Bill

Legislation likely to eventually pass as polls say 90 percent of French in favour of laws that give people with terminal diseases the right to die.

France’s lower house of parliament has approved a right-to-die bill in the first reading, taking an initial step in the lengthy process to pass legislation.

A total of 305 lawmakers in the National Assembly approved the legislation on Tuesday while 199 deputies voted against the bill to grant patients medical assistance to end their lives in defined circumstances.

The text has the backing of President Emmanuel Macron but is opposed by some conservative groups.

In a statement on X, Macron praised the approval of the bill as “an important step” on “the path of fraternity”.

“The National Assembly’s vote on legislation concerning the development of palliative care and assisted dying is an important step,” Macron posted. “With respect for sensitivities, doubts and hopes, the path of fraternity that I hoped for is gradually opening up.”

The legislation will be sent to the French Senate for further debate. Months could be required to schedule a definitive vote on the measure, given France’s long and complex parliamentary process. The National Assembly has the final say over the Senate.

The legislation is expected to eventually pass as polls indicated that more than 90 percent of French people are in favour of laws that give people with terminal diseases or going through interminable suffering the right to die.

The proposed measure defines assisted dying as allowing people to use lethal medication under certain conditions. They may take it themselves, or those whose physical conditions don’t allow them to do so alone would be able to get help from a doctor or nurse.

Strict conditions

To benefit, patients would need to be over 18, be French citizens or live in France.

A team of medical professionals would need to confirm that the patient has a grave and incurable illness “at an advanced or terminal stage”, is suffering from intolerable and untreatable pain, and is seeking lethal medication of their own free will.

Patients with severe psychiatric conditions and neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease will not be eligible.

A person would initiate the request for lethal medication and confirm the request after a period of reflection.

If approved, a doctor would deliver a prescription for the lethal medication, which could be taken at home, a nursing home or a healthcare facility.

A 2023 report indicated that most French citizens back legalising end-of-life options, and opinion polls showed growing support over the past 20 years.

Initial discussions in parliament last year were abruptly interrupted by Macron’s decision to dissolve the National Assembly, plunging France into a months-long political crisis.

May 25 (UPI) — President Donald Trump is losing support for his ‘big, beautiful bill,’ a budget measure that would add $3.3 billion to the national deficit over the next decade.

Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wisconsin, said there are enough GOP Senators to stymie the bill, which the House passed by a one vote margin on May 22nd.

“I think we have enough to stop the process until the president gets serious about the spending reduction and reducing the deficit,” Johnson said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

Republicans have a 53-47 vote margin in the Senate, but several members of the GOP have said they are not ready to support the budget bill, and are poised to defeat it.

“This is our moment,” Johnson said Sunday. “We have witnessed an unprecedented level of increased spending. This is our only chance to reset that to a reasonable pre-pandemic level.”

Trump has urged conservatives to support the measure, but Johnson called on his fellow Republicans to adopt a different approach to addressing the deficit before he could get behind a budget bill.

In its current form, the budget bill would increase the debt ceiling by $4 billion which would prevent a default on the national debt, which would occur in August.

Johnson was joined in his opposition to the bill by Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., who also cited the hike in the national deficit.

“I still would support the bill, even with wimpy and anemic cuts,” Paul said on Fox News Sunday, “if they weren’t going to explode the debt. The problem is, the math doesn’t add up. It’s just, you know, not a serious proposal.”

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., a Trump confidant, agreed “wholeheartedly” with Paul’s criticism of the budget bill. Johnson followed Paul on the Fox News Sunday program.

“I love his convocation and I share it,” the speaker said. “The national debt is the greatest threat to your national security, and deficits are a serious problem.”

Critics of the bill have called on the Senate to take a different approach to reaching a compromise.

A Medicaid bill pushed by Republicans proposes significant cuts to the health insurance programme for lower-income Americans. But United States President Donald Trump has claimed the legislation would change Medicaid in ways that only combat “waste, fraud and abuse”, a phrase he repeated seven times over a couple of minutes.

“We’re not doing any cutting of anything meaningful,” the Republican president said. “The only thing we’re cutting is waste, fraud and abuse. … We’re not changing Medicaid, and we’re not changing Medicare, and we’re not changing Social Security.”

The House of Representatives passed the bill on Thursday, and it now moves to the Senate, where it could be changed. The House version doesn’t directly target Social Security or Medicare. But it changes Medicaid, including in ways that align with Republican priorities.

Congress’s nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has projected that at least 8.6 million people will lose coverage because of the changes.

“Relatively little of the bill is clearly related to trying to reduce fraud or error,” said Leighton Ku, director of George Washington University’s Center for Health Policy Research. “There are some minor provisions about things like looking for dead people who are enrolled or checking addresses. But the major provisions are not fraud, waste or error by any means. They’re things that reflect policy preferences of the Republican architects.”

Robin Rudowitz, vice president and director of the Program on Medicaid and the Uninsured at the health policy research group KFF, agreed that the scope of the bill’s changes go further than Trump said. “The magnitude of the federal spending reductions and resulting coverage loss go well beyond rooting out fraud and abuse,” she said.

The bill’s key provisions could be removed before the final votes and enactment while others may be added.

The White House did not respond to an inquiry for this fact check.

How the federal government defines waste, fraud and abuse

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the federal agency that runs Medicaid, offers official definitions for these three terms:

• Fraud: “When someone knowingly deceives, conceals, or misrepresents to obtain money or property from any health care benefit program. Medicare or Medicaid fraud is considered a criminal act.”
• Waste: “Overusing services or other practices that directly or indirectly result in unnecessary costs to any health care benefit program. Examples of waste are conducting excessive office visits, prescribing more medications than necessary, and ordering excessive laboratory tests.”
• Abuse: “When health care providers or suppliers perform actions that directly or indirectly result in unnecessary costs to any health care benefit program. Abuse includes any practice that doesn’t provide patients with medically necessary services or meet professionally recognised standards,” such as overbilling or misusing billing codes.

Some bill provisions can be described as targeting waste, fraud and abuse

One provision in the bill requires states to confirm recipients’ Medicaid eligibility at least every six months rather than every year under current law. Another would set stricter requirements for verifying enrollees’ addresses and other information.

Such efforts could save expenditures on ineligible people and could be classified as a waste-prevention measure.

Other provisions are more ideological than focused on waste, fraud and abuse

Several of the bill’s highest-profile provisions are driven more by ideology – differences in how expansive the programme should be and what types of people should benefit.

One of these provisions involves people in the US without documentation.

Because it’s already against the law to spend federal Medicaid funds on undocumented people, the bill takes a different approach: It seeks to make it harder for states to exclusively rely on state funds to cover immigrants in the US. Currently, 14 states and the District of Columbia cover children regardless of their immigration status, and seven states plus Washington, DC, cover at least some adults living in the US without documents too.

For these states, the bill reduces the federal government’s share of Medicaid payments from 90 percent to 80 percent.

In other words, if a state wants to keep covering undocumented people, it will face a cut in the federal reimbursement rate for the coverage of US citizens, not just immigrants in the country without documents. Budgetary pressures in these states could mean that some citizens also lose some of their benefits or all of their Medicaid coverage.

Another provision involves work requirements. The bill would require individuals aged 19 to 64 receiving Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act expansion, which was passed during former President Barack Obama’s Democratic administration, to be working or participating in qualifying activities (such as having a disability, being a caretaker for family members or attending school) for at least 80 hours per month.

Research has found that the vast majority of people who would be required to work under similar requirements are already employed or have a qualifying exemption — yet many get thrown off Medicaid because they fail to keep up with the mandatory paperwork.

“Work requirements are not about waste, fraud, and abuse. They are fundamentally changing the rules of who is eligible for the programme, and they are adding an immense set of bureaucratic obstacles and red tape for eligible people to keep coverage,” said Benjamin D Sommers, a professor of healthcare economics and medicine at Harvard University’s TH Chan School of Public Health and Harvard Medical School.

A KFF analysis in March found that fraud occurs in Medicare and Medicaid mostly by providers. “There are checks on fraud, waste, and abuse at both the federal and the state levels,” KFF wrote.

Another bill provision bans Medicaid funds spent on nonprofit organisations primarily engaged in family planning or reproductive services, which would affect Planned Parenthood and other organisations that provide abortions.

Finally, at least two provisions focus on saving money. One would require, for the first time, that states impose $35 copays for many types of care. The other would limit retroactive coverage after applying for Medicaid to one month before application, down from 90 days. These provisions don’t specify how they’d root out waste, fraud and abuse.

