Why Trump's "One Big Beautiful Bill" will go through more hurdles

The United States Senate has voted in favour of moving the “one big beautiful bill” forward Saturday night. The latest draft of the bill which was released just hours before Saturday morning, narrowly passed the procedural vote in a 51-49 tally.

All of the Democrats and two Republican law makers, Sen. Thom Till and Rand Paul voted against the bill.

Since the bill has now cleared the first round it will have to go through a 20 hour debate in the senate floor on Sunday. Democrats have promised to force the 940 page bill to be read out loud in the debate. A Democrat Senator, Chuck Shumer wrote on X “We will be here all night if that’s what it takes to read it.”

He had said earlier that the Republicans unveiled the bill in the dead of night and are rushing to get it finished, before the public realise what’s in its contents

After the debate the bill have to go through something called a “vote-a-rama” where the senators can propose an unlimited number of changes to the bill and each of them is voted on in rapid succession. Its only after that the final voting can begin which is set to take place on Sunday.

The House of representatives, the US lower house had passed it own version of the bill on May 22 2025 in a vote tally of 217-215. Only one House Republican had voted against the bill.

On Truth Social trump posted after the senate vote saying that it was a ‘GREAT VICTORY” in the senate. He had also criticised Republican senators who voted against the bill saying “What’s wrong with this guy???.”

Vice President JD Vance had travelled to the capitol on Saturday to help the Senate majority leader to convince Republican Senators who had demanded further changes. He was also present in case he needed to break a tie as the president of the Senate.

In the US, a budget resolution will only reach the presidents desk if both the upper and lower house vote to pass the same version of the bill. Until then it will have to be put up for reconciliation and will pass from House to Senate and back before identical versions of the bill are passed. The OBBB will have to be passed again in the House after the Senate vote. Since all Democrats have continued to vote against the bill, it would be crucial to make every Republican vote count. The opposing voices within the Republican senators will be the biggest hurdle to getting the bill passed by the US independence day, the self imposed deadline by the party. Last week, Trump had urged the Senators to “lock yourself in a room if you must” to get the deal done in a week.

Why the "One Big Beautiful Bill" is getting passed around...

Both chambers in the US had expressed their concerns about Trump’s multi-trillion-dollar bill due to its tax cut provisions. The current version has already gotten opposition from the House due to further cuts to Medicaid, a health care programme used by disabled and low income Americans. The majority of opposing voices to this come from Democrats who have voiced their concern about limiting access to affordable healthcare. The current version says that re-enrolment to the Medicaid programme would happen every six months instead of one year and that childless Americans would have to work at least 80 hours per month to qualify.

The House and Senate are also divided on clean energy tax breaks which was introduced during the Biden era. The Senate Republicans want to phase out the credits given to companies more slowly whereas the House Republicans want them removed immediately.

The Republicans in the senate continue to oppose part of the bills provisions. The latest version of the bill was designed by the senate to appease the dissenting voices within the party.

Some amendments to the bill include an increase in funding for rural hospitals, changes to the food stamps or the nutrition program which provides food benefits to low income citizens. The bill would also pour more money into defense and border security agencies.

The core components of the bill however, remain the same including the extended tax cuts and tax deduction on social security benefits.

Elon Musk who had a falling out with the US president had said on social media that that passing the bill would be “political suicide for the Republican Party”.     

World