CBO, the bill would cut deficits by over half a trillion dollars over the next ten years under the alternative Senate GOP position.
Democrats claim that the full costs of the tax incentives are hidden by this magic math. In that opinion, several nonpartisan organizations that are concerned about the nation’s financial future are supporting Democrats. Senate Republicans, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, are using an accounting trick that would make executives at Enron cringe.
