The GOP’s budget package is on its way to President Donald Trump’s desk after Speaker Mike Johnson called his colleagues’ bluffs and put the Senate’s package on the floor for a vote Thursday afternoon.
It passed with a thin but steady 218-214 margin after conservatives in the chamber who were upset with changes made to the bill by the Senate folded one last time. So too did all the various Republicans who drew lines in the sand regarding cuts to Medicaid benefits or eligibility standards.
The bill was passed through the budget reconciliation process in the Senate, meaning that it required only a simple majority to pass. That process also barred the bill from containing explicit policy provisions — though money itself is policy, and this legislation still provides plenty of funding for the president’s political priorities.
Here’s a look at what made it in the final version, and how it could mean real changes for millions of Americans:
Tax cuts for the wealthy
At its core, the package's priority is $4.5 trillion in tax breaks enacted in 2017 during Trump's first term that would expire if Congress failed to act, along with new ones. That includes allowing workers to deduct tips and overtime pay, and a $6,000 deduction for most older adults earning less than $75,000 a year.
The first and most expensive provision of the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” it is actually an extension of the biggest piece of legislation to pass during Trump’s first presidency. Then, after a failed bid to repeal the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), Trump and his Republican allies turned to a more politically appealing target: tax cuts.
The result was a tax bill passed by the House and Senate before the end of 2017, notable for its changes to the corporate tax rate (setting a flat rate at 21%) and lowering individual income taxes, though the cuts were found by analysts to favor wealthier households.
Republicans, at the time, projected that it would not add to the federal debt, though it did.
Sound familiar? The insistences from GOP leaders today that the OBBA won’t add to the national debt were the same promises made by Republicans in 2017, who claimed that resurgent economic growth spurred on by Donald Trump’s magic touch would make up the gap. Now, GOP leaders have the ironic task of selling that argument when the most expensive part of the OBBA is an extension of the deficit-swelling Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.
This time around, Republicans upped the game by temporarily expanding the child tax credit and removing taxes on some tipped wages. There’s also a hiked cap on state and local tax deductions (SALT), part of a deal cut to get Republicans from blue states on board. The cap was boosted from the current $10,000 a year to $40,000, though it will revert in 2030.
Cuts to Medicaid and SNAP
Somebody’s gotta pay for all of this — or at least part of it. That’s where Medicaid and SNAP, formerly known as food stamps, come in.
Both programs will be subject to new work requirements under the law, with Medicaid spending alone estimated to fall by just over $1 trillion over the next decade in the latest analysis from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO).
For Americans on the program, that means new reporting requirements and paperwork. Individual eligibility checks will still be handled by state-level agencies, which will set their own guidelines for determining whether recipients are in compliance. SNAP benefits will now be withheld from adults with children who do not return to work, if their youngest child is 14 years or older.
The legislation also requires state governments to pick up some of the tab for SNAP payments if their in-state payment error rate is above a certain threshold. Another carve-out in the bill, this time to secure the vote of Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, delays this provision in her state.
ICE and mass deportation boost
The closest thing to a true policy provision in the GOP bill and one of the least-reported aspects, this section would turn America’s immigration enforcement division into one of the most well-funded law enforcement organizations in the entire world.
The bill delivers an absolutely massive increase in funding meant to transform the size and scope of immigration enforcement in the United States.
Among the provisions: $46.6 billion for completion of the border fencing Trump demanded during his first term; $29.9 billion for ICE enforcement operations including the hiring of up to 10,000 new agents; $45 billion for the construction of new detention facilities.
Put simply, the Trump administration is set to have the resources it needs for a massive upscaling in the daily number of arrests and raids that ICE agents are carrying out across the country.
The push against the ‘Green New Deal’
Utterly villainized by the right (to a questionable degree of success) after it was introduced by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Ed Markey, the “Green New Deal” never actually became law in any form.
That doesn’t stop Republicans from insisting otherwise, however, and many have latched on to the phrase as they pushed to roll back electric vehicle tax credits passed as part of the Inflation Reduction Act under Joe Biden’s presidency.
Those provisions originated in Biden’s signature “Build Back Better” legislation, which failed early into the Democratic president’s term thanks to an inability of Democrats to pull two centrist members of their Senate caucus into line.
The OBBB strips tax incentives for wind, solar and other renewable energy projects by 2027 and gives developers stringent requirements to claim them.
And electric vehicle makers like Elon Musk will also be hit because the bill ends EV tax credits of up to $7,500 at the end of September that had been scheduled to last through 2032. That was a big incentive for potential electric car buyers
Raising the debt ceiling
This part of the bill is a gift to two people: Mike Johnson and John Thune.
The GOP leaders have watched members in both chambers balk against raising the debt limit time and time again, causing headaches for congressional leadership and sapping the time and political capital of the entire Legislative Branch.
The just-passed legislation raises the debt ceiling by $5t trillion, averting at least one deadline later this summer.
‘Golden Dome’ and defense spending
There's also a hefty investment, some $350 billion, in national security and Trump's deportation agenda and to help develop the Israeli Iron Dome-like “Golden Dome” defensive system over the U.S.
It’s part of a $150bn surge in defense spending in the package described as a “one-time” boost to help the Pentagon fund shipbuilding, munitions acquisition and other priorities.