“The ‘Medicaid savings’ in this bill are primarily from reducing programme enrolment,” Sommers said.

Our ruling

Trump said the House bill is “not changing Medicaid,” only cutting “waste, fraud and abuse”.

The legislation includes provisions that could improve the detection of beneficiaries who aren’t eligible for coverage.

But other provisions would change Medicaid to align with Trump’s ideology and Republican priorities. The bill would incentivise states to stop using their own funds to cover undocumented people in the US; it requires people to work or do other approved activities to secure benefits; and it bans Medicaid payments to nonprofits such as Planned Parenthood, which provide abortions among other services.

Other changes aim to cut expenses, including the imposition of copays and a shorter window for retroactive coverage. Those provisions don’t specify how they’d cut waste, fraud or abuse.

We rate the statement false.

AUSTIN, Texas — Texas would require all public school classrooms to display the Ten Commandments under a Republican proposal that cleared a major vote Saturday and would make the state the nation’s largest to impose such a mandate.

If passed as expected, the measure is likely to draw a legal challenge from critics who consider it a constitutional violation of the separation of church and state.

The Republican-controlled House gave its preliminary approval with a final vote expected in the next few days. That would send the bill to the desk of Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, who has indicated he will sign it into law.

“The focus of this bill is to look at what is historically important to our nation educationally and judicially,” said Republican state Rep. Candy Noble, a co-sponsor of the bill.

Louisiana and Arkansas have similar laws, but Louisiana’s is on hold after a federal judge found it to be “unconstitutional on its face.”

Those measures are among efforts in many conservative-led states to insert religion into public schools. The vote in Texas came after the U.S. Supreme Court in effect put an end to a publicly funded Catholic charter school in Oklahoma on Thursday with a 4-4 tie after a string of high court decisions in recent years that have allowed public funds to flow to religious entities.

Texas lawmakers also have sent to Abbott a measure that allows school districts to provide students and staff a daily voluntary period of prayer or time to read a religious text during school hours. Abbott is expected to sign it.

“We should be encouraging our students to read and study their Bible every day,” Republican state Rep. Brent Money said. “Our kids in our public schools need prayer, need Bible reading, more now than they ever have.”

Supporters of requiring the Ten Commandments in classrooms say they are part of the foundation of the United States’ judicial and educational systems and should be displayed.

Critics, including some Christian and other faith leaders, say the Ten Commandments and prayer measures would infringe on the religious freedom of others.

The Ten Commandments bill would require public schools to post in classrooms a 16-by-20-inch poster or framed copy of a specific English version of the commandments, even though translations and interpretations vary across denominations, faiths and languages and may differ in homes and houses of worship.

Democratic lawmakers made several failed attempts Saturday to amend the bill to require schools to display other religious texts or provide multiple translations of the commandments.

A letter signed this year by dozens of Christian and Jewish faith leaders opposing the bill noted that Texas has thousands of students of other faiths who might have no connection to the Ten Commandments. Texas has nearly 6 million students in about 9,100 public schools.

In 2005, Abbott as state attorney general successfully argued before the Supreme Court that Texas could keep a Ten Commandments monument on the grounds of its Capitol.

Vertuno and Lathan write for the Associated Press.

WASHINGTON — Landmark legislation that would rewrite the tax code and levy steep cuts to programs providing healthcare and food stamps to the poor passed the House early Thursday, a development that was celebrated by President Trump despite the bill facing an uncertain future among Senate Republicans.

The measure, titled the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” would boost funding for border security and the Defense Department, eliminate taxes on tips and overtime, provide a new tax deduction to seniors and renew the 2017 tax cuts passed during the first Trump administration. To pay for those new funding commitments, the bill proposes eliminating green energy tax benefits passed under President Biden, as well as an estimated $1 trillion in cuts to Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.

Even still, the bill would add so much money to the debt that Congress may be forced to execute cuts across the board, including hundreds of billions to Medicare, in a process known as sequestration, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

The House vote fell along party lines. By opposing the bill, the Trump administration said that Democrats were supporting the largest tax increase on middle-class Americans in decades, a reference to the upcoming expiration of Trump’s 2017 tax cuts at the end of the year.

Democrats, on the other hand, have accused Republicans of voting for the deepest cuts to healthcare in modern times. By creating new barriers to Medicaid coverage through the introduction of work hour requirements, as well as increasing premiums under the Affordable Care Act, the CBO and other nonpartisan organizations estimate up to 14 million Americans could lose their insurance coverage.

Those drastic changes to the healthcare landscape have given pause to several Republican senators.

Sen. Susan Collins of Maine has said she is “very wary of cutting Medicaid.” Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri said he “can’t support” substantial cuts to Medicaid benefits. And after the vote on Thursday, Sen. Roger Marshall of Kansas said that material changes should be expected to the House bill.

“We need to go back through that bill with a fine tooth comb and make it better,” Marshall said in an interview with Newsmax. “I think there’s opportunities in Medicaid to make that bill better, to make sure that we strengthen it, that we preserve it for those who need it most.”

Any Senate rollback of cuts to the Medicaid program could face resistance from the House Freedom Caucus during the reconciliation process. Members of that group, which proclaims a commitment to fiscal conservatism, have called for even deeper cuts to the Medicaid program.

Rep. Andy Harris of Maryland, chair of the House Freedom Caucus, voted “present” early Thursday morning, preserving negotiating leverage as the bill makes its way across Capitol Hill.

“I voted to move the bill along in the process for the president,” Harris wrote on social media. “There is still a lot of work to be done in deficit reduction and ending waste, fraud, and abuse in the Medicaid program.”

The vote came hours after Trump met with GOP holdouts at the White House. As late as Wednesday afternoon, before meeting with the president, several of those lawmakers were casting doubt on the prospects of the bill’s passage this week, ahead of a Memorial Day deadline set by House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Louisiana Republican.

Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina was dismissive of the Freedom Caucus on Thursday, telling CNN that the cuts they are pushing for would barely make a dent in the national debt.

“You had your chance,” Graham said to the caucus. “Some of these cuts are not real. We’re talking about over a decade — you know, if you do $1.5 trillion, that’s like a percent and a half. So let’s don’t get high on our horse here that we’ve somehow made some major advancement of reducing spending, because we didn’t.”

Sen. Kevin Cramer of North Dakota also mocked the caucus, calling it “rich” for its members to lecture Senate Republicans on fiscal conservatism, “and end up with not that conservative a bill.” The CBO estimates the House legislation would result in a $3.8-trillion increase to the deficit.

If passed, the new work requirements to Medicaid would kick in at the end of 2026, right after the midterm elections. Green energy tax credits would phase out for any project that is not already under construction 60 days after the law comes into force.

The cap on the state and local tax deduction, known as SALT, will increase to $40,000 from $10,000, phasing out for individuals and households making more than $500,000. And while the president campaigned on a promise to eliminate taxes on Social Security, a parliamentary rule precluded Republicans from including a full cut. Instead, the bill proposes an enhanced tax deduction for senior citizens of up to $4,000.

On Truth Social, the president’s social media platform, Trump wrote that the bill is “arguably the most significant piece of Legislation that will ever be signed in the History of our Country!”

“There is no time to waste,” he added. Johnson, the speaker, has set a goal of sending the bill to the president’s desk by Independence Day.

Trump’s press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, said the president’s team was “suiting up” for negotiations with the Senate now that the bill has passed the House. “We will see how it goes,” she said.

“The ‘One Big Beautiful Bill’ is named the ‘One Big Beautiful Bill’ for a reason, because it is a one big beautiful bill that encompasses just about everything this president could want for the American public. It delivers on so many of his core campaign promises. So surely we want to see those campaign promises signed into law,” Leavitt said. “He’s expecting them to get busy on this bill and send it to his desk as soon as possible.”

The two House Republicans who voted against the bill, Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Warren Davidson of Ohio, should face primary challenges for their defiance of the president’s directive, Leavitt added.

“What’s the alternative, I would ask those members of Congress. Did they want to see a tax hike? Did they want to see our country go bankrupt? That’s the alternative by them trying to vote no,” she said. “The president believes that the Republican Party needs to be unified.”

The Republican-controlled US House of Representatives has passed the “Big, Beautiful Bill”, the sweeping tax and spending bill by a single vote.

The legislation, which would enact much of President Donald Trump’s policy agenda, passed early Thursday morning after an overnight session.

The bill, which is now headed to the Senate, will cut taxes, but also saddle the country with trillions of dollars more in debt.

