Senate GOP Approves Framework For Trump's Tax Breaks And Spending Cuts After Late-Night Session

The vote, 51-48, fell along mostly party lines, but with sharp dissent from two prominent GOP senators. It could not have come at a more difficult political moment.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Republicans plugged away overnight and into early Saturday morning to approve their multitrillion-dollar tax breaks and spending cuts framework, hurtling past hardened Democratic opposition toward what President Donald Trump calls the “big, beautiful bill” that’s central to his agenda.

The vote, 51-48, fell along mostly party lines, but with sharp dissent from two prominent GOP senators. It could not have come at a more difficult political moment. The U.S. economy is churning after Trump’s vast tariff scheme sent stocks plummeting, and experts are warning of soaring costs for consumers at home and threats of a potential recession. Republican Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Rand Paul of Kentucky both voted against.

But with a nod from Trump, GOP leaders held on, determined to march ahead. Approval paves the way for Republicans, in the months ahead, to try to power a tax cut bill through both chambers of Congress over the objections of Democrats, just as they did in Trump’s first term with unified party control in Washington.

“Let the voting begin,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said Friday night.

The evening kicked off what’s called vote-a-rama as Democrats were intent on making the effort as politically painful as possible, with action on some two dozen amendments to the package that GOP senators will have to defend before next year’s midterm elections.