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How the Senate's 'One Big Beautiful Bill' differs from the House's version
How the Senate's 'One Big Beautiful Bill' differs from the House's version
How the Senate's 'One Big Beautiful Bill' differs from the House's version

Published on: 06/30/2025

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(TNND) — Senators are on the verge of voting on President Donald Trump's "One Big Beautiful Bill Act," which would extend and expand his legacy tax cuts, cut spending, and fund some of the president’s policy priorities.

The Senate is holding a “vote-a-rama,” in which lawmakers consider amendments to the 940-page bill.

And if they pass the full bill this week, the House has a shot to also vote and get the bill to Trump’s desk by his self-imposed July 4 deadline.

But passage in either chamber of Congress isn’t a given.

The Senate version of the "One Big Beautiful Bill” is projected to add more to national deficits, which won’t sit well with fiscal hawks in the House.

And the Senate version places an expiration on an increase to the state and local tax (SALT) deduction cap, which isn’t going to sit well with House Republicans in tough districts in high-tax blue states, such as New York and California.

The House only passed its version of the bill by a single vote last month, so it remains to be seen if a version approved by the Senate can get through the House.

And Senate Republicans can only afford to lose three votes to begin with.

“I think in the end, they pass a bill, mostly because to not would be an utter and complete failure of the entire Trump agenda,” said Casey Burgat, the Legislative Affairs Program Director at George Washington University.

Burgat said the bill is the Republicans' "entire ball game right now."

“And so, will everyone be happy? Absolutely not,” he said. “But I think they recognize that the potential negatives of not passing something is much, much worse than being upset with a few provisions within a huge bill.”

The Senate version increases the debt ceiling by $5 trillion, compared to $4 trillion for the House version.

The Senate version is projected to increase deficits by $3.3 trillion over 10 years, compared to $2.4 trillion for the House version.

The Senate version slightly reduces the child tax credit and boosts the senior tax deduction.

The Senate maintains the House’s SALT deduction cap increase from $10,000 to $40,000. But the Senate’s version expires after five years.

Both versions include Medicaid cuts. Both versions add work requirements and add some new eligibility rules.

But the Senate version limits parental exemptions for Medicaid work requirements to folks who have children 14 or younger.

The Senate version reduces the maximum cost-sharing load for states that don’t adequately police waste, fraud and abuse with food stamp programs.

Both versions roll back green energy subsidies from the Biden-era Inflation Reduction Act.

Both versions boost spending on border security and defense.

And, of course, both versions extend and expand upon Trump’s 2017 tax cuts.

The Senate bill is significantly more pro-growth than the previously passed House version, said Adam Michel, the director of tax policy studies at the Cato Institute.

The House only temporarily extended key business investment deductions and “full expensing” for equipment, machinery and research expenses through 2029.

The Senate version makes those cuts permanent.

“The Senate retains all of the Trump campaign promises, making some small tweaks that make them slightly less expensive,” Michel said of the bill’s tax provisions. "These are no tax on tips, overtime, they increase the size of the senior deduction, which is the way they're getting at no tax on Social Security. They add some additional new subsidies to the bill, like a permanent extension of the new markets tax credit, which is a subsidy for economic development."

Both versions are expected to cut roughly $1.2 trillion in net spending.

But Michel said the Senate version is expected to increase deficits more, because the Senate bill is estimated to reduce tax revenue $4.5 trillion as opposed to $3.7 trillion in the House version.

Michel said the Senate version also violates the fiscal framework agreed to in the House that required any tax cuts beyond $2.5 trillion to be offset by additional spending cuts.

“Assuming the House takes this thing, the House won't be able to keep to its fiscal priorities and have a sort of more fiscally responsible bill,” Michel said.

RELATED STORY: About two-thirds of Republican voters support 'One Big Beautiful Bill'

And Michel noted that the actual deficit impacts are likely to be much higher when factoring in interest payments on the new debt and the possibility that lawmakers could extend some temporary breaks in the years ahead.

Republican Sen. Rand Paul is one of the few Republicans who has already declared he won’t vote for the bill.

His concerns revolve around the debt impact.

And he, too, noted that the bottom line of the bill could balloon past current projections if lawmakers vote to extend some of the temporary provisions.

“Supporters of the bill admit it adds $270 billion to the debt next year. That's the only thing we know for certain,” Paul said Sunday on the Senate floor. “We don't know what happens in year 3, 4, 7, 8, 9, 10. But we know next year this bill will grow the deficit by $270 billion. In addition, the bill increases the debt ceiling by $5 trillion. What does that mean? That is an admission that they know they aren't controlling the deficit. They know that the ensuing years will add trillions more.”

Michel said the differences between the House and Senate versions of the bill don’t seem like much at the 30,000-foot level.

But he said they’re big for the lawmakers who have been in the weeds, negotiating hard for their demands.

Burgat said Trump doesn’t seem to care much about which version of the "One Big Beautiful Bill” ends up on his desk, as long as some version does.

“And I think this is true for most (GOP) lawmakers, as well,” Burgat said.

Most of the friction within the Republican Party is over one or two parts of the bill, though those parts can vary from lawmaker to lawmaker, Burgat said.

“If you hear their name, if you hear them pushing back, especially against the president and their own party, they only care about one or two provisions. Everything else is fungible, and that's where you can get this weird math of having a 940-page bill, and most people, almost all people, are for almost all of it,” Burgat said of the Republicans in Congress. “And then the hang-ups are on very, very specific things, knowing that they have to pass it within their own party, and they can't afford to lose any votes.”

News Source : https://wfxl.com/news/nation-world/how-the-senates-one-big-beautiful-bill-differs-from-the-houses-version-congress-trump-republicans-tax-cuts-medicaid-cuts-border-security-federal-deficits

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