The bill would fulfil many of Trump’s populist campaign pledges, delivering new tax breaks on tips and car loans and boosting spending on the military and border enforcement. It will add about $3.8 trillion to the federal government’s $36.2 trillion in debt over the next decade, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

“This is arguably the most significant piece of Legislation that will ever be signed in the History of our Country!” Trump wrote on social media.

The package passed in a 215-214 vote after a marathon push that kept lawmakers debating the bill through two successive nights.

All of the chamber’s Democrats and two Republicans voted against it, while a third Republican voted “present”, neither for nor against the bill. Another Republican missed the vote because he was asleep.

With a narrow 220-212 majority, House Speaker Mike Johnson could not afford to lose more than a handful of votes from his side, and he made several last-minute changes to satisfy various Republican factions.

“The House has passed generational, truly nation-shaping legislation,” Johnson said.

The bill is now headed to the Republican-controlled Senate, where it will likely be changed further during weeks of debate.

The 1,100-page bill would extend corporate and individual tax cuts passed in 2017 during Trump’s first term in office, cancel many green-energy incentives passed by Democratic former President Joe Biden and tighten eligibility for health and food programmes for the poor.

It also would fund Trump’s crackdown on immigration, adding tens of thousands of border guards and creating the capacity to deport up to one million people each year. Regulations on firearm silencers would be loosened.

The bill passed despite growing concerns about the US debt, which has reached 124 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), prompting a downgrade of the country’s top-notch credit rating by Moody’s last week. The US government has recorded budget deficits every year of this century, as Republican and Democratic administrations alike have failed to bring spending into alignment with revenue.

Interest payments accounted for one out of every eight dollars spent by the US government last year, more than the amount spent on the military, according to the CBO. That share is due to grow to one out of every six dollars over the next 10 years as an ageing population pushes up the government’s health and pension costs, even if Trump’s budget bill is not taken into account.

A mixed response

“We’re not rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic tonight. We’re putting coal in the boiler and setting a course for the iceberg,” said Representative Thomas Massie of Kentucky, one of the two Republicans to vote against the bill.

The growing debt has paradoxically given urgency for Republicans to pass the bill, as it would raise the federal government’s debt ceiling by $4 trillion. That would avert the prospect of a default, which officials have warned could otherwise come sometime in the middle of this year.

Republicans have also argued that failure to pass the bill would mean an effective tax hike for many Americans, as Trump’s 2017 tax cuts are due to expire at the end of the year.

Hardliners on the party’s right flank had pushed for deeper spending cuts to lessen the budget impact, but they met resistance from centrists who worried that would fall too heavily on the 71 million low-income Americans enrolled in the Medicaid health programme. Johnson made changes to address conservatives’ concerns, pulling forward new work requirements for Medicaid recipients to take effect at the end of 2026, two years earlier than before. That would kick several million people off the programme, according to the CBO. The bill also would penalise states that expand Medicaid in the future.

Johnson also expanded a deduction for state and local tax payments from $30,000 to $40,000, which was a priority for a handful of centrist Republicans who represent high-tax states like New York and California. Democrats blasted the bill as disproportionately benefitting the wealthy while cutting benefits for working Americans. The CBO found it would reduce income for the poorest 10 percent of US households and boost income for the top 10 percent.

“This bill is a scam, a tax scam designed to steal from you, the American people, and give to Trump’s millionaire and billionaire friends,” Democratic Representative Jim McGovern said.

Investors, unnerved by the fiscal position of the US and Trump’s erratic tariff moves, are increasingly selling the dollar and other US assets that make up the bedrock of the global financial system. The three major indices the Dow, Nasdaq and S&P 500 are trending upwards slightly after its worst day in a month following a bond market sell-off yesterday.

JPMorgan Chase Chief Executive Jamie Dimon gave a mixed response to the bill’s passage.

“I think they should do the tax bill. I do think it’ll stabilise things a little bit, but it’ll probably add to the deficit,” Dimon said at JPMorgan’s Global China Summit in Shanghai.

May 20 (UPI) — The U.S. House Rules Committee, after 22 hours of proceedings, late Wednesday advanced President Donald Trump‘s legislative agenda that experts say would add $3 trillion to the federal deficit and negatively affect the poorest of Americans.

Debate on the full House floor began early Thursday.

The House Rules Committee adopted the bill in an 8-4 vote along party lines. They first met shortly after 1 a.m. Wednesday to consider the 1,116-page budget that is roughly $7 trillion

The Finance Committee late Sunday approved the legislation 17-16 along party lines with four Republicans who rejected the bill the first time on Friday voting present: Ralph Norman of Oklagoa, Chip Roy of Texas, Andrew Clyde of Georgia and Josh Brecheen of Oklahoma.

“What the hell are you guys so scared of, that you guys are holding this hearing at 1 in the morning?” Rules Committee Ranking Member Jim McGovern, D-Mass., said. “If Republicans are so proud of what is in this bill, then why are you trying to ram it through in the dead of the night?”

The full House must also vote to adopt the rule first before taking up the underlying bill. Republicans hope to move the House bill, with no support from Democrats, to the Senate by Memorial Day on Monday.

With the GOP holding a slim majority of 220-212, House Speaker Mike Johnson can afford to lose more than three GOP votes. Party hardliners and moderates from vulnerable districts have failed to agree on key issues that include Medicaid, federal clean energy programs and tax breaks to states.

Three House seats were held by Democrats who died, including Gerry Connolly of Virginia on Wednesday.

At least five House GOP members considered vulnerable in the 2026 midterm elections — including Rep. Mike Lawler, R-N.Y. — have vowed to vote against the bill unless it ups the proposed state and local tax deduction from the current proposed $30,000.

The bill contains a massive overhaul of the tax code and deep spending cuts.

An amendment included speeding up work requirements for Medicaid to the end of 2026 rather than 2029.

It also tightens the definition of a “qualified alien” eligible for the program.

There is a new incentive for states that hadn’t expanded Medicaid under Obamacare. It allows those states to pay 110% of Medicare rates for state directed payments as a way to finance Medicaid.

The Center on Budget and Policies Priorities estimates 36 million Medicaid enrollees could be at risk of losing coverage because of potential work requirements and other factors.

In December, there were 78,532,341 on Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program, or CHIP.

Also, the bill formalizes the so-called SALT cap, which would allow people to deduct state and local income taxes up to $40,000 for certain income groups. GOP leaders initially wanted cap of $30,000 but key New York, New Jersey and California Republicans vulnerable in the 2026 election, had refused to support it.

Republicans opted to phase out Biden energy tax credits sooner than planned. New projects must break ground within 60 days or be “in service” by the end of 2028 to qualify for the credits.

Earlier, Rep. Chip Roy of Texas,, a holdout, told CNN’s Manu Raju he was “still looking to review more provisions and have more conversations.”

“Yeah, I’m going to vote for it,” Rep. Andy Biggs ,of Arizona, told CNN.

Medicaid changes and a $4 trillion debt limit increase, among other provisions.

The bill includes a $4 trillion debt limit.

Budget plan’s analysis

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office released data Tuesday that the House Republican’s budget proposal and its tax provisions would cut federal revenue by around 10% of America’s current national debt over the next decade.

The GOP bill proposal could cost American taxpayers $3.8 trillion over the next 10 years, according to a report this month by the Joint Committee on Taxation, which looked at the effect of tax policies versus spending cuts.

“This bill does not add to the deficit,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt claimed Monday during a press briefing.

On Friday, Moody’s Ratings downgraded the U.S. debt citing the GOP proposal that Moody’s says will tack on $4 trillion to the national debt over the next 10 years.

As proposed, the bill would extend Trump’s tax cuts largely to the wealthiest Americans and cut personal income tax rates. It also establishes fresh tax reductions on tips, Social Security, overtime payments and loan interest on automobiles produced in the United States.

An analysis Monday by the University of Pennsylvania’s Penn Wharton school projects that under the Republican plan, the lowest-income American citizens would end up paying more.

Leavitt said the Trump administration’s Council of Economic Advisers claim that there’s $1.6 trillion worth of savings in the GOP bill.

“That’s the largest saving for any legislation that has ever passed Capitol Hill in our nation’s history,” Leavitt continued.

On Tuesday, the president was on Capitol Hill to meet with Johnson and lawmakers in order to push his legislative agenda.

“While I respect President Trump and understand the importance of passing this legislation, I will not do so at the expense of my district,” Lawler posted on X Tuesday afternoon.

Lawler noted that his district was one of only three kept by a Republican that then-Vice President Kamala Harris had won in November’s presidential election in a heavily-taxed Congressional district.

