BOSTON (WBZ NewsRadio) — President Trump's "big, beautiful bill," passed the Senate Tuesday after a 26-hour marathon voting session.
The multi-trillion dollar tax policy package passed along party lines with a 51-50 vote with Vice President JD Vance breaking the tie.
The legislation includes:
- Restrictions to Medicaid leaving millions without health insurance. It would cut more than $1 trillion in health-care spending
- Funding for U.S. Immigration and Custom Enforcement including $46.5 billion for border wall construction, $45 billion to expand detention facilities and $30 billion for hiring, training and other resources.
- An increase on the cap for state and local tax deductions, raising the amount from $10,000 to $40,000.
- Restrictions on food stamps
- Raising the debt limit by $5 trillion
- A decrease in the child tax credit
Local leaders issued the following statements:
Governor Maura Healey
“Congressional Republicans put their blind loyalty to Donald Trump over their constituents. They were elected to lower costs and strengthen our economy — but this bill does the opposite. It will take away health care for hundreds of thousands of Massachusetts residents and threatens closures of rural hospitals, nursing homes and community health centers. It will increase health care and energy costs for every person and business. And it will take away food from millions of families, children, veterans, seniors and people with disabilities. Senate Republicans just voted to add $3.3 trillion to the national debt."
Senator Edward Markey
“Today, Senate Republicans abdicated their responsibility to the American people. They acted in service to Trump and billionaires while pursuing the largest cuts to health care, food security, and climate and clean energy in United States history. If these cuts pass into law and even one child goes hungry, one worker loses their job, or one person cannot get lifesaving care, the burden falls on Republicans for their record-setting cruelty.
People’s lives and livelihoods should not be treated as expendable. Hospitals, nursing homes, and community health centers should not be forced into financial emergency rooms. Families should not be poisoned by pollution or shoulder higher energy costs, and communities should not be left defenseless against the worsening climate crisis."
Senator Elizabeth Warren
"I’m leaving the Senate now at the end of the vote. When the Republicans won, they cheered. They cheered over taking away health care from around 17 million people. They cheered over giving huge tax breaks to a handful of billionaires. They cheered over running up the national debt by another three and a half trillion dollars. You know, this bill is bad. It's bad economically, it's bad morally. This bill is just wrong. But, we stay in the fight. We stay in the fight. And we proved why we stay in the fight, because actually, there are pieces of this bill that we got better.
We got the tax on solar and wind knocked out, and that's going to help with clean energy. We got a few different pieces and made them better. So that's reason number one. It's always the reminder: all of those calls matter.
Reason number two is: it’s still not over. The bill has now got to go back over to the House, and there are a lot of Republicans who are feeling really squeamish about this bill at this point, so that means we got to stay in the fight.
And reason number three is: yeah, they may do this now, but come November 2026, they're going to have to face the voters. They're going to have to face the people, the families of the people whose health care they took away, and they're going to have to explain exactly what they just did just now on the floor of the United States Senate and whatever they do next.
So, this is hard, but damn, we stay in the fight. We stay in it not because it's an easy fight, not because we're guaranteed to win every time. We stay in it, because it's the right fight."
The bill will now head to the House of Representatives where Republicans will face another up hill battle passing the legislation before President Trump can sign it.