Ahead of crucial Senate test, what Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill presently contains

While the July 4 Independence Day deadline is largely self-imposed by Trump, US legislators will have to decide whether to increase the country’s debt ceiling or risk a catastrophic default on $36.2 trillion in debt.

A final vote on the passage of the bill will commence Monday morning (June 30). While the Republican Party enjoys a 53-47 majority in the Senate, it remains to be seen whether all Republicans will be on board. Two Republicans, including Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina, on Saturday expressed concern about the sweeping Medicaid cuts touted in the bill.

What is the bill?

The White House has previously described the One, Big, Beautiful Bill as a “generational opportunity to deliver the long-term changes Americans voted for.” Among other things, it aims to

* Expand the scope of Trump’s 2017 tax cuts to the wealthy while introducing new tax breaks.

* Cut federal spending and increase defence spending.

* Raise the debt ceiling by up to $5 trillion.

* Fund mass deportations of undocumented immigrants

According to the White House, the bill will modernise air traffic control by forcing a complete “overhaul (of) the systems that keep Americans flying safely and efficiently” and end “taxpayer-funded sex changes for minors.” Here are some of the proposed items in the current iteration of the bill.

1 – Medicaid cuts

Republicans have pushed for deep cuts and eligibility restrictions on Medicaid, the healthcare programme extensively used by millions of low-income, elderly and disabled Americans.

In the original version of the bill, the contentious changes included

* Mandating 80 hours of work per month for childless adults without disabilities from December 2026

* Requiring Medicaid re-enrolment every six months (as opposed to once a year currently), with enrollees required to provide additional income and residency verifications.

In its current form, the bill also proposes

* Lowering provider taxes, currently used by states to fund their Medicaid costs, from 6% to 3.5% by 2031. This has been opposed by several Republicans who rely on such funding, and has led the Senate to delay the cuts and include a $25 billion rural hospital fund to help absorb the pain.

* Tightening eligibility requirements for adults with children aged 15 and above required to work or volunteer a minimum of 80 hours per month.

2 – Social Security taxes

While Trump has long touted eliminating all taxes on Social Security income (the monthly payments to the elderly and disabled), the bill falls short of this promise. It temporarily increases the standard deduction of up to $4,000 for individuals 65 and over between 2025 and 2028.

Further, Senate Republicans are targeting an increase in social security tax breaks, with the proposed increase aiming to grant $6,000 tax deductions for elderly Americans.

3 – Extending 2017-era Trump tax cuts

In 2017, Trump enacted the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which cut taxes for people at all income levels, and specifically benefited the rich. While the tax cuts on businesses are permanent, those on individual taxpayers are set to lapse at the end of the year. The bill permanently extends tax cuts for all individuals.

Further, the 2017 act doubled the standard deduction, which dictates the baseline amount of tax-free income. The bill proposes retaining this, and increasing the deduction by up to $2,000 for married couples filing jointly and $1,000 for single filers, to $32,000 for couples and $16,000 for individuals, according to a report in The Washington Post.

4 – SALT tax ceiling

SALT stands for state and local tax deductions, which were restricted to $10,000 in Trump’s 2017 tax law, to seek tax breaks elsewhere. A section of lawmakers hailing from states with high property taxes and costs of living, like New York, California and New Jersey, opposed the bill’s current ceiling, saying it is not high enough.

With the cap set to expire this year, the bill currently increases the SALT deduction limit to $40,000 for five years from 2025, before retreating to the $10,000 level. The new cap would increase by 1% per year during this period.

The current iteration of the bill would make the individual and business tax breaks enacted in 2017 permanent, while adding temporary new breaks for workers, car buyers, and seniors, according to a Bloomberg report.

The move would also raise the debt ceiling by $5 trillion, thus preventing an August payment default. The debt ceiling caps the amount of money the US government can borrow to pay its bills, and increasing this allows the government to pay for programmes already approved by Congress.

5 – SNAP reforms

The current iteration of the bill requires states to pay more for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, the government program that provides a monthly food purchasing allowance to over 40 million marginalised Americans. The federal government and the states currently contribute equally to the program. According to the bill, the federal government would only contribute a quarter of the cost from 2027.

The bill also adds work requirements for able-bodied SNAP recipients who do not have dependents.

States with higher rates of ‘improper payments’ would be required to shoulder up to 15% of the costs.

6 – Clean energy tax cuts

The current version of the bill calls to phase out Biden-era clean-energy tax credits under the Inflation Reduction Act by 2029. This is in marked contrast to the House consensus, which called for an immediate end to such tax credits.

According to a BBC report, the Senate allows businesses that build wind and solar farms to continue to benefit from the tax credits, unless the companies have ties to a “foreign entity of concern”, such as China. Further, companies that begin construction this year may qualify for the full tax break, compared to 60% if they begin in 2026 and 20% in 2027. Companies that begin construction in 2028 will not gain any credit.

7 – Overtime and other tax cuts

* The bill proposes ending taxes on tips and overtime pay, one of Trump’s campaign promises in the run-up to the 2024 election. The Senate version proposes gradually phasing out these benefits based on annual income, starting at $150,000 for individuals and $300,000 for joint filers.

* The House version of the bill recommended increasing the child tax credit from $2,000 to $2,500 till 2028. This would apply only to American families where both parents have Social Security numbers. The current version of the bill, in the Senate, suggests increasing this to $2,200, but permanently. Only one parent is required to have a Social Security number.

* The bill will allow Americans to deduct car loans for American-made cars only.

8 – Curtailing illegal immigration

The current version of the bill in the Senate allocates about $170 billion towards the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown. Of this, over $46 billion would be spent on the wall along the US-Mexico border, as well as other fortifications. $70 billion would be spent on building and maintaining detention centres to house deportees and their families.

9 – Bolstering US defence

The bill has allocated $158 billion to be spent accordingly:

* $25 billion on munitions and the defence supply chain,
* $329 billion for shipbuilding,
* $34 billion for missile defence and space capabilities, including on the proposed “Golden Dome” continental missile defence initiative.