President Donald Trump’s tax lower and spending invoice got here all the way down to the wire as Senate Republican leaders scrambled to get all GOP members on board earlier than the ultimate vote Tuesday.
Ultimately, three long-serving GOP members, Susan Collins of Maine, Rand Paul of Kentucky and Thom Tillis of North Carolina voted in opposition to, forcing Vice President JD Vance to interrupt a 50-50 tie.
Every defined their causes for bucking the president.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski and Sen. Susan Collins stroll to the Senate ground as Republican lawmakers wrestle to move President Donald Trump’s sweeping spending and tax invoice, on Capitol Hill in Washington, July 1, 2025.
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Susan Collins
One of many largely carefully watched because the vote neared was Collins, who had been on the fence because of the invoice’s proposed Medicaid cuts.
“Roughly 400,000 Mainers – practically a 3rd of the state’s inhabitants – depend upon this program,” she stated in an announcement after voting no. “A dramatic discount in future Medicaid funding, an estimated $5.9 billion in Maine over the following 10 years, may threaten not solely Mainers’ entry to well being care, but in addition the very existence of a number of of our state’s rural hospitals.”
Collins added that the invoice had “extra issues.”
“The tax credit that vitality entrepreneurs have relied on ought to have been step by step phased out in order to not waste the work that has already been put into these modern new tasks and stop them from being accomplished,” she stated.
Senator Lisa Murkowski walks after the Senate passes U.S. President Donald Trump’s sweeping spending and tax invoice, on Capitol Hill in Washington, July 1, 2025.
Elizabeth Frantz/Reuters
GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska voted in favor of the invoice regardless of reservations.
Murkowski was on the fence for weeks however grew to become a key vote after Collins rejected the invoice.
“I struggled mightily with the (invoice’s) impression on probably the most susceptible on this nation,” she advised reporters.
“Do I like this invoice? No. However I attempted to care for Alaska’s pursuits,” she stated.
Sen. Thom Tillis takes the Senate subway on the Capitol Constructing, June 30, 2025. Republican leaders are pushing to get President Donald Trump’s “One, Huge, Stunning Invoice” Act by Congress and to his desk earlier than the July 4 Independence Day vacation.
Alex Wong/Getty Pictures
Thom Tillis
Tillis has been extraordinarily vocal in his opposition because the weekend, drawing consideration for a passionate ground speech citing Medicaid provisions he claimed would harm his North Carolina constituents.
Throughout a closed-door GOP convention assembly two weeks in the past, Tillis is reported to have made the purpose that Medicaid protection for greater than 600,000 North Carolinians could be in danger beneath the Senate’s proposal and requested his colleagues to think about how the coverage would have an effect on their very own states — even offering state-specific knowledge on a handout.
“I simply inspired different members to go to their states and simply measure how … check out the proposed cuts and inform me whether or not or not you may soak up it within the regular course of enterprise, and in lots of instances, you are gonna discover that you could’t,” Tillis advised reporters on the Capitol final week.
Trump lashed out in opposition to Tillis on his social media platform and to the press and threatened to subject main challengers. Tillis introduced on Saturday that he wouldn’t search reelection.
Sen. Rand Paul speaks to reporters as Republican lawmakers wrestle to move U.S. President Donald Trump’s sweeping spending and tax invoice, on Capitol Hill in Washington, June 27, 2025.
Elizabeth Frantz/Reuters
Rand Paul
Paul, a staunch advocate for protecting spending and the debt ceiling in test, posted on X that he needed the invoice to incorporate a 90% discount within the ceiling.
“No earmarks. No handouts. Simply actual fiscal reform. I wasn’t in search of favors. I wasn’t horse-trading. I used to be preventing for the American folks and in opposition to our out-of-control debt,” he stated.
“Backside line: I provided my vote for fiscal sanity. Congress selected to promote out taxpayers as a substitute. Solely as soon as the invoice is launched, we are going to know what the true value was,” Paul added.
