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What's in the Senate's version of Trump's 'big bill'?

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What's in the Senate's version of Trump's 'big bill'?

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The “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” (let’s say “OBBBA”) is President Donald Trump’s signature agenda item in Congress.

It will affect the daily lives of tens of millions of Americans. It is a massive project, with potentially the largest tax cuts, spending cuts and additions to the national debt in U.S. history.

WATCH: Can Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” make it through the Senate?

This week, we have a critical, new development to dive into: the Senate Finance Committee’s own draft of how it wants to handle tax cuts and Medicaid cuts.

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(For the most adventurous among us, all 549 pages can be found here.)

The big picture

  • Tax cuts. The Senate draft would add and lengthen some tax cuts, both for businesses and individuals.
  • Green energy cuts. It would slightly delay the elimination of tax credits for solar and wind energy. The Senate draft would push back cuts for nuclear, geothermal and hydropower far more significantly.
  • Medicaid cuts. It would cut Medicaid more than the House-passed bill.

OK, let’s go a little deeper.

A close-up of the words “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” printed on an agenda for a House Rules Committee’s hearing in May on President Donald Trump’s plan for extensive tax cuts. Photo by Nathan Howard/Reuters

Some tax specifics

  • Individual tax rates. Senate and House Republicans are in sync on this. They would make current tax rates permanent. Without action, nearly all individuals will see a tax increase.
  • Standard deductions. The Senate draft would give most adults a bigger tax deduction from the start. Without extending Trump’s 2017 tax cuts, the standard deduction that many individuals take to lower their tax burden is slated to decrease nearly in half at the end of the year. The Senate would not just keep but raise the deduction amounts — to $16,000 for individuals and $32,000 for married couples filing jointly.
  • Child tax credit. The current tax credit of $2,000 per child is set to drop to $1,000 at the end of the year. The Senate would raise the credit to $2,200 permanently. The House would raise the credit to $2,500, but only until 2028.

Green energy

  • A slash to green energy funds. The House and Senate are both moving to eliminate major tax credits for wind and solar from the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act.
  • But the Senate gives a slightly longer phase-out, allowing a partial tax credit for projects that start construction next year or in 2027. The House would end the credit almost as soon as the bill is enacted.

Medicaid

  • Targeting the “provider” tax. This is the most notable cut that the Senate draft is adding. Right now, states use a loophole to help them get more federal dollars for Medicaid. They tax hospitals and doctors (a “provider tax”) and spend that money back with the hospitals and doctors. The more states spend, the more the federal government will match.
  • A cut on this tax. For states that expanded Medicaid, the Senate draft would gradually reduce the maximum amount of provider taxes, which is currently up to 6%, until it reaches a 3.5% threshold by 2031. Many Republicans like this reform, but others say it would significantly cut funds available for Medicaid. The House bill would block new provider taxes.
  • Work requirements. Both the House and Senate would add an 80-hours-a-month work requirement for “able-bodied” adults, or those without disabilities, on Medicaid. The Senate makes one significant change: exempting parents of children under 14 years old from the requirement. (There currently is no federal work requirement for Medicaid.)

What now?

This Senate version is experiencing some initial turbulence.

Four Republican senators have openly questioned the Medicaid cuts in the House bill: Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Jerry Moran of Kansas, Susan Collins of Maine and Josh Hawley of Missouri.

And now, West Virginia Sen. Jim Justice has told a Semafor reporter that he wants the Senate’s Medicaid section to revert to the House version, which would ban new or increased provider taxes.

Hawley told me Tuesday that the cut to the provider tax was a total surprise to him and others. Trump, too, was surprised when alerted about the change and its ramifications for rural hospitals, Hawley said.

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This is not unusual. Big bills often have big problems when they are released.

But. Republicans are trying to get this historic legislation through Congress — not just the Senate — in the next two weeks.

At this point in the process, similar large bills (think the Affordable Care Act) usually take months to get through the Senate and back through the House again.

Republicans are determined to pass a version of the bill, but increasingly my sources are saying the question is “not if, but when.”

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Supreme Court financial disclosures reveal how their books add to their income

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Supreme Court financial disclosures reveal how their books add to their income

Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett speaks at the Reagan Library on Sept. 9, 2025, in Simi Valley, Calif. Barrett discussed and signed copies of her new book, Listening to the Law: Reflections on the Court and Constitution.

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Mario Tama/Getty Images

Even as the Supreme Court was handing down one legal thunderbolt after another last week, the justices were quietly releasing their annual financial reports. Justice Samuel Alito was the only sitting justice to request an extension, which he has done for 15 years. The disclosures do not give a complete account of the justices’ total income and wealth, but they give insights into their concertgoing, guest professorships and even their involvement in youth sports.

In addition to their salaries, much of the justices’ reported income came from their book deals. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson led the pack earning more than $1.1 million last year for a total of roughly $4 million since her memoir, Lovely One, was published in 2024.

Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Neil Gorsuch, Amy Coney Barrett and retired Justice Anthony Kennedy also reported income from published books. Earnings from their books ranged from $849,000 for Barrett, to $300,000 for Gorsuch and $88,000 for Sotomayor, whose books include her 2013 autobiography and five children’s books. Justice Clarence Thomas, who previously earned $1.5 million for his 2007 memoir, listed no publisher payments last year, and Justice Brett Kavanaugh, one of 13 co-authors of a 2016 legal treatise, also received no payments last year. Kavanaugh is said to be working on a memoir but he listed no payments for the anticipated book. Alito does have a book coming out in the fall, but with his financial report still outstanding, there is no data on how much he was paid for the work in 2025.

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The only two sitting justices who have not written books are Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Elena Kagan.

