What’s in Trump’s ‘big beautiful’ bill? Cuts, tax breaks, and a $3.3 trillion price tag

Food aid to be cut

The bill would reduce the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), commonly known as food stamps, by around 20%. It would introduce tougher work requirements and shift more costs to individual states.

These changes “would likely eliminate millions of people from SNAP’s rolls,” while others would see smaller benefits. The final impact could depend on how individual states respond to the changes.

Supporters say the aim is to save money and reduce reliance on government aid. Critics argue the cuts will increase poverty and food insecurity.

End to clean energy support

Subsidies and tax breaks for clean energy projects, including solar panels, wind farms, heat pumps, and electric vehicles, would be rolled back. The bill even proposes a new tax on clean energy projects.

Some Republicans argue these technologies should stand on their own without government help. But critics, including Elon Musk, told The New York Times the subsidies are needed to help the US compete with heavily supported clean energy industries in countries like China.

More funds for mass deportations

President Trump has asked for more money to expand immigration enforcement. The bill would fund new sections of border wall, increase surveillance, and build more detention facilities.

Student loan relief scaled back

The proposal would remove some student loan repayment options and limit the government’s ability to offer debt relief. Supporters say this would shift the cost away from taxpayers and back to borrowers. Critics say it would cause more defaults and keep people in debt for longer.

Boost to military spending

The bill includes more funding for shipbuilding, weapons, and Trump’s “Golden Dome” missile defence system.

New “Trump accounts” for babies

A less-discussed section of the bill would create savings accounts for newborns called “Trump accounts”  starting with $1,000 from the government. It also includes funding for air traffic control, the Secret Service, and events to mark America’s 250th anniversary in 2026.

What comes next?

The Senate is expected to vote on the bill soon. If passed, it will go back to the House of Representatives. Although Republicans control both chambers, their margin in the House is slim, and even a few defections could block the bill. President Trump has urged them to pass it.

Republicans see this as a rare chance to push through long-standing priorities using a budget process that allows them to bypass a filibuster and pass the bill with a simple majority.

How much would it cost?

According to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, the bill would increase the national debt by at least $3.3 trillion over the next decade. $3.3 trillion is a staggering amount that’s hard to wrap your head around. To put it into perspective, consider this: winning every lottery game in every US state daily from birth would still take around 75 years to accumulate $3.3 trillion, assuming taxes are paid on winnings.

To put that number in perspective, The New York Times offered a few comparisons:

• Manhattan Real Estate: $3.3 trillion could buy every single piece of real estate in Manhattan – approximately 1.1 million residential and commercial properties – twice over.
• Billionaire Wealth: It’s more than the combined wealth of Elon Musk, Larry Ellison, Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, and the next 18 richest people in the world.
• Household Distribution: Distributed evenly among US households, each family would receive over $25,000.
•  Physical Representation: A stack of $100 bills would reach 2,200 miles high, surpassing the International Space Station’s orbit. Laid end to end, these bills could encircle the Earth’s equator 128 times.
•  Time and Spending: Spending $1 every second would last over 104,000 years, while spending $1 million daily would last more than 9,000 years.

In numerical form, $3.3 trillion is represented as $3,300,000,000,000. This massive bill has sparked intense debate, with Senate Republicans struggling to pass it amidst divisions within the party. If passed, it would significantly impact the national debt.