Senate races to pass Donald Trump’s flagship tax bill as deadline looms

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Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” inched closer to passage on Monday, as Senate Republicans charged ahead with their efforts to pass the flagship tax legislation ahead of the US president’s self-imposed July 4 deadline.

But while Trump met Republican congressional leaders and insisted the bill was “moving along nicely”, it remained uncertain whether the sweeping legislation would get buy-in from enough Republicans on Capitol Hill to be signed into law by the end of the week.

“ONE GREAT BIG BEAUTIFUL BILL, is moving along nicely! MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!” Trump said in a post to his Truth Social platform early on Monday.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt later said Trump had met Senate Republican leader John Thune and Republican Speaker of the House Mike Johnson on Monday in a renewed push to stamp out intraparty squabbling and get the bill over the line.

“The White House and the president are adamant that this bill is passed, and this bill makes its way to his desk,” Leavitt said. “Republicans need to stay tough and unified during this home stretch, and we are counting on them to get the job done.”

The so-called big, beautiful bill — which would fund an extension of the tax cuts introduced in Trump’s first term by slashing spending on healthcare and social welfare programmes — cleared a major procedural hurdle at the weekend when senators narrowly voted to start debating the legislation.

On Monday morning, lawmakers began a marathon series of votes on amendments to the bill in a “vote-a-rama” process that was set to culminate in a final up-or-down vote on the bill as soon as Monday night.

But with Democrats unified in their opposition to the bill, Trump’s party can only afford to lose three votes in the Senate if the legislation is to pass the upper chamber of Congress by a simple majority. Two Republican senators — Kentucky’s Rand Paul and Thom Tillis of North Carolina — have already said they would vote against the legislation.

Several others have expressed reservations about the bill’s size and scope, including specific provisions that would cut spending on Medicaid, the public health scheme for low-income and disabled Americans, and reverse tax incentives for the renewable energy industry.

The House of Representatives last month passed its own version of the “big, beautiful bill”. But any version that passes the Senate will need to be sent back to the House for approval before the final text can be sent to Trump’s desk to be signed into law.

Several House Republicans have already sounded alarm bills about the Senate version of the “big, beautiful bill” — raising the possibility that even if senators pass the legislation this week, it could stall again in the House. Johnson is contending with a razor-thin majority and can only afford to lose a handful of votes.

The House Freedom Caucus, an influential group of conservative lawmakers, have threatened to torpedo the legislation. The group of fiscal hawks railed against the “big, beautiful bill” on Monday, saying the Senate’s version added $651bn to the deficit, not including the cost of interest.

“That’s not fiscal responsibility. It’s not what we agreed to,” the caucus said in a statement on X. “The Senate must make major changes and should at least be in the ballpark of compliance with the agreed upon House budget framework.”

Leavitt nevertheless remained bullish on the bill’s prospects on Monday, telling reporters: “The president is very well aware that this bill needs to not only pass out of the Senate, but it needs to go back to the House. We need the full weight of the Republican conference to get behind this bill. We expect them to, and we are confident that they will.”

The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office on Sunday said the Senate proposals would add more than $3.2tn to US national debt over 10 years.

The White House has repeatedly rejected CBO estimates and insisted that stronger economic growth and revenues from Trump’s tariff regime would more than cover the cost of the legislation.