House passes sweeping bill that will slash Medicaid and food stamps. Plus, Israel steps up Gaza bombing before ceasefire talks
Good morning.
The House of Representatives passed Donald Trump’s sweeping tax and spending bill by 218 to 214 votes yesterday, handing the president a significant legislative victory.
The Democratic House minority leader, Hakeem Jeffries, made an unsuccessful last-ditch effort to halt the bill’s passage by giving a floor speech lasting eight hours and 44 minutes, the longest ever. Among other things, the plan will increase immigration enforcement, cut social security, damage the green energy industry and extend and deepen the large-scale tax cuts – which benefit wealthy earners most – that Trump first enacted in 2017.
Democrats erupted in outrage over the bill’s passage. The congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez wrote on Bluesky: “I am grieving the barbarism that is going to unfurl from all this. People are going to die. Livelihoods gone. All to feed a corrupt kleptocracy.”
What will it mean for deportation policy? Thousands of new immigration enforcement officers, tens of thousands of extra detention beds, fees on asylum applications and further construction on the border wall. Here’s how Trump’s bill will supercharge mass deportations by funneling $170bn to Ice.
What about social security? According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, the welfare cuts will result in about 10.6 million people losing their Medicaid healthcare and 8 million people losing their Snap food stamp benefits.
And the deficit? It comes with a huge price tag, increasing the deficit by $3.3tn through 2034, according to the non-partisan congressional budget Office. Most of that is the extension of the 2017 tax cuts.Israel steps up deadly bombardment of Gaza before ceasefire talks
Israel has escalated its offensive in Gaza before imminent talks about a ceasefire, with warships and artillery launching one of the deadliest and most intense bombardments in the devastated Palestinian territory for months.
Medics and officials in Gaza reported that about 90 people were killed overnight and on Thursday by Israeli bombing, including many women and children.
