American Senate to start voting in Trump’s ‘great bill’

The United States Senate has begun a marathon vote on an expanding budget that is essential for the agenda of President Donald Trump, but the expenses plan is in equilibrium after weeks of tense negotiations.

The Republicans, who control both Congress Chambers, are divided on how much to reduce social assistance programs to extend tax exemptions in a large law of bill.

The president’s party is running to approve the legislation on the self -imposed deadline for this week of the public party on July 4.

If the measure clean the Senate, you will have to return by another vote to the House of Representatives, which approved its own version of the bill last month by a single vote.

The senators exceeded the Capitol’s halls on Monday, arriving at the floor of the camera to obtain various amendment votes, after return to their private meetings where they took the complaints out of the view of the journalists.

Currently, senators are discussing for or against adding amendments to the bill of almost 1,000 pages in a process called “Vote-A-Rama”, which could imply up to 20 hours of debate.

The session is expected to continue all night until Tuesday morning.

“We are still perfecting some things,” said the leader of the majority of the Senate, John Thune.

An amendment to the Proposal for Medicaid cuts recently proposed by Florida Senator Rick Scott could cause approximately 20 million Americans to lose their medical insurance coverageAccording to an estimate.

When asked about the report, Thune said there are “many analysis out there.”

“What the bill of (Scott) does not do is not to enter until 2031. So I’m not sure how you can argue that you vary to any health insurance people tomorrow,” said Thune.

The Democrats are expected to repeatedly denounced the bill, particularly to reduce the coverage of health insurance for millions of poorest Americans, use the 10 hours of debate assigned, while Republicans will probably not.

Senator Adam Schiff, a Democrat from California and Trump’s long -standing critic, described the “terrible” bill.

He told the BBC that he was not sure if the Senate Republicans would meet Trump’s approval deadline for this Friday, when the United States celebrates Independence Day, and added that, even if they did, “who knows what happens in the camera.”

Speaking at the White House on Monday, press secretary Karoline Leavitt said that Trump is “sure” that the bill would be approved and still hopes that in his desk it will be a self -imposed deadline.

Senator John Fetterman, a penpoch democrat, seemed frustrated on Monday afternoon, after there were no signs of a final draft of the bill.

“Oh, my God, I just want to go home,” he said, adding that the extended negotiations and the voting rounds have made him lose his “full trip to the beach.”

“I don’t think it’s really useful to put people here up to one hour,” he said.

On Sunday, the Democrats used a political maneuver to stop the progress of the bill, asking Senate employees to read the 940 pages of the bill aloud, a process that took 16 hours.

The measure followed weeks of public discussion and the Senate moved little in the draft budget law in a 51-49 vote over the weekend.

Two Republicans put on the side of the Democrats to vote against the inaugural debate, defending more changes in the legislation.

One of those Republicans, North Carolina Senator, Thom Tillis, He announced his retirement After that vote and said that the legislation gave the promises that Trump and the Republicans made to the voters.

“Too many elected officials are motivated by pure policy raw who really do not care about the people who promised to represent in the campaign,” Tillis wrote in his announcement.

The White House reacted angry at Tillis’s comments on Monday, and Leavitt told journalists that the senator is “simply wrong” and that “the president and the vast majority of Republicans who support this legislation are correct.”

The other Republican who voted against moving the bill was Senator Rand Paul in Kentucky. He opposed the increase in debt and cut Medicaid, a medical care program on which it is based on millions of elderly, disabled and low -income.

On Monday, Senator Dan Sullivan, a Republican from Alaska, tried to calm concerns about Medicaid cuts, saying that “we will be fine in this.”

When the bill arises for a complete vote of the Senate, which is expected late on Monday night or early Tuesday, Republicans can only pay three defections so that the bill is approved.

If you lose three votes, Vice President JD Vance will have to cast a draw vote.

Then, the bill would return to the House of Representatives, where leadership has reported that a complete vote on the Senate bill could arrive as soon as Wednesday morning.

While Republicans control the camera, they can also lose a handful of votes. There are frustrations with the version of the Senate of the bill among some Republicans in the Chamber, which could make another closed vote.

The fiscal hawks of the Caucus of the House of Representatives led by the Republicans have threatened to torpedo the version of the Senate over the budget disagreements.

The Senate proposal adds more than $ 650 billion to the national deficit, the group said in a publication on social networks on Monday.

“That is not fiscal responsibility,” they said. “It is not what we agree.”

Democrats in both cameras have greatly opposed the expenses of expenses and the proposed extent of tax exemptions.

Meanwhile, the Republican debate has focused on how much welfare programs to extend $ 3.8TN (£ 2.8TN) in Trump’s tax exemptions.

The proposed cuts could strip almost 12 million Americans of their health insurance coverage and add $ 3.3TN (£ 2.4TN) in debt, according to the Congress Budget Office, a non -partisan federal agency.

The version of the bill that senators will soon vote contains tax cuts that Trump campaigned, such as a tax deduction on the benefits of social security and the disposal of taxes on the work of overtime and tips.

The bill also authorizes $ 5TN in new loans that will be added to a burden of debt of the United States, a measure that goes against what many conservatives have argued and enraged Trump’s confidant from Trump, Elon Musk.

Musk fired the publications of social networks on Monday, promising re -challenging funds to any conservative who vote for the bill and establish an alternative political party.

“If this crazy spending bill is approved, the América Party will be formed the next day,” he wrote in X.

“Our country needs an alternative to the Republican Uniparty Democrat so that people really have a voice.”

The national debt is currently at $ 36 billion, according to the Department of the Treasury.

The Treasury Secretary, Scott Besent, has urged Congress to address the debt limit in mid -July and warned that if they do not, the United States may not be able to pay their bills already in August.

(With additional reports from Bernd Debusmann JR in the White House)