International-News

US, House narrowly approves Trump’s maxi tax plan

Green light for ‘One Big Beautiful Bill Act’: tax cuts, welfare squeeze and birth bonus. Now the text passes to the Senate

With just one vote to spare, the US House of Representatives passed the ‘One Big Beautiful Bill’, the sweeping tax and spending package sought by President Donald Trump, who called it ‘probably the most significant bill ever signed into law in the history of our country’. The measure, which passed with 215 votes to 214 against, embodies the entire Republican election agenda and now awaits consideration by the Republican-majority Senate.

The plan includes an extension of the 2017 tax cuts, the abolition of tip and overtime taxes, new deductions for the purchase of American-made cars, and a significant increase in defence and border security spending. Included are salary increases for ICE and Border Patrol agents, funding for the Golden Dome, and the establishment of ‘Trump Savings Accounts’ for newborns, dubbed ‘Maga accounts’, with an initial $1,000 paid by the state for every person born between 2024 and 2028.

According to the Congressional Budget Office, however, the bill will increase the national debt by $2.4 trillion over ten years. The Speaker of the House, Republican Mike Johnson, called it ‘a momentous transformation’. Democrats take a different view, branding it an ‘extremist and toxic bill’. Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries denounced trillion-dollar cuts to the social safety net, intended to finance relief for the wealthiest and the militarisation of the border.

In detail, Medicaid will be cut by $700 billion over the next ten years, compromising health coverage for 8.7 million people. Medicare, which assists the over-65s, will also be scaled back with 500 billion cuts. Starting in 2029, obtaining Medicaid will require at least 80 hours of documented work per month.

The food assistance programmes will also be affected, reduced by 267 billion, with a tightening of the conditions for access: it will be compulsory to work until the age of 64, instead of the current 54. The share of costs to be borne by individual states also increases.

On the ideological front, the law satisfies historical demands of the conservative right: abolished taxes on gun silencers, in force since 1934, and banned Medicaid funds to Planned Parenthood, a national network for birth control and pregnancy interruption.

Awaiting Senate consideration, Trump pushes for swift passage: ‘Now it’s up to our friends in the United States Senate to get to work and send this bill to my desk as soon as possible!’ He then attacks the Democrats: ‘Without leadership, they hope to return to open borders, women’s sports for men and transgender for everyone. These things will never happen again.’

A bill that, amid populist rhetoric and divisive measures, aims to redraw the fiscal and social balance of the United States in the name of Trumpism.

THE LATEST NEWS