Democrats are bitterly opposed to the legislation and Trump’s agenda, and have vowed to hold up the debate. They began by insisting that the entirety of the Bill be read aloud to the chamber before the debate commences.
The Bill is roughly 1,000 pages long and will take an estimated 15 hours to read.
“Republicans won’t tell America what’s in the Bill,” said Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer. “So Democrats are forcing it to be read start to finish on the floor. We will be here all night if that’s what it takes to read it.”
If passed in the Senate, the Bill would go back to the House for approval, where Republicans can only afford to lose a handful of votes – and are facing stiff opposition from within their own ranks.
DIVISIVE CUTS
Republicans are scrambling to offset the US$4.5 trillion cost of Trump’s tax relief, with many of the proposed cuts to come from decimating funding for Medicaid, the health insurance programme for low-income Americans.
Republicans are split on the Medicaid cuts, which will threaten scores of rural hospitals and lead to an estimated 8.6 million Americans being deprived of health care.
The spending plan would also roll back many of the tax incentives for renewable energy that were put in place under Trump’s predecessor Joe Biden.
On Saturday, key Trump ally Elon Musk – with whom the president had a public falling out this month over his criticism of the Bill – called the current proposal “utterly insane and destructive”.
“It gives handouts to industries of the past while severely damaging industries of the future,” said Musk, who is the world’s richest person, and owns electric vehicle company Tesla and space flight firm SpaceX, among others.
Independent analysis also shows that the Bill would pave the way for a historic redistribution of wealth from the poorest 10 per cent of Americans to the richest.
The Bill is unpopular across multiple demographic, age and income groups, according to extensive recent polling.
Although the House has already passed its own version, both chambers have to agree on the same text before it can be signed into law.
