 "Trump signs his controversial Big Beautiful Bill into law as he celebrates July 4 with family")
Commemorating the 249th year of independence, US President Donald Trump has signed his sweeping spending package, famously known as “ Big Beautiful Bill’. Trump made the bill into law on Friday during a Fourth of July picnic at the White House, after it was passed in both the US House of Representatives and the Senate.
The bill is deemed as controversial because it significantly cuts back on federal safety-net programs in increases funding for aggressive immigration enforcement. Former ‘First Buddy’ and Tesla CEO Elon Musk was also not a fan of the bill since it slashes subsidies on Electric Vehicles.
During the Fourth of July picnic, Trump was seen gloating about the passing of the bill in both chambers of the US Congress. “It’s the most popular bill ever signed in the history of the country,” Trump said, while standing next to his wife, Melania Trump. “What we’ve done is put everything into one bill. We’ve never had anything like that before.”
On Thursday evening, while speaking to the crowd in Iowa, Trump touted the legislation’s passing as a “birthday present for America”, even though the Democrats expressed their displeasure over the spending package. “If you see anything negative put out by the Democrats, it’s all a con job,” Trump said of opposition to the bill.
The US will be on a rocket ship now: Trump
During the Friday event, Trump signed the bill surrounded by his supporters, including the Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, who gifted Trump the gavel he used to announce the passing of the bill in the House. After months of deliberation, the controversial legislation was passed in the US Senate by just one tie-breaking vote of US VP JD Vance.
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View AllIt was later passed in the House with a 219 to 213 vote on Thursday, with only two Republicans voting against it. The passing of the bill is seen as a big legislative win for the Trump administration. The law will significantly cut taxes, building on the 2017 tax cuts during Trump’s first term.
Research at the Centre on Budget and Policy Priorities shows that the bill is skewed to the rich, with the wealthiest in the US benefiting the most from the tax reliefs. “After this kicks in, our country is going to be a rocket ship, economically,” Trump said during Friday’s event.
Another concerning part is that the law would add restrictions to Medicaid, which provides healthcare to low-income and disabled people, and SNAP, also known as food stamps, which helps poor families to afford food in rural areas. Researchers argue that the cutbacks would leave as many as 11.8 million people without healthcare, while 8 million people will lose their SNAP benefits.
“This is highway robbery,” the Democratic senator Raphael Warnock posted on X, formerly known as Twitter. “The bill Republicans just passed steals from you to give to the rich.” Meanwhile, supporters of the bill argue that the Medicaid and SNAP changes are designed to root out waste and abuse.
Crackdown on immigration and why the Bill is not supported by Musk
The spending package aims to allocate $170m to immigration enforcement, a monumental amount of money that will help support the Trump administration’s push to engage in “mass deportations”. The Trump administration has already been engaged in widespread attacks on immigrant communities by increasing resources to immigration enforcement operations.
Interestingly, Trump only walked back some of ICE’s aggressive immigration enforcement actions after complaints from leaders in the farming and hospitality industries. However, at the Thursday event, Trump reignited his plans to impose a crackdown on illegal immigrants. “If a farmer is willing to vouch for these people in some way, Kristi, I think we’re going to have to just say that’s going to be good, right?” Trump said to the Secretary of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem. “We don’t want to do it where we take all of the workers off the farms.”
Additionally, the law also seeks to end green energy incentives created under former US President Joe Biden, which many see as a further blow to the efforts to combat the climate crisis. Meanwhile, the non-partisan congressional budget office estimates the law will add $3.3tn trillion to the country’s debt through 2034, leading to clashes with some right-wingers.
Billionaire Elon Musk, who established the federal government’s office tasked with slashing federal spending during Trump’s first 100 days in the Oval Office, has also publicly slammed the bill. Days before Congress passed the bill, Musk repeated his call for the creation of a new political party to oppose the Republicans and Democrats.
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