(Adnkronos) – With a majority of just two votes, Donald Trump’s mega budget, the one the president calls his “big, beautiful bill”, has passed the first vote in the House. The vote came after hours of negotiations with the group of four conservative deputies who had expressed objections and doubts about spending cuts deemed insufficient, three of whom were eventually persuaded by Speaker Mike Johnson, and by the president himself who spoke with them, to cast their decisive vote.
The measure combines Trump’s entire legislative agenda into a single bill, starting with the $4.5 billion in tax cuts supported by a $2 trillion cut in public spending. Then there is the $100 billion to strengthen border, anti-immigration and defense policies. And the energy policy measures, the famous ‘drill baby drill’, at the center of the election campaign that brought Trump back to the White House. As for cuts in public spending, there is talk of reductions in federal programs for 880 billion dollars, including a reduction in Medicaid health care guaranteed to lower incomes.
Now the two different texts of the House and Senate will have to be reconciled, which last week approved a budget with substantial differences. But in the meantime, the Republican Speaker has won an important victory: “We’re celebrating tonight,” Johnson told reporters after the vote, stating that then “we’ll roll up our sleeves” to work on a single text with the Republican majority in the Senate.
