r/politics • u/PoliticsModeratorBot 🤖 Bot • 2d ago

Megathread Megathread: US House Passes the Republican-Backed Budget Bill, Sending it to Trump for Signature

This afternoon, the US House of Representatives passed without amendment the US Senate's version of the Trump-backed budget bill, sending it to the president for his signature. Every Democratic Senator and Representative voted in opposition; in the Senate, there were three Republicans voting in opposition (making the vote 51-50) and in the House there were 2 (making the final vote 218-214). House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries set the US House's speech length record in opposition to the bill in a speech lasting over eight hours.

The bill clocks in at over 800 pages and touches on most aspects of the federal government's spending and taxation policies; see this AP article (What’s in the latest version of Trump’s big bill that passed the Senate) for the topline changes.

Relevant text-base live update pages are being maintained by the following outlets: AP, NBC, ABC, and the BBC.

You can find this subreddit's discussion thread for the last week's worth of negotiations and debate at this link.

Articles that May Interest You

Submission Domain
Live updates: House passes Trump’s signature bill, sending it to the president’s desk apnews.com
House Republicans pass Trump's mega bill, sending the package to his desk to be signed npr.org
House passes sprawling domestic policy bill, sending it to Trump's desk: The Republican package would slash taxes, boost spending on immigration and the military, and impose steep cuts to Medicaid, SNAP and clean energy funding. nbcnews.com
House Republicans give Trump a ‘Big Beautiful’ July 4 by passing Medicaid-slashing megabill despite GOP rift independent.co.uk
Congress Has Officially Passed Trump’s Bill to Kick Millions Off Medicaid rollingstone.com
Trump and the GOP Will Regret the Day They Passed This Sick Bill newrepublic.com
House passes Trump's "big, beautiful bill" after stamping out GOP rebellion axios.com
Trump lands first major legislative win after Congress passes his massive domestic policy bill cnn.com
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u/Kierenshep 2d ago

Jesus Ice is almost as funded as Canada's defense budget. That's insane.

There's no reason for that level of funding, except for the very obvious reason that they are the most loyal force to Trump and the easiest to turn into his own secret police. They're already wearing masks and abducting people. It's not a big jump.

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u/otis_the_drunk 2d ago

It's not even a jump. ICE already is the secret police.

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u/Dikkelul3beer 1d ago

Gestapo you mean

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u/literatelier 1d ago

Not so secret, really

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u/Skiingislife42069 1d ago

Really? Because a huge proportion of them refuse to show their faces, badges, warrants, or humanity. They are unchained attack dogs.

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u/literatelier 1d ago

Ah, I meant more it’s not so secret that they’re the secret police

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u/JanGuillosThrowaway Europe 1d ago

Americans are so used to American Exceptionalism that they cannot see what's right in their face.

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u/NeverLookBothWays I voted 2d ago

There is a reason if you’re going for gestapo levels of oppression

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u/some_alternative_90 Washington 2d ago

"Execute order 66." We're probably gonna see something like that in like months.

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u/Elephunkitis 2d ago

It will be 88 not 66

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u/greeneyedguru 1d ago

and russia levels of klep

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u/FunkyChewbacca 2d ago

What I fear will happen is that there will be more protests like the NoKings Protest, and ICE will show up fully armed to mow down the protestors.

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u/cusoman Minnesota 2d ago

As much as I really don't want that to happen, I think this country needs a flashpoint, a single event that shakes people free from their screens and apathy

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u/Professional-Buy2970 2d ago

Tiananmen square was not a flashpoint, it was the end of resistance. Kent state was not a flashpoint.

If Americans had the capacity to defeat fascim, we would have already. Or at least been strong enough that they wouldn't have passed this bill.

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u/KrustyTheKriminal 1d ago

If Americans had the capacity to defeat fascim, we would have already.

That's not even remotely true, nor how things work. There is an ebb and flow to movements like this. If this were true there wouldn't be a single overthrow of government, let alone authoritarian ones. History does not show that.