“For over two years, I have been abundantly clear to everyone from the President to House Leadership about the importance of lifting the cap on SALT,” he said about state and local tax deduction caps.

The “One Big Beautiful Bill” is one big, ugly mess.

We’ve seen false advertising in naming laws before — the Democrats’ 2022 Inflation Reduction Act jumps to mind. Yet no legislation has been as misbranded as the Republican tax and spending cuts that President Trump, the branding aficionado himself, is pushing along a tortuous path in Congress.

Trump’s appeal to many Americans has always been his purported penchant for “telling it like it is.” But he’s doing the opposite by labeling as the “One Big Beautiful Bill” a behemoth that encompasses just about everything he can’t even try to do by unilateral executive orders — deeper tax cuts, more spending on the military and on his immigration crackdown and, yes, Medicaid cuts. His so-called beauty is a beast so frightening that ratings firm Moody’s saw the details last week, calculated the resulting debt and on Friday downgraded the United States’ sterling credit rating for the first time in more than 100 years. That likely means higher interest costs for the nation’s increased borrowing ahead.

And yet, in another example of the gaslighting at which Trump and his party are so adept, the White House and House Republican leaders dismissed the rebuke of their bill. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said it would spur economic growth — the old, discredited “tax cuts will pay for themselves” argument. Speaker Mike Johnson said the Moody’s downgrade just proved the urgent need to pass the big, beautiful bill with its “historic spending cuts.” Which only proved that Johnson didn’t read Moody’s rationale, explaining that spending cuts would be far exceeded by tax cuts, thereby reducing the government’s revenues and piling up more debt.

The Republican Party, which postures as the fiscally conservative of the two parties despite decades of evidence to the contrary, would add about $4 trillion in debt over the next 10 years if its bill becomes law, according to Moody’s. Other nonpartisan analyses — including from the Congressional Budget Office, the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget and the Penn Wharton Budget Model of the University of Pennsylvania, similarly project additional debt in the $3-trillion-plus to $5-trillion range, more if the tax cuts are made permanent as Trump and Republicans want.

No surprise: Trump, after all, set a record for the most debt in a single presidential term: $8.4 trillion during Trump 1.0, nearly twice what accrued under his successor, President Biden. Most of Trump’s first-term red ink stemmed from his 2017 tax cuts and spending, which predated the COVID-19 pandemic and the government’s costly response.

“This bill does not add to the deficit,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt insisted to reporters on Monday, showing yet again why such a facile dissembler was chosen to speak for the habitually prevaricating president.

“That’s a joke,” Republican Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky responded.

Worse, it’s a lie.

And no surprise here, either, but Trump’s tariffs — another economic monstrosity that he’s declared “beautiful” — aren’t paying for this bill despite his claims. Yet the president repeated that falsehood on Tuesday (along with others), when he visited the Capitol to strong-arm Republican dissidents, including Massie, into supporting the measure ahead of a House vote. (Inside a closed caucus with House Republicans, the president reportedly called for Massie to be unseated; the Kentuckian remains opposed.)

“The economy is doing great, the stock market is higher now than when I came to office. And we’ve taken in hundreds of billions of dollars in tariff money,” Trump told reporters at the Capitol. Every point a lie.

(This week provided yet more evidence that he’s utterly wrong to keep insisting that foreign countries pay his tariffs, not American consumers. After Walmart, the largest U.S. retailer, said late last week that it would have to raise prices, Trump posted that it should “ ‘EAT THE TARIFFS.’ ” He added: “I’ll be watching, and so will your customers!!!” This after a Walmart exec said that “the magnitude of these increases is more than any retailer can absorb.”)

While details of the budget bill shift as Republican leaders dicker with their dissidents, here’s the ugly general outline, according to Penn Wharton:

Extending and expanding Trump’s 2017 tax cuts, which otherwise expire this year, would cost nearly $4.5 trillion over 10 years, $5.8 trillion if the cuts are permanent. (Mandating that tax cuts expire after a time, as Trump did in 2017, is an old budget gimmick to understate a bill’s cost. The politicians know they’ll just extend the tax breaks, as we’re seeing now.) The bill’s proposed spending increases for the military, immigration enforcement and deportations would cost about $600 billion more.

Spending cuts over 10 years, mostly to Medicaid as well as to Obamacare, food stamps and clean-energy programs, would save about $1.6 trillion. That offsets as little as one-quarter of the cost of Trump’s tax cuts and added spending.

Also, the bill is inequitable. The tax cuts would disproportionately favor corporations and wealthy Americans. Its spending cuts, however, would mostly cost lower- and some middle-income people who benefit from federal health and nutrition programs. Changes to Medicaid, including a work requirement (92% of recipients under 65 already work full or part-time, according to the health research organization KFF), and to Obamacare would leave up to 14 million people without health insurance.

Penn Wharton found that people with household income less than $51,000, for example, would see their after-tax income reduced if the bill becomes law, and the top 0.1% of income-earners would get hundreds of thousands of dollars more over the next 10 years. Beyond that time, Penn Wharton projected, “all future households are worse off” given the long-term impact of spiraling debt and a tattered safety net.

“Don’t f— around with Medicaid,” Trump told Republicans at the Capitol, according to numerous reports. How cynical, given that he was pressuring them to vote for a bill that would do just that.

All of which recalls an acronym that’s popular these days: FAFO.

@jackiekcalmes

WASHINGTON — House Republicans are getting closer to passing President Trump’s tax breaks, spending cuts and beefed-up border security as Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) attempts to pass the package over unified Democratic opposition by Memorial Day.

House committees have labored for months on the legislation, which exceeds 1,000 pages and is titled the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” a nod to Trump himself.

GOP divisions have narrowed but continue as fiscal conservatives worry the bill doesn’t do enough to curb Medicaid spending, while Republicans from competitive swing districts have expressed concerns about the prospect of their constituents losing access to health coverage and food assistance.

Democrats say they will fight what House party leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) calls “this extreme and toxic bill.”

Here’s a look at what’s in and out of the legislative package so far.

Tax cuts for individuals and businesses

Republicans are looking to make permanent the individual income and estate tax cuts passed in Trump’s first term, in 2017, plus enact promises he made on the 2024 campaign trail to not tax tips, overtime and interest on some auto loans.

To partially offset the lost revenue, Republicans propose repealing or phasing out more quickly the clean energy tax credits passed during Joe Biden’s presidency, helping to bring down the overall cost of the tax portion to about $3.8 trillion.

The bill includes a temporary boost in the standard deduction — a $1,000 increase for individuals, bringing it to $16,000 for individual filers, and a $2,000 boost for joint filers, bringing it to $32,000. The deduction reduces the amount of income that is actually subject to income tax.

There is also a temporary $500 increase in the child tax credit, bringing it to $2,500 for 2025 through 2028. It then returns to $2,000 and will increase to account for inflation.

The estate tax exemption rises to $15 million and is adjusted for inflation going forward.

Several of the provisions Trump promised in the campaign would be temporary, lasting roughly through his term in office. The tax breaks for tips, overtime and car loan interest expire at the end of 2028. That’s also the case for a $4,000 increase in the standard deduction for seniors.

Among the various business tax provisions, small businesses, including partnerships and S corporations, will be able to subtract 23% of their qualified business income from their taxes. The deduction has been 20%.

Businesses will temporarily be allowed to fully expense domestic research and development costs in the year they occur and the cost of machinery, equipment and other qualifying assets. This encourages businesses to invest in ways that enhances their productivity.

Parents and older Americans face work requirements for food assistance

House Republicans would reduce spending on food aid, what is known as the Supplemental Nutrition and Assistance Program, by about $267 billion over 10 years.

States would shoulder 5% of benefit costs, beginning in fiscal 2028, and 75% of the administrative costs. Currently, states pay none of the benefit and half of the administration costs.

Republicans also are expanding the work requirements to receive food aid. Under current law, able-bodied adults without dependents must fulfill work requirements until they are 54, and that would change under the bill to age 64.

Also, some parents are currently exempt from work requirements until their children are 18; that would change so only those caring for a dependent child under the age of 7 are exempt.

At the same time, the legislation would invest $60 billion in new money for agriculture programs, sending aid to farmers.

New work requirements for Medicaid

A focal point of the package is nearly $700 billion in reduced spending in the Medicaid program, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

To be eligible for Medicaid, there would be new “community engagement requirements” of at least 80 hours per month of work, education or service for able-bodied adults without dependents. The new requirement would not kick in until Jan. 1, 2029, after Trump leaves office. People would also have to verify their eligibility for the program twice a year, rather than just once.

