One Big Beautiful Bill: What they're saying in the Lehigh Valley and across Pa.

BETHLEHEM, Pa. — After a days of bargaining and whipping votes, the U.S. House passed President Donald Trump's signature tax and spending plan on Thursday, entrenching tax cuts, bolstering border security and pushing millions of Americans out of their health care coverage.

By a 218-214 vote the House passed the One Big Beautiful Bill Thursday afternoon. All Democrats and Republican U.S. Reps. Tom Massie, R-Ky., and Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Pa., voted against it.

Republican lawmakers have been in general agreement of the terms for weeks, but hammering out the details while appeasing deficit hawks and the party's more moderate members proved challenging. Ultimately, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-N.D, managed to limit defections to secure enough votes.

Trump is expected to sign the legislation into law by Friday afternoon, meeting his self-imposed deadline of July 4.

According to the Associated Press, the law will:

• Prolong and expand the 2017 Trump tax cuts Congress passed in 2017;
• Eliminate taxes on overtime pay and tips for most Americans;
• Temporarily raise the cap on state and local tax deductions to $40,000;
• Commit $350 billion to immigration enforcement, including hiring more ICE and Border Patrol agents and building more detention centers;
• Develop a $250 billion Golden Dome missile defense system;
• Introduce a new tax on the endowments of colleges and universities;
• Force an estimated 11.8 million people out of Medicaid, the federal health care program serving the poor, mostly by adding new work requirements;
• Make an estimated 3 million people ineligible for SNAP benefits, also known as food stamps;
• Shift some of Medicaid's costs onto the states;
• Increase the federal deficit by $3.3 billion over the next 10 years

Here's what they're saying

The controversial bill has generated intense opposition from Trump's opponents, who argue it's cutting services from the poor in order to provide tax breaks to America's wealthiest residents. The president and his allies contend they are merely delivering on his campaign promises of lowering taxes while ratcheting up enforcement on illegal immigration.

Matt Rourke/AP

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AP

U.S. Rep. Ryan Mackenzie, R-Lehigh Valley

Mackenzie voted twice in favor of the bill, once for the House version and again on Thursday for the reconciliation with the Senate bill. Mackenzie previously voiced support for work requirements on Medicaid and SNAP benefits. He also said that allowing the 2017 tax cuts to expire would hurt his constituents when they could least afford it.

“This budget follows through on those priorities — delivering tax relief to local families, supporting small businesses, protecting essential benefits for vulnerable populations, and providing the resources to modernize our military and secure the border once and for all," he said in a statement Thursday. "In the face of relentless opposition from those who advocated for the largest tax increase in American history and a return to open borders, we’ve passed a budget that holds firm and keeps our promise to the American people.”

U.S. Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Pa.

Fitzpatrick, a Bucks County moderate, backed the bill when it first passed the House in June but withdrew that support Thursday.

"The original House language was written in a way that protected our community; the Senate amendments fell short of our standard," he said in a news release. "I believe in, and will always fight for, policies that are thoughtful, compassionate, and good for our community. It is this standard that will always guide my legislative decisions."

Fitzpatrick did not specifically identify which amendments he objected to. However, the bill limited how much states can collect through provider taxes, which helps fund the program. Some critics, including U.S. Senator Thom Tillis, R-N.C., said this would harm rural hospital providers. The Senate attempted to offset these concerns by creating a $25 billion fund to assist rural hospitals.

U.S. Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa.

Republicans have been courting Fetterman for weeks as his relationship with many of his Democratic colleagues has publicly soured. However, the former mayor of Braddock voted, "Hell no!" during the vote in the Senate earlier this week.

“My colleagues on the other side of the aisle wrote and passed this 940-page bill without giving us time to read it," he said. "I’ll keep fighting to protect health care, defend nutrition assistance, block giveaways for billionaires, and prevent trillions more added to our national debt."

U.S. Sen. Dave McCormick, R-Pa.