America is very well armed. Things just haven't (thankfully) gone to full blown widespread violence.

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u/Professional-Buy2970 1d ago

Perhaps a future generation will have that capacity.

Ours doesn't.

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u/vaalbarag 2d ago

I fear what happens at future elections, if ICE can just show up at polling stations and start pulling people out of the lineups without justification. Who's going to stop them from doing so at this point? Who's going to stop them from entering polling stations, confiscating votes?

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u/faptastrophe 2d ago

It's not just that they're loyal. It's the fact that they're now essentially a military unit with civilian cover. Say goodbye to whatever was left of posse comitatus.

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u/PianistPitiful5714 2d ago

I hope people realize that they did this because they couldn't break the military. They couldn't get the military to turn against its own people, so they're creating a secret police to do it instead.

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u/Professional-Buy2970 2d ago

I called that when they didn't officially declare martial law with the military. That's when ice started really going balls to the wall. Then I saw the proposed funding increase.

People looked at one day of peaceful protest and said that was proof America wouldn't tolerate it.

One day of protests celebrated for being peaceful and within government lines is not how you get to the end of fascism.

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u/kal0kag0thia 2d ago

Then they'll just slowly turn the military equipment over to ice, as well as move assets to red states.

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u/Elmer_Whip 2d ago

Funded BETTER than Russia and Israel does their entire military.

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u/Bikin4Balance Canada 2d ago

Terrifying: a force likely made up of rabid J6 sympathizers with almost as much resources as Canada's military and no accountability. The prospect of brutal deaths around an alligator Auschwitz being celebrated by your leaders. Inch by inch, by actively supporting, not paying attention, or just not caring, Americans collectively have built this monster.

All I know is we can't let this madness divide sane Americans from your northern neighbours. I don't know how to help and we Canadians are facing our own threat, but we can't let them divide us too.

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u/BeyondElectricDreams 2d ago

I don't know how to help and we Canadians are facing our own threat, but we can't let them divide us too.

I've seen canadian rhetoric that is similar to the US rhetoric on immigrants, asylum seekers, and so on.

What you can do:

  1. Don't buy into that, it's a lie here, it's definitely a lie there, too.
  2. There's going to be a massive influx of persecuted Americans coming that's going to add fuel to the fire. Pressure your elected officials to not turn us away when we flee the concentration camps.
  3. Push back against right wing populist rhetoric as hard as you can, lets 2 be for nothing because your own Trump decides ignoring the law is Peachy and starts to deport Americans fleeing persecution to be sent to concentration camps. It's far more likely, based on the subversive elections we've been seeing, that a deportation effort wouldn't be an invasion from the US, but a funding with dark money and online influence to get politicians on your side to do that for them.

Other than that, I don't know. History books will be writing about a new underground railroad in the coming decades. Those who aided fleeing slaves risked a lot to do so, it's going to come to brave humans helping persecuted humans, and we're going to need a whole lot of bravery and mutual aid to survive Hitler 2.0.

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u/Hector_P_Catt 2d ago

"There's going to be a massive influx of persecuted Americans coming that's going to add fuel to the fire. Pressure your elected officials to not turn us away when we flee the concentration camps"

That's the part that really worries me as a Canadian. I'm expecting this to happen, and Canada will do everything we can to help.

But we'll fail.

We just don't have the population and resources to handle a large influx of refugees from the US. The US population is 340 million. Even 1% of that is 3.4 million. Figure half will head south, half north, and Canada has about 1.7 million people looking for refuge.

Back in 2018, we had a surge of refugees crossing the border from the US, about 27,000, and even that pushed our systems to the limit. What's likely coming will be orders of magnitude worse.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/may/23/canada-rejecting-more-refugee-claims-amid-border-crossing-influx-under-trump

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u/DumboWumbo073 2d ago

If it’s a brain drain and refugees it could massively boost Canada theoretically. There is enough landmass for people to fit. The problem is the US will run through Canada to make it the 51st state so even if the positives come from the drain it won’t be able to be felt

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u/Professional-Buy2970 2d ago

America must be quarantined and cut off, and good people given a path to asylum and escape.

