Republicans Attempt to Push ‘One Big Beautiful Bill’ Through Congress

President Donald Trump signs the One Big Beautiful Bill Act on the South Lawn of the White House, Friday, July 4, 2025, during the 4th of July picnic. (Official White House Photo by Daniel Torok)

After President Donald Trump’s victory in the 2024 United States presidential election, Republicans negotiated with Trump to advance his agenda, focusing on strengthening border security, energy production, and the military while reserving policy fights over tax cuts for later in 2025. To achieve this, President Trump advocated for a single-bill approach to prevent the tax cuts from the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 from expiring.

In January 2025, Speaker Mike Johnson stated that Trump wanted “one big, beautiful bill” to enact his policies and pass it more easily. The Republicans decided to use the reconciliation process, which allows them to avoid being stymied by the 60-vote Senate filibuster since they only hold 53 seats in the Senate and do not have the supermajority needed to bypass the filibuster. To do so, the House and the Senate must agree on a set of specific guidelines, called reconciliation instructions, in their respective budget resolutions.

On May 22, 2025, after lengthy deliberations in the House of Representatives, Republicans were able to pass their multi-trillion-dollar tax-break package, known as the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act.” After Trump sought support from remaining Republican holdouts and last-minute concessions, the bill passed 215-214, with no Democratic support. The bill is headed toward the Senate, which is expected to undergo lengthy negotiations.

The defense aspect of the reconciliation bill would allocate an additional $150 billion in defense spending, including $1 billion that will go toward kamikaze drones, also known as one-way attack drones or loitering munitions, that are designed to destroy their targets by crashing into them. 

The reconciliation bill would allocate $70 billion for border security, which will allow Trump to fulfill his crackdown on immigration by adding tens of thousands of border patrol agents, which the administration projects would enable up to 1 million deportations annually. 

The education aspect of the reconciliation bill would increase eligibility requirements for Pell Grants, which means fewer students, particularly those from low-income groups, may qualify and afford college tuition. In addition, the bill would introduce Workforce Pell Grants to encourage more students to pursue nontraditional paths, such as vocational training at trade schools. It may strengthen the skills trades workforce, albeit at the risk of diverting funding away from traditional four-year degrees.

The healthcare aspect of the bill would prohibit federal programs such as Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act from funding transgender healthcare. Initially, the bill would prohibit gender-affirming care for individuals under the age of 18. Afterward, House Republicans broadened the ban to include adults, following an amendment supported by both conservative and swing-district Republicans by striking the phrase “for minors” in the new amendment.

The tax portion of the bill, which faced the most intense negotiations among the Republicans in Congress, would increase the child tax credit to $2,500 through 2028 and $2,000 after that, temporarily create a tax deduction for tips and overtime through 2028, and implement an additional $4,000 tax deduction for seniors, and ultimately raise the cap for state and local tax (SALT) deductions to $30,000, from $10,000 in 2017. 

Despite the Republican passage in the House and the expected passage in the Republican-controlled Senate, some aspects of the reconciliation bill have faced political roadblocks. For instance, several House Republican Representatives announced they would oppose the bill if the SALT caps were not raised further. Given that most of these representatives hail from wealthy suburban districts, often in blue states with high taxes, an increase in the cap would allow taxpayers in these states to pay lower taxes.

In addition, fiscally conservative Republican Senators, who are concerned with the federal deficit, have pushed for deeper spending cuts. Leading the charge was Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI), who criticized the bill for being “fiscally reckless” and called for a return to pre-pandemic spending levels.

On the other hand, Moderate Republicans and populist Republicans, such as Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO), have expressed concerns about Medicaid cuts, as reductions in federal Medicaid funding could put pressure on rural hospitals and force some to close. Senator Susan Collins (R-ME) expressed her concerns about the restrictions on states’ ability to use healthcare provider taxes to collect additional federal Medicaid funding. “I’m very worried about our rural hospitals in Maine,” Senator Collins told The Hill on May 21, 2025.

In addition to internal Republican disagreements, Senate Democrats will look to using the Byrd Rule, which limits what can be included in a budget reconciliation bill. This rule allows specific budgetary bills to bypass the 60-seat Senate filibuster and pass with just a simple majority of 51 Senators. Senate Democrats argue that several provisions, due to their ideological nature, violate the Byrd Rule.

For instance, Democrats in the Senate argue that an extension of Trump’s 2017 tax cuts, a proposed 10-year ban on state-level AI regulations, language that limits the power of federal court to enforce contempt of court citations, a provision to end a tax on the manufacturing of gun silencers, a provision to defund Planned Parenthood, a provision banning Medicaid from funding gender-affirming care for people of all ages, and a provision to streamline permits for fossil fuel projects, violate the Byrd Rule. 

Further complicating the issue was that on June 20, 2025, the Senate Parliamentarian, Elizabeth MacDonough, who decides if specific provisions violate the Byrd Rule, ruled that several key pieces of the reconciliation bill do not comply with the Byrd Rule and must be removed if the Senate Republicans wanted to avoid their legislation being stymied by the filibuster.

For instance, the Senate Parliamentarian ruled against a provision that would have imposed a funding cap on the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), a federal agency established in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis as part of the reforms enacted by the Dodd-Frank Act. In addition, she ruled against funding cuts to the Federal Reserve staff, the Office of Financial Research, and the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board.

As such, given that House Republicans and Senate Republicans have still not agreed on what the specifics of the “Big Beautiful Bill” will contain, it seems unlikely the Republicans in Congress can meet Senate Majority Leader John Thune’s deadline of getting the bill passed by July 4, 2025. As Senate Republicans continue to make adjustments to the bill, which contains much of Trump’s policy agenda, further negotiations are likely to create more fissures between Republicans in both chambers of Congress.