WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump on Friday signed into law his sweeping tax cut and spending package, what he’s called the “big, beautiful bill,” in a Fourth of July ceremony packaged with patriotic pomp and symbolism.
The White House ceremony, which took place alongside a military picnic, included an armed forces flyover and was attended by jubilant Republican lawmakers, including House Speaker Mike Johnson and Majority Leader Steve Scalise, both of Louisiana, who helped muscle the legislation through their chamber Thursday by a razor-thin margin.
“Our country has had so much to celebrate this Independence Day as we enter our 249th year. America’s winning, winning, winning like never before,” Trump said before signing the bill.
“We have officially made the Trump tax cuts permanent. That’s the largest tax cut in the history of our country,” he continued. “We’re setting all sorts of economic records right now, and that’s before this kicks in. After this kicks in, our country is going to be a rocket ship, economically.”
The Senate on Tuesday passed the bill on a 51-50 vote, with Vice President JD Vance needed to break the tie. That sent the bill to the House, which passed it on a mostly party-line vote of 218-214 Thursday, just one day before Trump’s arbitrary July Fourth deadline.
As a band played the national anthem, a B-2 Spirit bomber, accompanied by two F-35 jets, flew over the White House in honor of the U.S. strike on nuclear facilities in Iran last month. The pilots who participated in those strikes, Operation Midnight Hammer, were invited to the event by Trump.
Trump, first lady Melania Trump and their guests were expected to watch the annual Independence Day fireworks celebration over the National Mall on Friday night. The president visited his Virginia golf club earlier in the day.
The bill signing capped a grueling, monthslong process, during which the House and the Senate publicly quarreled over whether the GOP should try to pass Trump’s domestic policy priorities in one bill or break them up into two. Moderate and conservative Republicans also battled over how much they should cut federal safety net programs — Medicaid and food aid (the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP) — as well as how much to raise the deduction cap on state and local taxes, or SALT.
The mammoth package fulfills many of Trump’s 2024 campaign promises. It extends the expiring tax cuts he enacted in his first term, in 2017, while temporarily slashing taxes on tips and overtime pay and allowing deductions on auto loan interest payments. It also includes hundreds of billions of dollars in new spending on the military and on carrying out Trump’s mass deportation plans.
The legislation partly pays for that with steep cuts to Medicaid, SNAP and clean energy funding.
And despite conservative calls to tackle the ballooning debt and deficit, the Trump law is projected to increase the national debt by $3.3 trillion over the next decade, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. The CBO also estimated that 11.8 million people could lose health insurance coverage because of the legislation’s Medicaid cuts and other provisions.
A raft of recent polls shows Trump’s big bill is deeply unpopular. A recent Quinnipiac University poll found that 53% of registered voters oppose the bill, while only 27% support it. And Democrats, eager to win back control of the House and possibly the Senate in 2026, are salivating at the chance to make the Trump bill a central campaign issue in the midterm elections.
“Not a single thing in Donald Trump’s one big, ugly bill will meaningfully make life more affordable for everyday Americans, and that’s just one of several reasons why House Democrats are hell no on this legislation,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., said Thursday in a record-breaking, nearly nine-hour floor speech.
“We were a hell no last week, a hell no this week, a hell no yesterday, a hell no today,” he said to raucous cheers from Democrats. “And will continue to be a hell no on this effort to hurt the American people.”
Just a day after Congress passed the bill, Republicans have already started talking about making changes to the law. As he touted the tax cuts and spending cuts in the package, Vance on Friday opened the door to changing some of the policies in it.
Trump “makes a reform, he sees how it plays out, and he’s always willing to have a conversation in order to make things even better,” the vice president, who played a key role in House and Senate negotiations this week, told reporters in North Dakota.
At the White House ceremony, Republicans jostled with each other to be close to Trump for the bill-signing photo opportunity.
Among the senators on hand were Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso of Wyoming, Finance Chairman Mike Crapo of Idaho, and Budget Chairman Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. House members included Majority Whip Tom Emmer of Minnesota, Ways and Means Chairman Jason Smith of Missouri and Budget Chairman Jodey Arrington of Texas.
Johnson presented Trump with a gift at the signing: “This is the gavel used to enact the big, beautiful bill.”