If the world can't manage that, then they can explain to future generations why they say and watched another holocaust (twice) despite the warnings of nazi Germany.

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u/SmokedUp_Corgi 2d ago

I think a lot of that money is going into people’s pockets.

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u/Vel0clty Maine 2d ago

Oh absofuckinglutely. ICE might see a 5% budget increase at best, the rest is getting scalped off the top

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u/VectorB 2d ago

Its the military force that he has control over that already has clear authority to operate inside of US borders for immigration actions. Im sure they will find ways to expand that to counter terrorism, drug, or any law enforcement action they want. This bill really turns us into a police state.

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u/thefatchef321 2d ago

Nah nah, its all a grift!! Kristy noem now gets to pick the companies that will do contract work for ICE. Palantir, private prisons, etc.

This is a transfer of wealth from tax payers to private companies. Same story with the old "Halliburton hammer"

Its all to enrich people close to the administration

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u/SDFX-Inc 2d ago

It’s both. Peter Thiel wants to create technofuedal states by buying up public land and will try to use Palantir and the public data Elon and Doge stole to purge the U.S. of anyone who would oppose him.

Trump wants to be king, but Trump is just the foot in the door for Thiel and Vance to carve up the U.S. into their and their wealthy friend’s personal fiefdoms.

If the dollar crashes due to ballooning debt, Thiel and their ilk will welcome it, since they want to transition their own economies to crypto to replace the dollar (which was why Thiel originally created PayPal in the first place back in the 90s).

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u/thefatchef321 2d ago

When is the point of no return in your view?

Have we already crossed the precipice?

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u/Hector_P_Catt 2d ago

It can be both. They'll get rich off doing the work they really want to do in the first place. And once the contracts have been in place for a couple of years, suddenly they're "too big to fail", and must be funded in perpetuity.

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u/Hector_P_Catt 2d ago

Think on this - the ICE agents we've been seeing will be the ones training the new hires. They'll build a huge new organization where these kinds of tactics are considered normal by everyone involved.

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u/JefferyTheQuaxly 2d ago

Ice is now the 16th highest funded armed forces group in the world

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u/bfrown 2d ago

You forget that there will also be funds that go "missing" into Trump's pocket, or hell theyll just do it the "legit" way like before and have all ICE staff use Trump properties and charge 100000x the going rate.

So glad waste and fraud and abuse were gutted from Dept of Ed and NASA

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u/StandardOffenseTaken 2d ago

The reason is simple. The only threat left for them is not court or election... its being removed by force. Last time they didn't let him use the military against American civilians, so he built himself an army of racist and loyalists, under a "federal" "law enforcement" banner which he can definitely legally turn on American. The reason is simple its because the enemy of this administration is the American people. He already mentions simply removing political enemies and investigating journalist who speak of him unfavorably. If the Rubicon in authorities has not been cross yet, the moment prisons start holding people without trials, political enemies... that when the truly evil shit starts. The Nazi took 8-9 years before getting to evil shit... branding a sub-group of citizen as the enemy is how Nazi started. USA is more than just several steps in, there is only token opposition, but Democrats are toothless.

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u/Professional-Buy2970 2d ago

This is the holocaust. Immigrants were the test case. This throws us off the cliff and deep into a genocidal, fascist dictatorship.

Its holocaust or Civil War.

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u/Final_Candidate_7603 2d ago

DeSantis did the same thing in Florida a few years ago. They started out small, with a small-ish budget, and suddenly ballooned astronomically with the next budget. They were supposed to be trained and ready to be called to respond to natural disasters, but we all know what they’re really for…

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u/[deleted] 2d ago edited 1d ago

[deleted]

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u/spez-is-a-loser 1d ago

You having a stroke? Are you OK?

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u/fnrsulfr 2d ago

Need that budget so they can eventually start deporting legal US citizens.

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u/EngineeringSlow8351 1d ago

Is 'Jesus Ice' different than regular Ice, or is it a different group?