Many justices also earned income from teaching at law schools. Roberts reported income from New England Law, located in Boston, and Gorsuch reported teaching income from George Mason University in Virginia. Thomas taught classes at Catholic University in Washington, D.C., and Barrett and Kavanaugh taught at Notre Dame Law School. Barrett graduated from the school and began teaching there 23 years ago; Kavanaugh has family connections to Notre Dame.

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Manhattan Building’s Columns Buckled Beneath New Addition, Images Show

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Manhattan Building’s Columns Buckled Beneath New Addition, Images Show

At least two structural columns buckled and failed in a 37-story office tower in Midtown Manhattan on Tuesday, prompting evacuations of nearby streets and buildings. While city officials asserted that the tower was in no danger of collapsing completely, outside engineers said further failures in the structure could not be ruled out.

A pair of columns that failed completely were part of the tower’s existing structure. A New York Times review of images and videos from inside the building has found that several floors were added atop these columns.

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City officials said in a news conference on Tuesday that the building was continuing to move, while they simultaneously assured the city that the building would not suffer “total collapse.” “The way this building is constructed, it’s a steel-frame building,” John Esposito, a chief in the Fire Department in New York, said at the afternoon news conference. “So, it would not be a total collapse. It would be more of a localized collapse.” Still, he said, “that remains our concern, that it’s moved.”

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Engineers said that the movement itself was cause for concern. In a properly designed steel building, they said, loads should redistribute quickly to surviving structural supports if columns failed.

Joe DiPompeo, a former president of the Structural Engineering Institute at the American Society of Civil Engineers, said that if the structure had been overloaded, he would expect any movement “to happen very quickly,” rather than gradually.

“Generally when a column buckles, it’s a sudden failure,” Mr. DiPompeo said. He said that a full collapse remained unlikely given the redundancies built into the building codes.

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Engineers often refer to the most dangerous possibility as a progressive collapse, a process in which structures near the initial failure become overstressed and also fail, potentially bringing down the building if the sequence continues. While unlikely, it cannot be ruled out, Mr. DiPompeo said.

Footage recorded from inside the building shows at least two structural columns appear to have failed completely, Mr. DiPompeo said. Other nonstructural, interior walls — or at least the metal “studs” that were in place to hold them up — also appear to have deformed.

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“The only way that really happens is if the floor above them dropped. It looks like the floor above could have dropped a foot or two, which is obviously not a good situation,” Mr. DiPompeo said.

@fernando40tiktok.commarc via Storyful

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Image from @fernando40tiktok.commarc via Storyful

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Image from @Bogs4NY via X

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The 37-story building is in the process of being converted from office space into residential units. Four new floors and a large vertical portion were added onto the existing building in recent months. The vertical portion consists of a stack of over a dozen new floors cantilevered out over the existing building below.

Engineers said that there was nothing inherently wrong with adding residential floors or the cantilevered section above the columns that failed, as long as the original structure and the modifications had properly accounted for the added weight and wind loads.

“The cantilever alone doesn’t change anything,” Mr. DiPompeo said, but it does put additional load on the columns underneath — a factor that should have been reflected in the design.

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Nathan Berman, managing principal and founder of MetroLoft, the developer overseeing the conversion, said on Tuesday that “this incident is nothing more than a typical construction mishap.”

He said two columns near the northwest corner of the tower had bent under the weight of additions to the building above, most likely because those columns had not been properly reinforced, though he said an investigation would determine the cause. The rest of the columns, he said, “picked up the weight.” He estimated the affected floors above the failed columns had sagged by a maximum of four inches.

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Mr. Berman said that he expected the problems to be fixed and the project to be completed with, at most, a slight delay.

On Tuesday evening, installation of temporary shoring was set to begin shortly, in order to help stabilize the 20th and 21st floors of the building.

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DOJ warns of criminal charges for state election officials if noncitizens vote

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DOJ warns of criminal charges for state election officials if noncitizens vote

The Justice Department sent letters warning election officials in all 50 states and the District of Columbia that they could face criminal prosecution over noncitizen voting, a spokesperson for the Justice Department confirmed Tuesday.

The letters, signed by Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon, who heads up the department’s Civil Rights Division, give states five days to explain how they will comply with federal voter eligibility laws and how they will maintain “clean voter lists.”

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“The Department sent these letters to all 50 states and the District of Columbia, asking for voluntary compliance in a timely manner with their obligations under federal law to ensure only citizens vote in federal elections,” a Justice Department spokesperson said in a statement.

Noncitizen voting in federal elections is extremely rare, but Trump and his administration have falsely portrayed it as a widespread issue.

Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, Nevada Secretary of State Francisco Aguilar and Utah Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson are among those who said they received the letters from the Justice Department.

The letters say state election officers “could be criminally prosecuted for aiding and abetting” noncitizen voting. They further specify that any election officer who knowingly retains noncitizens on a statewide voting registration list or who facilitates noncitizens’ receiving and casting ballots could be subject to criminal liability.

“An intentional act that is aimed at diluting the votes of citizens could also constitute a violation” of federal law, the letters said.

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Henderson wrote on social media that the threats constitute “truly bizarre behavior.”

“Got another love letter this morning from the DOJ sprinkled throughout with threats of criminal prosecution,” she wrote. “I’m sure I’m not the only chief election officer of a state who is being targeted for following state and federal laws by resisting DOJ’s demands for private voter data that have thus far been ruled illegal by at least a dozen courts.”

The letters are the latest move in the Justice Department’s campaign to assert more federal control over state elections.

While some states have complied with the administration’s demands that they hand over voter roll data, the Justice Department has sued 30 states and Washington, D.C., for resisting. So far, 11 different federal courts have dismissed the Justice Department’s efforts to seize voter rolls.

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