Trump's 'big, beautiful' bill wins congressional approval

WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump's tax-cut package cleared its final hurdle in the US Congress on Thursday, as the Republican-controlled House of Representatives narrowly approved the massive bill and sent it to him to sign into law.

The 218-214 vote amounts to a significant victory for the Republican president that will fund his immigration crackdown, make his 2017 tax cuts permanent and deliver new tax breaks that he promised during his 2024 campaign. It also cuts health and food safety net programmes and zeroes out dozens of green energy incentives. It would add $3.4 trillion to the nation's $36.2 trillion debt, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

Despite concerns over the 869-page bill's price tag and its hit to healthcare programmes, Republicans largely lined up in support, with only two of the House's 220 Republicans voting against it. The bill has already cleared the Republican-controlled Senate by the narrowest possible margin. Republicans said the legislation will lower taxes for Americans across the income spectrum and spur economic growth.Republican Representative Virginia Foxx of North Carolina described the bill as bringing "Historic tax relief for working families.

Massive investment to secure our nation's borders. Capturing generational savings. Slashing waste, fraud and abuse in government programs so that they may run more efficiently."Every Democrat in Congress voted against it, blasting the bill as a giveaway to the wealthy that would leave millions uninsured. "The focus of this bill, the justification for all of the cuts that will hurt everyday Americans, is to provide massive tax breaks for billionaires," House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries said in an eight-hour, 46-minute speech that was the longest in the chamber's history. Jeffries began speaking at 4.53am ET and wrapped up at 1.38pm ET. That broke a 2021 House record sent by then-House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy, who spent 8 hours and 32 minutes lambasting Democratic President Joe Biden's clean-energy and domestic-spending package.His speech also recalled that of another Democratic lawmaker, Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey, who broke the record for the longest Senate speech in April with a 25-hour, five-minute attack on Trump's unilateral firings of federal workers.

Booker's performance drew cheers from Democratic voters who have been frustrated by their party's powerlessness in Washington and have accused the party's leaders of being too meek.Jeffries used his status as Democratic leader to stretch his customary 60-second speaking time, known as a "magic minute," for several hours.Trump kept up the pressure throughout, cajoling and threatening lawmakers as he pressed them to send him the legislation by the July 4 Independence Day holiday. "FOR REPUBLICANS, THIS SHOULD BE AN EASY YES VOTE. RIDICULOUS!!!" he wrote on social media. Republicans raced to meet that deadline, working through last weekend and holding all-night debates in the House and the Senate. The bill passed the Senate on Tuesday in 51-50 vote in that saw V-P JD Vance cast the tiebreaking vote.

(This is a Reuters story)