Republicans are looking to generate savings with new work requirements. But Democrats warn that millions of Americans will lose coverage.

An estimate from the Congressional Budget Office said the proposals would reduce the number of people with healthcare by at least 7.6 million from the Medicaid changes, and possibly more with other changes to the Affordable Care Act.

Applicants could not qualify for Medicaid if they have a home that is valued at more than $1 million.

No taxes on gun silencers, no money for Planned Parenthood and more

Republicans are also using the package to reward allies and disadvantage political foes.

The package would eliminate a $200 tax on gun silencers that has existed since Congress passed the National Firearms Act in 1934. The elimination of the tax is supported by theNational Rifle Assn.

The group Giffords, which works to reduce gun violence, said silencers make it more difficult to recognize the sound of gunfire and locate the source of gunshots, impairing the ability of law enforcement to respond to active shooters.

Republicans are also looking to prohibit Medicaid funds from going to Planned Parenthood, which provides abortion care and other services. Democrats say defunding the organization would make it harder for millions of patients to get cancer screenings, pap tests and birth control.

‘MAGA’ kids $1,000 savings accounts

“MAGA” is shorthand for Trump’s signature line, “Make America Great Again.” But in this case, it means “Money Accounts for Growth and Advancement.”

For parents or guardians who open new “MAGA” accounts for their children, the federal government will contribute $1,000 for babies born between Jan. 1, 2024 and Dec. 31, 2028.

Families could add $5,000 a year, with the account holders unable to take distributions before age 18. Then, they could access up to 50% of the money to pay for higher education, training and first-time home purchases. At age 30, account holders have access to the full balance of the account for any purpose.

Funding for Trump’s mass deportation operation

The legislation would provide $46.5 billion to revive construction of Trump’s wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, and more money for the deportation agenda.

There’s $4 billion to hire an additional 3,000 new Border Patrol agents as well as 5,000 new customs officers, and $2.1 billion for signing and retention bonuses. There’s also funds for 10,000 more Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers and investigators.

It includes major changes to immigration policy, imposing a $1,000 fee on migrants seeking asylum — something the nation has never done, putting it on par with a few others, including Australia and Iran.

Overall, the plan is to remove 1 million immigrants annually and house 100,000 people in detention centers.

More money for the Pentagon and Trump’s ‘Golden Dome’

There’s also nearly $150 billion in new money for the Defense Department and national security.

It would provide $25 billion for Trump’s “Golden Dome for America,” a long-envisioned missile defense shield, $21 billion to restock the nation’s ammunition arsenal, $34 billion to expand the naval fleet with more shipbuilding and some $5 billion for border security.

It also includes $9 billion for servicemember quality-of-life-related issues, including housing, healthcare and special pay.

Tax on university endowments and overhaul of student loans

A wholesale revamping of the student loan program is key to the legislation, providing $330 billion in budget cuts and savings.

The proposal would replace all existing student loan repayment plans with just two: a standard option with monthly payments spread out over 10 to 25 years and a “repayment assistance” plan that is generally less generous than those it would replace.

Among other changes, the bill would repeal Biden-era regulations that made it easier for borrowers to get loans canceled if their colleges defrauded them or closed suddenly.

There would be a tax increase, up to 21%, on some university endowments.

More drilling, mining on public lands

To generate revenue, one section would allow increased leasing of public lands for drilling, mining and logging while clearing the path for more development by speeding up government approvals.

Royalty rates paid by companies to extract oil, gas and coal would be cut, reversing Biden’s attempts to curb fossil fuels to help address climate change.

In a last-minute add, Republicans also included a provision authorizing sales of hundreds of thousands of acres of public lands in Nevada and Utah, prompting outrage from Democrats and environmentalists.

Freking and Mascaro write for the Associated Press. AP writers Collin Binkley and Mary Clare Jalonick in Washington and Matthew Brown in Billings, Mont., contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON — House Republicans are pushing to vote on their multitrillion-dollar tax breaks package as soon as Wednesday, grinding out last-minute deal-making to shore up wavering GOP support and deliver on President Trump’s top legislative priority.

Trump himself had instructed the Republican majority to quit arguing and get it done, his own political influence on the line. But GOP leaders worked late into the night to convince skeptical Republicans who have problems on several fronts, including worries that it will pile onto the nation’s $36-trillion debt.

A fresh analysis from the Congressional Budget Office said the tax provisions would increase the federal deficit by $3.8 trillion over the decade, while the changes to Medicaid, food stamps and other services would tally $1 trillion in reduced spending. The lowest-income households in the U.S. would see their resources drop, while the highest ones would see a boost, the CBO said.

Republicans hunkered down at the Capitol through the night for one last committee hearing processing changes to the package. Democrats immediately motioned to adjourn, but the vote failed on party lines.

“President Trump’s ‘one, big, beautiful bill’ is going to require one, big, beautiful vote,” said Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.). “We are going to get this done.”

It’s a make-or-break moment for the president and his party in Congress, who have invested much of their political capital during the crucial first few months of Trump’s return to the White House on this package. If the House Republicans fall in line with the president, overcoming unified Democratic objections, the package would next go to the Senate.

The package comes at a daunting time as the U.S. economy faces uncertainty. Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries said Republicans are trying to “quickly jam this unpopular legislation through the House because they know that the longer they wait, the more will come to light about this cruel and unconscionable bill.”

At its core, the sprawling 1,000-plus-page bill is centered on extending the tax breaks approved during Trump’s first term in 2017, while adding new ones he campaigned on during the 2024 presidential campaign.

To make up for some of the lost revenue, the Republicans are focused on spending cuts to federal safety net programs and a massive rollback of green energy tax breaks from the Biden-era Inflation Reduction Act.

Additionally, the package tacks on $350 billion in new spending — with about $150 billion going to the Pentagon, including for the president’s new “ Golden Dome” defense shield, and the rest for Trump’s mass deportation and border security agenda.

The package title carries Trump’s own words, the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act.”

As Trump promised voters on the tax front, the package proposes there would be no taxes on tips for certain workers, including those in some service industries; automobile loan interest; or some overtime pay.

There would also be an increase to the standard income tax deduction, to $32,000 for joint filers, and a boost to the child tax credit to $2,500. There would be an enhanced deduction, of $4,000, for seniors of certain income levels, to help defray taxes on Social Security income.

To cut spending, the package would impose new work requirements for many people who receive health care through Medicaid, with able-bodied adults without dependents needing to fulfill 80 hours a month on a job or in other community activities.

Similarly, those who receive food stamps through the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program, known as SNAP, would also face new work requirements.

Older Americans up to age 64, rather than 54, who are able-bodied and without dependents would need to work or engage in the community programs for 80 hours a month. Additionally, some parents of children older than 7 years old would need to fulfill the work requirements; under current law, the requirement comes after children are 18.

Republicans said they want to root out waste, fraud and abuse in the federal programs.

The Congressional Budget Office has estimated 8.6 million fewer people would have health insurance with the various changes to Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act. It also said 3 million fewer people each month would have SNAP benefits.

Republicans have been racing to finish up the package by Memorial Day, a deadline imposed by Johnson as he tries to overcome objections within his own ranks.

Conservatives are insisting on quicker, steeper cuts to federal programs to offset the costs of the trillions of dollars in lost tax revenue. GOP leaders have sped up the start date of the Medicaid work requirements from 2029 to 2027.

At the same time, more moderate and centrist lawmakers are wary of the changes to Medicaid that could result in lost health care for their constituents. Others are worried the phaseout of the renewable energy tax breaks will impede businesses using them to invest in green energy projects in many states.

Plus, a core group of lawmakers from New York, California and other high-tax states want a bigger state and local tax deduction, called SALT, for their voters back home.

As it stands, the bill would triple what’s currently a $10,000 cap on the state and local tax deduction, increasing it to $30,000 for joint filers with incomes up to $400,000 a year. They have proposed a deduction of $62,000 for single filers and $124,000 for joint filers.

Trump has been pushing hard for Republicans to unite behind the bill, which has been uniquely shaped in his image, and he said after meeting with House lawmakers privately Tuesday at the Capitol that anyone who doesn’t support the bill would be a “fool.”

But it’s not at all clear that Trump, who was brought in to seal the deal, changed minds.

One of the conservative Republicans, Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, said afterward he’s still a no vote.

“We’re still a long ways away,” said Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.), chair of the House Freedom Caucus.

The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a nonpartisan fiscal watchdog group, estimates that the House bill is shaping up to add roughly $3.3 trillion to the debt over the next decade.

Mascaro, Freking, Askarinam and Cappelletti write for the Associated Press.

