A Triumph Full of Fractures – Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” Passes the Senate

Washington, July 1, 2025 – In the midst of a stifling July heat, after a sleepless night of legislative wrangling, the US Senate today passed President Donald Trump’s central legislative project of tax breaks and spending cuts by the narrowest possible margin. Once again, it was Vice President JD Vance who cast the tie-breaking vote, dissolving a 50-50 deadlock and sending a political signal: the Republican majority is more fragile than it appears on paper – but it is sufficient. The so-called “Big Beautiful Bill,” an ideological lump of conservative wish fulfillment, combines massive tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy, dramatic reductions to social programs like Medicaid, billions in new defense spending, and a harsh expansion plan for deportation infrastructure. The package, which Trump repeatedly touts as “beautiful” and “historic,” was met with skepticism not only from Democrats but also from parts of the Republican caucus. Three GOP senators – Thom Tillis (North Carolina), Susan Collins (Maine), and Rand Paul (Kentucky) – demonstratively withheld their support. Paul sarcastically referred to the bill after the vote as “the big not-so-beautiful bill.” Collins, who had secured $50 billion for rural hospitals in advance, still voted no. “My concerns go far beyond that,” she said tersely. She was particularly alarmed by the drastic Medicaid cuts – a concern shared by many of her GOP colleagues who nevertheless voted yes.

Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski, on the other hand, voted yes – and became the deciding vote. “It was an agonizing process,” she said after the vote. “I had to weigh it because the people in my state come first for me. This bill is by no means perfect.” Majority Leader John Thune praised her as an “independent thinker.” Thune himself had spent the days leading up to the vote personally engaging with nearly every hesitant colleague, often late into the night – a political effort that now seems to have paid off. But the breakthrough in the Senate is not the end – only a milestone. Since the senators made changes to the original draft – particularly in the sensitive area of health care – the bill must now return to the House of Representatives. There, Speaker Mike Johnson had already warned that too many deviations from the original text could provoke new conflicts. The clock is ticking – Trump wants to sign his prestige project into law by July 4, symbolically and with media spectacle. Meanwhile, the nonpartisan analysts at the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released a sobering assessment: the bill, they forecast, would increase national debt by about $3.3 trillion between 2025 and 2034 – nearly $1 trillion more than the House version. Even more serious is the social dimension – by 2034, more than 11.8 million Americans would lose their health insurance, according to the CBO.

And yet there was celebration. In Florida, where Trump was simultaneously visiting a new immigration detention facility in the Everglades – mockingly dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz” – applause broke out when the result was conveyed to him. “Then let’s go home now and celebrate this big, beautiful bill,” the president said contentedly. The facility, remote, surrounded by swamps, pythons, and alligators, is, according to the government, particularly “secure” – with the alligators apparently counted as part of the official deterrence strategy. The White House is already selling T-shirts bearing the facility’s logo. In the Senate, the mood was far less festive. As the roll call vote began, several Democratic senators demonstratively left the chamber, others loudly voiced their “No.” Senator Angus King of Maine, an independent with Democratic leanings, crossed over to the Republican side on his way out and could be clearly heard from the visitors’ gallery saying, “Shame on you.” The passage of this bill is a victory – but a fragile one. In a time when political majorities depend on loyalties and backroom deals, when deep ideological rifts divide Congress, and when economic realities collide with social responsibility, it becomes clear – under Donald Trump, the United States is heading into a new, harsher chapter. With laws that polarize, with symbolic politics at the margins – and with a president forcing through his agenda with all his might. The big, beautiful reckoning will come later.