After more than 24 hours of intense negotiations and a marathon voting session on amendments, Senate Republicans are still grappling to gather enough support to pass a sweeping tax and spending bill central to former President Donald Trump’s second-term agenda.
The nearly 1,000-page legislation, which includes significant tax cuts and controversial spending reductions, has hit a roadblock as four Republican senators — Susan Collins (Maine), Thom Tillis (North Carolina), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), and Rand Paul (Kentucky) — have signaled their opposition in its current form. With only a narrow majority, the GOP can afford to lose just three votes.
To navigate this thin margin, Vice President JD Vance arrived on Capitol Hill early Tuesday morning to be available for potential tie-breaking votes. He has already helped push one key amendment through by a razor-thin margin and is expected to play a pivotal role in the final outcome of the legislation.
The bill, designed to extend the tax cuts implemented during Trump’s first term, also includes spending cuts aimed at offsetting the lost revenue. Proposed reductions target a range of federal programs, including healthcare support for low-income individuals and food assistance initiatives. However, internal disagreements persist among Senate Republicans regarding which programs should bear the brunt of the cuts.
Senate GOP leaders are continuing talks with holdout senators, and they will not schedule a final vote until they are confident they have the numbers to pass the bill. A definitive timeline for the vote remains uncertain.
Trump had initially urged Congress to deliver the finalized legislation to his desk by July 4. But speaking to reporters on Tuesday, he acknowledged that meeting that deadline would be challenging, saying a signing “around July 4th” was more realistic.
The bill’s journey is far from over. Although the House of Representatives passed its own version of the budget by a single vote in May, the Senate has introduced significant changes. Once the revised version clears the Senate, it must return to the House for another vote — a process that is expected to be equally contentious given the GOP’s slim majority.
Democratic lawmakers remain unified in opposition to the bill, and Senate Democrats have used procedural tactics to slow its progress wherever possible.
As Senate Republicans continue to negotiate and fine-tune the bill in hopes of uniting their caucus, the future of Trump’s flagship budget plan remains uncertain — and the clock is ticking.