In a rare moment of bipartisan unity, both sides of the aisle came together to pump crypto higher, and the Senate has advanced the Stablecoin Bill, as Coindesk writes. This is the first major and favorable crypto regulation passed by the sitting Senate. It establishes clear regulatory guidelines for stablecoins and allows banks to issue them and interact with crypto.

A massive shift in the Overton window compared to the Biden administration’s approach to crypto. Now is the time to find the best crypto presales to buy before liquidity gushes into crypto and everything breaks ATHs again. 

• The advance of the Senate crypto bill marks a drastic shift in the United States’s crypto attitude, and this bill acts as a signal to anyone paying attention. Crypto just got the bipartisan green light to accelerate, and the downstream effects will be enormous.
• Conditions are ideal now for crypto presales, with an increasing appetite for early-stage ventures and a rapidly improving liquidity backdrop thanks to Trump’s most recent bill, which will increase the deficit and mandate the FED to engage in some type of quantitative easing. Altseason is coming.  
• Bitcoin Pepe is building meme-native DeFi on Bitcoin and onboarding partners to drive adoption of its PEP-20 token standard before launch—this is the “Solana moment” but on BTC. Mind of Pepe offers an autonomous AI agent that evolves in real-time, and Solaxy is the scalability play for Solana’s next chapter.

Why the Senate crypto Bill is a green light for presales

Monday’s 66–32 Senate vote on the Genius Bill is a political watershed moment, and this has sent a booming signal to lawmakers, institutions, and capital allocators all over the world. Crypto is here to stay, and it is an institutionally friendly asset class. All the banks, capital allocators, and funds that have been sidelined until now can finally play, and crypto presale investors could not ask for better conditions.

Presales historically outperform when the macro is bullish and retail has not yet piled in. Institutions just got the green light; they will pile in and drive prices higher, and then retail wakes up.

The establishment of clear regulatory frameworks for stablecoins will attract institutional investors who have been hesitant due to regulatory uncertainties. Liquidity will be up only for a while as stablecoins morph into TradFi, and this is the moment to pay attention.

Bitcoin Pepe: Meme coin infrastructure built on Bitcoin

Bitcoin Pepe is building a full layer 2 stack on Bitcoin designed specifically for meme coin trading, powered by the PEP-20 token standard. Solana-style velocity is finally coming to the world’s most trusted settlement layer, and the upside potential from the current price of $0.0359 is almost frightening. With the launch on May 31st, early BPEP buyers have everything to play for.

BPEP has been forming real partnerships ahead of its launch, each one expanding adoption, functionality, and visibility for its PEP-20 ecosystem. The partnership with Super Meme brings a community-first launchpad, and the partnership with Plena Finance will mean users on the Bitcoin Pepe layer 2 will enjoy account abstraction from day one.

The rapid rate of iteration highlights clearly that Bitcoin Pepe aims to become the go-to meme coin layer for Bitcoin. With spot BTC ETF inflows totaling billions, this crypto presale could become the perfect speculative outlet for all this trapped capital. The native bridge will unlock $2 trillion in idle capital on day one, and if even 1% of capital bridges, it would trigger a meme coin rally multiples larger than anything ever seen on Solana.

The timing couldn’t be better. BTC is pushing to new ATHs, retail will return soon, and meme coin trading volume is spiking. Bitcoin Pepe positions itself as the narrative and technical bridge for the next era of Bitcoin, and with presale inflows spiking by $1 million since partnership announcements and rumors of CEX listings post-launch. This could be early investors’ opportunity to buy into the ERC-20 moment all over again.

With $10.7m raised to date, presale inflows accelerating, and a launch later this month, BPEP is without a doubt one of the best crypto presales to buy in the wake of the Senate crypto bill.

Mind of Pepe: The meme coin that thinks for itself

Mind of Pepe introduces a meme coin that thinks, posts, and evolves on its own. Built as a self-evolving AI agent, this presale token is supposed to become an autonomous growth engine. It operates on X and across other social platforms, engaging with communities, shaping conversations, and growing its influence with every interaction.

But why is that valuable? Because in the modern economy, attention is capital. As the AI gains traction, the MIND token gains value. The AI is still in its beta phase currently, but the roadmap details plans for it to launch its own projects, and ostensibly, MIND token holders should participate in any upside.

This is a weird trade even by crypto standards, but that’s what makes it powerful. Mind of Pepe is an experiment in what happens when memes become sentient—and tokenized.

Solaxy: Solana’s newest layer 2

Solana is famous as the home of meme coin trading and as one of crypto’s most scalable layer 1s. Nobody thought that Solana would ever need a layer 2. Still, with the emergence of meme coins, DePIN narratives, the Internet Capital Markets meta, and increasingly RWA projects, congestion is starting to become a problem. Solaxy is the first serious Layer 2 built natively for Solana, and its presale positions it perfectly for the next wave of economic activity and adoption.

The logic is simple: if Solana is about to get ETF flows and host tokenized equities, performance must remain consistent. Solaxy helps ensure that. Its hybrid architecture routes traffic off-chain when needed, preserving Solana’s UX even during network spikes, and means all users enjoy an uninterrupted experience.

Solaxy is a pick-and-shovel play on the entire Solana ecosystem, and its early positioning could make it one of the best crypto presales to buy before the market catches on.

Why buying presales as regulation improves is the smart play

The Senate crypto bill signals a new era of legitimacy. Bitcoin is at $100K. Ethereum is flowing off exchanges. And presales are starting to reach terminal velocity. Capital is already flowing from mature assets into emerging ones, and investors want to be ahead of this train.

Bitcoin Pepe is building the meme coin superhighway on Bitcoin—PEP-20 adoption is growing by the day. Mind of Pepe is injecting memes with autonomous intelligence. And Solaxy is scaling Solana before it’s forced to. The market is quite literally telling investors where it wants to go, and all investors need to do is position themselves. This is a classic “sell the news” setup in reverse. Legislation still hasn’t passed, and while institutions are forced to wait, early buyers can jump in now.

FAQs

What does the senate bill mean for crypto presales?

The Senate’s passage of the Genius Bill is a game-changer for crypto presales. With regulatory clarity and institutional green lights, capital is set to flood the space before retail joins in. Presale investors now have the perfect storm: bullish macro, fresh liquidity, and early access before the big money arrives.

What is the best crypto presale to buy now?

The best crypto presale to buy now is Bitcoin Pepe. It has raised over $8.1 million, with its token price more than doubling since launch, and is set for a May 31 exchange listing . Its Bitcoin Layer 2 infrastructure offers Solana-like speed and low fees, attracting significant investor interest.

When is the Bitcoin Pepe listing date?

Bitcoin Pepe is scheduled to launch on May 31, 2025, coinciding with its listing on major exchanges. The presale, which began on February 11, 2025, concludes ahead of this, offering early investors a final opportunity to acquire $BPEP tokens before public trading commences.

Will Bitcoin Pepe sell out ahead of launch?

Yes, Bitcoin Pepe is likely to sell out ahead of its May 31 launch. The presale has already raised over $10.7m, with token prices increasing at each stage and limited supply remaining. Investor demand is accelerating as buyers aim to secure tokens before the final price jump.

This article is for informational purposes only and does not provide financial advice. Cryptocurrencies are highly volatile, and the market can be unpredictable. Always perform thorough research before making any cryptocurrency-related decisions.

WASHINGTON — President Trump implored House Republicans at the Capitol to drop their fights over his big tax-cut bill and get it done, using encouraging words but also the hardened language of politics over the multitrillion-dollar package that is at risk of collapsing before planned votes this week.

During the more than hourlong session Tuesday, Trump warned Republicans to not touch Medicaid with cuts, and he told New York lawmakers to end their fight for a bigger local tax deduction, reversing his own campaign promise. The president, heading into the meeting, called himself a “cheerleader” for the Republican Party and praised Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.). But he also criticized at least one of the GOP holdouts as a “grandstander” and warned that anyone who doesn’t support the bill would be a “fool.”

“We have unbelievable unity,” Trump said as he exited. “I think we’re going to get everything we want.”

The president arrived at a pivotal moment. Negotiations are slogging along and it’s not at all clear the package, with its sweeping tax breaks and cuts to Medicaid, food stamps and green energy programs, has the support needed from the House’s slim Republican majority. Lawmakers are also being asked to add some $350 billion to Trump’s border security, deportation and defense agenda.

Inside, he spoke privately in what one lawmaker called the president’s “weaving” style, and took questions.

The president also made it clear he’s losing patience with the various holdout factions of the House Republicans, according to a senior White House official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the private meeting.