MCormick joined most of his Republican colleagues in supporting the bill earlier this week. Along with the tax breaks most conservatives rallied around, he cited a provision that allows people to claim $1,700 in tax credits for donations to Scholarship Granting Organizations if their state opts into the program.

Advocates of school voucher programs have long supported language like this.

“Pennsylvania’s families and workers will see significant benefits from this bill – from an increase to the Child Tax Credit to making permanent the doubling of the standard deduction and the Employer Paid Family and Medical Leave tax credit. Most importantly, this bill stops the largest tax increase in American history by making the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act permanent, saving the average Pennsylvania family $2,500 each year while also giving workers no tax on tips and no tax on overtime. Finally, we made a positive step forward on school choice, which will give educational opportunity to all Pennsylvanians.”

Gov. Josh Shapiro, D

Shapiro, who is widely expected to pursue a presidential campaign in 2028, called out the state's Republican congressmen, saying the bill would have devastating effects on their constituents. He then posted estimates of how many people in their districts would lose health care and SNAP benefits in each of their districts.

"Pennsylvanians have placed their trust in these folks to represent their interests. And if they vote for this federal budget bill, they’re kicking their own constituents off health care and food benefits, raising their energy costs, and ballooning our national debt. It’s shameful," he tweeted.

Northampton County Executive Lamont McClure, Democratic candidate for Pennsylvania's 7th Congressional District

McClure denounced the bill Thursday, citing a Pennsylvania Department of Human Services estimate that 300,000 Pennsylvanians will lose their Medicaid coverage due to the bill. Another 270,000 Pennsylvanians would lose coverage due to changes the bill makes to the Affordable Care Act, the department estimated.

“Ryan Mackenzie promised to lower prices. Instead, he voted to pass a Republican budget that will raise costs and gut Medicaid — all to give billionaires another giant tax break,” McClure said. “Trump and Mackenzie’’s budget will be devastating for Pennsylvania families.”

Carol Obando-Derstine, Democratic candidate for Pennsylvania's 7th Congressional District

Similarly, Obando-Derstine focused on how many people will lose their health care coverage in the district, which includes all of Carbon, Lehigh and Northampton counties plus a sliver of Monroe County. She said 17,519 people would lose medical coverage while another 6,096 would lose SNAP benefits — figures released earlier by Shapiro.

"My family and I have faced these same challenges. I’m running for Congress because families in this district deserve someone who fights for them and actually works to lower costs — not someone like Mackenzie who sells out our district at every turn,” Obando-Derstine said.

Ryan Crosswell, Democratic candidate for Pennsylvania's 7th Congressional District

Crosswell had not released a statement on the bill's passage at the time of publication. In the hours leading up to the House vote, he called the bill cruel and heartless. He said 310,000 Pennsylvanias would lose access to Medicaid, 140,000 would lose access to SNAP and 200,000 would lose access to the state's health care marketplace; his source on those figures was not immediately clear.

"RIGHT NOW: The Republicans in the House are stuck on the House floor after Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick crossed party lines to vote no on the rules. I'm calling on Congressman Ryan Mackenzie to put politics aside and join his fellow Pennsylvanian and put country over party," he tweeted.

State Rep. Josh Siegel, Democratic candidate for Lehigh County executive

Siegel accused Mackenzie of robbing the people of Pennsylvania's 22nd state House District of their health care and SNAP benefits. The district, which includes portions of Allentown and Salisbury Township, is among the most dependent on those programs in the state.

“Pennsylvania families will be poorer, sicker, and hungrier. Their costs will rise on energy and health, hospitals will shutter, insurance premiums will rise, and lives will be lost. The Big Beautiful Bill offers crumbs to working families and the whole bakery to billionaires and the wealthiest Americans. It strips millions of working families of health care and food assistance and takes a wrecking ball to moral fabric of our country,” Siegel said in a news release Thursday afternoon.

Former Allentown City Councilman Roger MacLean, the Republican candidate for Lehigh County executive, had not made a public comment on the bill as of publication.