What does the BBB look like after its passage through the Senate?

The Senate passage of Trump's Great and Wonderful Bill through the Senate has involved major changes—starting with the name, which Chuck Schumer managed to remove at the last minute—that will now have to be confirmed—or amended—in the House of Representatives. Cuts to Medicaid, artificial intelligence provisions and SNAP are among the main challenges for Mike Johnson to get the rule on the president's desk before July 4.

The name

A last-minute move by the Democratic minority leader in the upper chamber got the name with which the president christened his initiative to disappear. Schumer celebrated his pyrrhic victory in a post on X, again criticizing the rule, which he called a "Great and Ugly Betrayal of the American people by Republicans."

Cuts to Medicaid

The Senate retained most of the cuts contemplated in the House text on Medicaid, especially in terms of cutting illegal immigrants' access to its benefits. However, thenew version contemplates controls for eligibility for the most frequent individuals and expanded the work requirement to low-income parents with children over the age of 14, in addition to childless, able-bodied adults.

In this area, the Senate parliamentarian, Democrat Elizabeth MacDonough, pointed out some items that did not meet the upper chamber's standards. At issue were the provision to cut federal funds to those states that use their own funds to provide health coverage to undocumented immigrants and the prohibition on Medicaid covering the costs of trans procedures.

Republicans gradually reduce provider taxes from 6% to 3.5% by 2032 as part of defunding Medicaid, versus the House proposal that aimed to freeze states' provider taxes at current levels and prohibit them from setting new ones. Finally, the Upper House text contemplates delaying its implementation by one year under pressure from several conservative legislators.

The bill also includes a "stabilization fund for rural hospitals." An initiative led by several Republican senators concerned about how Medicaid restrictions could affect rural hospitals. The final proposal allocates $50 billion to these healthcare facilities over the same period that provider taxes would be cut.

Slashing Green Energy

The Senate-passed rule carries drastic cuts to tax credits for "climate-friendly energies"—especially for wind and solar power—approved by the Biden Administration as part of the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022.

The Senate also amended the portion relating to solar and wind projects eligible for tax credits from the previous Legislature's rule. In the final Senate version, projects will be able to benefit from the relief if they begin construction before 2026. The previous version was based on the projects' in-service date. The change was one of the leadership's concessions to get Alaska Republican Senator Lisa Murdowski to give her support to the final version of the BBB.

SNAP

The Alaska senator also succeeded in limiting cuts in the section concerning Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits. According to the new rule, some states will have to share the cost of this program, which until now was the exclusive responsibility of the federal government.

Under the original proposal, states with a payment error rate of more than 6% would be subject to a sliding scale that could increase their share of appropriations to a range of 5% to 15%. States with rates below that level would continue to pay nothing. Murkowski got that states with the highest error rates (Alaska led the way in this regard in 2024) may benefit from a delay in implementing this measure.

Debt Limit

The Senate-passed version raises the debt ceiling by $5 trillion, notably above the $4 trillion envisioned by the House-passed text previously.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, had already sounded the alarm months ago, urging Congress to address the debt limit issue before mid-July. Bessent warned that the US could find itself unable to pay its bills as early as August, when Congress is in recess.

Border security

After the Senate parliamentarian decreed that the $1,000 fee to each asylum seeker approved by the House of Representatives did not meet the standards of the Upper House, congressional Republicans approved a minimum fee of $100 for those seeking asylum.

In addition, the text provides more than $46.5 billion for continued construction of the border wall and another $45 billion for related spending aimed at increasing detention capacity for illegal immigrants in custody. Another $30 billion will go toward hiring, training and other resources for Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Tip Tax

One of Donald Trump's key election campaign promises was already contained in the bill passed by the House, and remains, with slight modifications in the Senate text. Thus the senators limited the deduction for this concept to $25,000, while the representatives' version established no limit.

On the other hand, the House established that only workers with annual incomes of $160,000 or less would be eligible for the tax deduction, while the Senate version contemplates the gradual elimination of the advantages for those whose earnings exceed $150,000 a year or couples whose income exceeds $300,000.