But Trump disputed that notion as well as reports that he used an expletive in warning against cutting Medicaid. Instead, he said afterward, “That was a meeting of love.” He received several standing ovations, Republicans said.

Yet it was not at all clear that Trump, who was brought in to seal the deal, changed minds.

“We’re still a long ways away,” said Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.), the chair of the House Freedom Caucus.

Conservatives are insisting on quicker, steeper cuts to federal programs to offset the costs of the trillions of dollars in lost tax revenue. At the same time, a core group of lawmakers from New York and other high-tax states wants bigger tax breaks for their voters back home. Worries about piling onto the nation’s $36-trillion debt are stark.

With House Democrats lined up against the package, calling it a giveaway to the wealthy at the expense of safety net programs, GOP leaders have almost no votes to spare. A key committee hearing is set for the middle of the night Tuesday in hopes of a House floor vote by Wednesday afternoon.

“They literally are trying to take healthcare away from millions of Americans at this very moment in the dead of night,” said House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York.

Trump has been pushing hard for Republicans to unite behind the bill, the president’s signature domestic policy initiative in Congress.

Asked about one of the conservative Republicans, Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, Trump lashed out.

“I think he is a grandstander, frankly,” the president continued. “I think he should be voted out of office.”

But Massie, a renegade who wears a clock lapel pin that tallies the nation’s debt load, said afterward he’s still a no vote.

Also unmoved was Rep. Mike Lawler, one of the New York Republicans leading the fight for a bigger state and local tax deduction, known as SALT: “As it stands right now, I do not support the bill. Period.”

The sprawling 1,116-page package carries Trump’s title, the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” as well as his campaign promises to extend the tax breaks approved during his first term while adding new ones, including no taxes on tips, automobile loan interest and Social Security.

Yet, the price tag is rising and lawmakers are wary of the votes ahead, particularly as the economy teeters with uncertainty.

The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a nonpartisan fiscal watchdog group, estimates that the House bill is shaping up to add roughly $3.3 trillion to the debt over the next decade.

Republicans criticizing the measure argued that the bill’s new spending and tax cuts are front-loaded, while the measures to offset the cost are back-loaded.

In particular, the conservative Republicans are looking to speed up the new work requirements that Republicans want to enact for able-bodied participants in Medicaid. They had been proposed to start Jan. 1, 2029, but Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) said on CNBC that work requirements for some Medicaid beneficiaries would begin in early 2027.

At least 7.6 million fewer people are expected to have health insurance under the initial Medicaid changes, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said last week.

Republican holdouts are also looking to more quickly halt green energy tax breaks, which had been approved as part of the Biden-era Inflation Reduction Act, and are now being used for renewable energy projects across the nation.

But for every change Johnson considers to appease the hard-right conservatives, he risks losing support from more traditional and centrist Republicans. Many have signed letters protesting deep cuts to Medicaid and food assistance programs and the rolling back of clean energy tax credits.

At its core, the sprawling legislative package permanently extends the existing income tax cuts and bolsters the standard deduction, increasing it to $32,000 for joint filers, and the child tax credit to $2,500.

The New Yorkers are fighting for a larger state and local tax deduction beyond the bill’s proposal. As it stands, the bill would triple what’s currently a $10,000 cap on the state and local tax deduction, increasing it to $30,000 for joint filers with incomes up to $400,000 a year. They have proposed a deduction of $62,000 for single filers and $124,000 for joint filers.

Trump, who had campaigned on fully reinstating the unlimited SALT deduction, now appears to be satisfied with the proposed compromise, arguing it only benefits “all the Democratic” states.

If the bill passes the House this week, it would move to the Senate, where Republicans are also eyeing changes.

Mascaro, Freking, Askarinam and Cappelletti write for the Associated Press. AP writers Darlene Superville and Seung Min Kim contributed to this report.

May 20 (UPI) — President Donald Trump visited Capitol Hill Tuesday to move those House Republicans who have so far chosen not to approve his legislative agenda bill to cease their opposition and move the legislation forward.

Trump was blunt in his dealings with conservative GOP representatives who want the bill to cut deeper into Medicaid.

He further pushed that message as he spoke to reporters outside the meeting and said of Medicaid that the bill would only cut “waste, fraud and abuse.”

The other GOP House faction he came to beseech are those who hail from mostly blue states and seek a higher cap on the state and local tax, or SALT, deduction. Trump alleged that it’s the governors of blue states like New York, Illinois and California, who would benefit if they were to change the bill to up the SALT cap, “and those governors are the ones who blew it because they weren’t able to get it.”

In the closed-door session, Trump reportedly told those who held out for SALT should “leave it alone” and run with the bill as is.

However, so far Trump’s efforts have not encouraged the SALT faction to flip. Rep. Mike Lawler, R-N.Y., told the press Tuesday he still plans to vote no on the bill, but that Trump does understand that it’s “imperative to get a deal done and a bill passed.”

New York GOP Reps. Nick LaLota and Andrew Garbarino have also said they remain a no.

There are also Republicans who are hardline against a SALT cap raise.

“Republicans going to bat for tax deductions that will primarily benefit limousine liberals in blue states,” said Thomas Massie, R-Ky., in an X post Tuesday, “This carve out for affluent people in states like NY and California will increase the deficit substantially and is a reversal of Trump’s first term tax policy.”

Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., remains steadfast that he wants the bill passed by the House by May 26, which is Memorial Day, but as of Tuesday those GOP House members with gripes have put the bill’s movement in neutral.

The press office for Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, posted to social media Tuesday that Roy has said “We all are here to advance the agenda that the President ran on and that we all ran on,” but added “I don’t think the bill is exactly where it needs to be, yet.”

Donald Trump made a rare trip to Capitol Hill to try and convince Republican members of Congress to approve his “big, beautiful bill” that would cut programmes for the poor and lower taxes while raising the US’ national debt.

WASHINGTON — President Trump, alongside his wife, Melania, on Monday signed the Take It Down Act, a measure the first lady helped usher through Congress to set stricter penalties for the distribution of non-consensual intimate imagery online, or “revenge porn.”

In March, Melania Trump used her first public appearance since resuming the role of first lady to travel to Capitol Hill to lobby House members to pass the bill following its approval by the Senate.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters earlier Monday that the first lady was “instrumental in getting this important legislation passed.”

The bill makes it a federal crime to “knowingly publish” or threaten to publish intimate images without a person’s consent, including AI-created “deepfakes.” Websites and social media companies will be required to remove such material within 48 hours after a victim requests it. The platforms must also take steps to delete duplicate content.

Many states have already banned the dissemination of sexually explicit deepfakes or revenge porn, but the Take It Down Act is a rare example of federal regulators imposing on internet companies.

The bill, sponsored by Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), received overwhelming bipartisan support in Congress, passing the House in April by a 409-2 vote and clearing the Senate by unanimous consent.

But the measure isn’t without critics. Free speech advocates and digital rights groups say the bill is too broad and could lead to censorship of legitimate images, including legal pornography and LGBTQ+ content. Others say it could allow the government to monitor private communications and undermine due process.

The first lady appeared at a Capitol Hill roundtable with lawmakers and young women who had explicit images of them put online, saying it was “heartbreaking” to see what teenagers and especially girls go through after this happens to them. She also included a victim among her guests for the president’s address to a joint session of Congress the day after that meeting.

After the House passed the bill, Melania Trump called the bipartisan vote a “powerful statement that we stand united in protecting the dignity, privacy and safety of our children.”

Her advocacy for the bill is a continuation of the Be Best campaign she started in the president’s first term, focusing on children’s well-being, social media use and opioid abuse.

In his speech to Congress in March, the president said the publication of such imagery online is “just terrible” and that he looked forward to signing the bill into law.

“And I’m going to use that bill for myself, too, if you don’t mind,” he said. There’s nobody who “gets treated worse than I do online. Nobody.”

Superville writes for the Associated Press.

Washington, DC – A measure known as the “nonprofit killer” has been removed from an enormous tax bill being advanced in the United States Congress, according to the bill posted online by the House of Representatives.

The provision, which no longer appeared on the President Donald Trump-backed “One Big, Beautiful Bill” on Monday, would have given the executive branch the authority to strip the tax-exempt status of nonprofits that it deems supportive of “terrorism”.

Advocates have warned that the legislative effort – which failed to pass as a stand-alone bill last year – could be abused to crack down on groups that the administration does not agree with, particularly nongovernmental organisations (NGOs) that support Palestinian rights.

