WASHINGTON, Jun 29 \u2013 Senate Republicans narrowly advanced a budget bill that is pivotal to President Donald Trump\u2019s second-term agenda ahead of a self-imposed 4 July deadline.<\/p>\n
In a 51-49 vote largely along party lines, the Senate has moved to open debate on the bill, a key initial hurdle that Republicans scrambled to overcome.<\/p>\n
Two Republicans joined Democrats in opposing the move to take up the bill.<\/p>\n
Party leadership had been twisting arms for the initial vote on the \u201cBig Beautiful Bill\u201d on Saturday, following the release of its latest version \u2013 all 940 pages \u2013 shortly after midnight.<\/p>\n
Republicans were divided over how much to cut welfare programmes in order to extend $3.8tn (\u00a32.8tn) in Trump tax breaks.<\/p>\n
The bill\u2019s fate on the Senate floor remains uncertain, as Republicans in the chamber continue to quarrel over the bill\u2019s provisions. <\/p>\n
Vice-President JD Vance travelled to the Capitol on Saturday night to offer a tiebreak vote, though party leaders were ultimately able to negotiate majority support without his help.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Democrats say they will drag out the process in protest at the bill, with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer saying his party will force Republicans to read out the nearly 1,000 pages of text before the Senate can begin debate and potentially take up a final vote.<\/p>\n
Separately, some Republicans in the House of Representatives have expressed concerns over the changes in the Senate version of the bill. <\/p>\n
The sprawling tax and spending measure passed the House of Representatives by a single vote last month.The Senate\u2019s version of the bill included a series of changes meant to address points of disagreement among Republicans. <\/p>\n
Still, party leaders struggled to secure enough votes.In a memo sent to Senate offices, the White House endorsed the latest revisions to the bill and called for its passage.<\/p>\n
The memo reportedly warned that failure to approve the budget \u201cwould be the ultimate betrayal\u201d.<\/p>\n
Republicans Rand Paul of Kentucky and Thom Tillis of North Carolina joined Democrats in rejecting the bill.<\/p>\n
As the Senate vote concluded, President Trump posted on Truth Social, his social media platform, that Tillis was making a \u201cBIG MISTAKE\u201d. <\/p>\n
He wrote that he would be meeting with candidates who \u201ccome forward wanting to run in the Primary against \u201cSenator Thom\u201d Tillis\u201d.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
WASHINGTON, Jun 29 \u2013 Senate Republicans narrowly advanced a budget bill that is pivotal to President Donald Trump\u2019s second-term agenda ahead of a self-imposed 4 July deadline. In a 51-49 vote largely along party lines, the Senate has moved to open debate on the bill, a key initial hurdle that Republicans scrambled to overcome. Two […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-117299","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","entry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117299","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=117299"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117299\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=117299"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=117299"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=117299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}