It has been a long time coming, but the Big Beautiful Bill has reached the end of its journey. During an elaborate Fourth of July celebration at the White House Friday evening, President Donald Trump signed the hard-fought spending package. But for all the pomp and circumstance accompanying the signing ceremony, the new law, born on the 249th anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence, was a ragged and wearied thing – in many ways, just a shell of what it once was.
The Long and Ragged Road
The Big Beautiful Bill saga began before President Trump even returned to the White House. Early in January of 2025, Joe Biden remained a lame-duck president, but the Republican majorities in both the House and the Senate had been established. Thus began the first battle for the Big Beautiful Bill – and the origin of the name.
“Border security, lower taxes, and a debt limit increase – can Trump have it all in one big, beautiful reconciliation bill? That has been the question of late, and congressional Republicans seem uncertain in recent days whether it could – or should – be done all at once,” Liberty Nation News reported on January 10. At the time, most of the House GOP argued for a single, massive package, while many in the Senate called for two separate, easier-to-pass efforts.
And, if it must be one big bill, what would be included? For months, it seemed no one faction could emerge victorious. It was May 20 before the House Committee on the Budget reported the original measure, introduced by Rep. Jodey Arrington (R-TX), that eventually became H.R.1 – the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
House Republicans fought long and hard, pulling one all-nighter after another, to hammer out a version of the spending package that could garner enough support to clear the lower chamber. The feat was finally managed on May 22, squeaking by 215-214.
The Senate took up the bill on June 27 – after more than a month of rewriting and then another week of rewriting yet again to appease Senate Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough, who declared numerous provisions violated the Byrd Rule. “After hours of wrangling for votes, the Senate narrowly cleared the first procedural hurdle on the One Big Beautiful Bill Act late Saturday night,” LNN reported Sunday morning, June 29. That 51-49 vote came only after many hours of stalemate.
But that was far from the end! Before beginning the actual debate period, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) forced the clerks to take turns reading the full legislation aloud over the next 14 hours or so. Then began the vote-a-rama, the period during which unlimited amendments may be offered. More than three dozen such efforts were made over the course of another all-night fight.
The final Senate version passed on July 1, 51-50, with Sens. Rand Paul (R-KY), Thom Tillis (R-NC), and Susan Collins (R-ME) joining all the Democrats in opposition. Vice President JD Vance had to break the tie.
And so, back to the House it went. It took many hours to cobble together the votes to even proceed to the floor with the much-amended Senate bill, which, in many ways, no longer resembled the one that passed the House a little more than a month prior. Democrats, as they had done at all stages of the process up to this point, continued their attempts to delay the passage. In fact, they may have done too good a job of this. Several House Republicans were ready to kick the bill back to the Senate and demand it be brought back into line with what they had already passed. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) then forced them to listen to more than eight-and-a-half hours of a rambling monologue.
All but two Republicans – Reps. Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania being the only holdouts – quickly accepted the Senate’s changes to their work, 218-214.
A Big Beautiful Bill, or a Big Empty Shell?
The Senate’s amended package went from “The One Big Beautiful Bill Act” to simply “The Act” after Sen. Schumer forced a vote just before passage, arguing that the title violated the Byrd Rule. However, it lost more than just its short title in the upper chamber.
The SALT tax increase, made permanent by the initial House version, now expires after 2029. The debt increases in the final version by a trillion dollars more than originally proposed, and the child tax credit increase is slightly reduced.
On the other hand, that same child tax credit is made permanent instead of eventually allowing it to expire, as it would have in the original House version. There was also a new $4000 deduction in the first version for taxpayers aged 65 and older. In the final bill, that was increased to $6,000.
The Senate bill is also expected to increase deficits more, as it reduces tax revenue by $4.5 trillion rather than the $3.7 trillion of the House version. Quite likely most important for gun owners and Second Amendment advocates, the Senate package – now signed into law – reduces the tax due when applying for permission to purchase a silencer or a short-barreled rifle or shotgun, dropping from the $200 initially declared in the National Firearms Act of 1934 (NFA) to $0. This may seem like a win to many – but in the version already passed by the House, those items were removed entirely from the NFA. This means that the application not only would have been free, but it also would have been unnecessary, as such items could have been bought just like any “normal” firearm.
So, yes, this bill will drastically change the lives of many Americans the very next time they file their income taxes – and quite likely for the better. But it will also have negative economic ramifications down the road, and it may be years before we know which side of the scale weighs the heaviest. Then, of course, there’s the loss taken in what could have been historic deregulation by essentially gutting the NFA.
But for Trump, as scarred as the bill may be, it represents a significant victory. For his entire term so far, the president has called for a big beautiful bill he can sign by Independence Day. He essentially promised the American people he would see such an impressive feat accomplished, and – as of Friday evening, July 4 – he has kept that promise.
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