Israel has given little indication that it is relenting after more than 19 months into its war on Gaza. The past week has seen an intensification of violence across the besieged Palestinian territory, which has killed hundreds of people.

The reason for the disappearance of the NGO provision remains unclear, and experts warned it may yet reappear in the bill before the final vote in the House, expected later in the week.

The office of Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson did not immediately respond to Al Jazeera’s request for comment.

With a razor-thin majority in the House, Republicans need every vote to pass the tax bill, which Trump has put at the top of his agenda in Congress.

Kia Hamadanchy, senior policy counsel with the American Civil Liberties Union, said the section may have been removed to avoid putting the must-pass bill at risk, especially because the House parliamentarian, a nonpartisan office that oversees procedures, may have rejected it for violating the rules.

“It’s possible that this is a hiccup that they didn’t want, given that it wasn’t even likely to go through,” Hamadanchy told Al Jazeera.

“I can’t tell you that is the reason for sure. What I can tell you is that we continue to be very vigilant in case it comes back, either later this week or in the future.”

For weeks, Trump has been calling on Congress to pass the bill, which extends his 2017 tax cuts, a key component of his economic plans.

But the proposal has faced some opposition from conservative budget hawks, who have argued it does not cut spending enough and would add to the nation’s $36.2 trillion debt. So Republicans can ill-afford unnecessary issues that could derail the passage of the legislation.

‘Chill free speech’

Rights groups have been rallying against the “nonprofit killer”, saying it violates free speech and the right to due process.

The proposal would have granted the secretary of state power to unilaterally declare an NGO “terrorist supporting” and make it ineligible for tax exemptions.

It also said the government would not have to reveal the reason behind the designation if “disclosure of such description would be inconsistent with national security or law enforcement interests”.

Under the current rules, organisations certified to be nonprofits by the government get breaks on their federal income taxes. The status also makes donations to such groups tax deductible for donors.

While the withdrawn measure would have allowed a targeted NGO to challenge the secretary of state’s decision in court, losing the tax exempt status, even if temporarily, could have proven costly for nonprofits, especially smaller organisations.

Hamadanchy said being accused of supporting terrorism could also have prompted banks to close down the accounts of the groups.

“And then you have legal costs fighting off the designation because even if you might win in court, it’s going to take time to get there, and it’s going to cause a lot of damage to your organisation through that process,” he said.

“And that’s sort of the point because they want to chill speech.”

Hamadanchy noted that existing laws already make material support for a designated “terrorist” group a criminal offence with severe penalties.

The legislative push coincided with the Trump administration’s crackdown on Palestinian rights supporters, especially on college campuses.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio has revoked the student visas of several Palestine advocates – who have not been charged with a criminal offence – over allegations of “support for terrorism”.

Some advocacy groups have portrayed the “nonprofit killer” as part of a broader push to muzzle voices critical of Israel.

“This bill is designed to silence dissent, especially from Muslim, Palestinian and civil rights organizations that speak out against injustice and genocide,” the Council on American Islamic Relations said in a statement last week.

“It threatens every nonprofit that engages in advocacy, educates the public, or challenges government policy.”

The apparent setback for the nonprofit provision came nearly two weeks after House leaders cancelled a vote on a bill to restrict boycotts of Israel after a backlash from right-wing legislators who voiced opposition to the measure on free speech grounds.

Lara Friedman, president of the Foundation for Middle East Peace, said it would be “interesting” to see how Republican leaders would deal with staunchly pro-Israel measures like the “nonprofit killer” going forward.

“They on the one hand likely see this as a fun opportunity to embarrass Democrats – whose opposition will be framed as anti-Israel or enabling terror and antisemitism – and on the other hand they have to worry about principled opposition from within their own ranks,” Friedman told Al Jazeera in a statement.

The crypto industry is inching closer to its first big legislative victory as the US Senate moves to regulate stablecoins.

According to a CoinDesk report, senators Bill Hagerty and Kirsten Gillibrand, a Republican and a Democrat who campaigned for stablecoin regulation, say a stablecoin bill dubbed the GENIUS Act could be approved this week.

The bill will provide regulatory clarity that ensures US-based firms can operate within the boundaries of legality, which could bolster crypto and stablecoin activity.

It’s another step toward mass crypto adoption among sophisticated entities, which has proved the driving bullish narrative throughout the current market cycle. And as stablecoin adoption rises, it boosts market liquidity, which is dry powder that can cause crypto prices to skyrocket over time.

There are numerous ways investors can capitalize on this, one of the favorites being presale tokens. These are projects yet to launch on the open market, which leaves the most room for growth. With that in mind, here are the best presales to buy now:

Solaxy

Solaxy is building the world’s first Solana layer 2 blockchain. Thanks to Solana’s low fees and high speeds, it’s the most active blockchain by users, with 80 million people interacting with it this month.

At the same time, Solana’s liquidity is soaring, with its stablecoin market cap increasing by over 2x in 2025 to $11 billion.

While the project is popular for its scalability, it still faces a strong congestion issue, with wait times and transaction failure rates increasing during periods of peak network activity. But Solaxy solves this issue.

Its layer 2 blockchain will handle some of Solana’s transaction volume and use rollup technology to increase speeds. Solana can compute 6,500 transactions per second (TPS), but Solaxy can do 10,000.

Its presale has raised $37 million so far.

Once it launches on the open market, it’ll be cheaper, faster, and more reliable than Solana. And since it’s currently available at a ground-floor price, everything appears in place for $SOLX to boom.

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Best Wallet Token

Best Wallet Token might prove the smartest diversified bet on the growth of the blockchain industry – it’s the token that powers the trending crypto wallet Best Wallet.

And Best Wallet isn’t an ordinary crypto wallet; it’s a crypto super app that streamlines, interconnects, and enhances the on-chain user experience.

Best Wallet supports over 60 different blockchains, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana. It’s packed with features ranging from a cross-chain DEX to a crypto debit card and fiat on-ramping. It even has a token launchpad that allows investors to buy the best presales.

And utility is baked into $BEST. Holders get trading fee discounts, higher staking yields, governance rights, and access to promotions on partner projects.

The presale has raised $12.4 million so far. But with such a strong use case, the real gains might have yet to begin.

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MIND of Pepe

MIND of Pepe is a Pepe-themed AI agent on the Ethereum blockchain. The project uses Pepe’s viral allure to draw attention, but integrates AI utility to establish real staying power.

It’s a self-evolving AI agent that can autonomously identify trading opportunities, create new crypto projects, write tweets, and interact with dApps.

Hold $MIND, and you’ll get exclusive access to the agent’s trend analysis and early information on tokens it launches.

The token also has a staking mechanism that is live in the presale and provides a 238% APY.

Its presale has raised $9.5 million so far, but it’s set to end in 12 days.

With Pepe-themed branding and innovative AI-powered utility, MIND of Pepe offers the best of both worlds. This setup could certainly lead to strong gains this year.

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BTC Bull Token

BTC Bull Token is a Bitcoin-themed meme coin that pays real Bitcoin rewards. It tracks the $BTC price and runs airdrops at key milestones.

The first Bitcoin airdrop will occur at $150K, the second at $200K, and then a $BTCBULL airdrop will occur at $250K.

Investors can also earn via the project’s staking mechanism, which is live in the presale and offers a 69% APY.

The project also has a burning mechanism that will periodically destroy a portion of the $BTCBULL supply at key milestones. The first will occur at $125K, and then with $50K prices that follow.

BTC Bull Token’s presale has raised $5.9 million so far.

With a deflationary mechanism, community rewards, and a meme coin allure, BTC Bull Token appears to have all the tools for continued growth this year.

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Subdd Token

Subdd Token is a new cryptocurrency aiming to reshape the $85 billion subscription-based creator economy with a new AI-powered platform.

It’s goal is to change how premium content creators engage with fans. Currently, subscription platforms require painstaking account management, which takes creators’ time away from the things that matter most: content production and subscriber engagement.

Subbd offers AI tooling to streamline the account management process, leaving creators to focus on the more important things. For fans, this means they’ll enjoy deeper and more meaningful connections with the creators they subscribe to.

The $SUBDD token is crucial in the ecosystem, providing beta product access, exclusive staking rewards, platform discounts, and more.

The presale is in its early stages and has raised $450K so far.

Subbd Token is at the intersection of three viral sectors: crypto, AI, and the subscription-based creator economy. As word about this spread, the project could start generating serious interest.

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This article is for informational purposes only and does not provide financial advice. Cryptocurrencies are highly volatile, and the market can be unpredictable. Always perform thorough research before making any cryptocurrency-related decisions.