Schumer says Dems will vote to kill Trump's 'handout to billionaires' budget

Brian Niemietz, New York Daily News on May 26, 2025

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Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said Democrats will vote unanimously to stop President Donald Trump’s “One, Big, Beautiful, Bill,” which narrowly made it through the House of Representatives last Thursday.

“This is not beautiful. This bill is downright ugly— a job killer, a price raiser, a care slasher, and massive pile on to the national debt,” Schumer, D-N.Y., said in a statement sent to the Daily News on Monday.

Democrats were unable to block the bill in the lower chamber last week when an overnight session ended in a 215-to-214 vote in support of the president’s 1,000-page-plus legislative package to advance his economic agenda.

The GOP is pushing to extend $4.5 trillion in tax breaks they worked on with Trump in his first term as well as adding new cuts. Among Trump’s 2024 campaign promises was a vow to make service industry gratuities and overtime pay nontaxable.

Schumer dismissed the bill as a “handout to billionaires,” which he claimed will lead to as many as 14 million Americans losing Medicaid coverage, as well as hospital closures and underfunded and overwhelmed food pantries and soup kitchens.

“There’s not just a little laundry list of reasons why this bill is so bad — there’s pages and pages of bill text people can read for themselves that so clearly hurt everyday Americans, disproportionally boost billionaires who don’t need help, and pile onto the national debt at a time when the president is already choking the nation’s economy,” Schumer concluded. “That’s why Senate Democrats oppose this just-passed bill and will work to shine light on it so our Republicans act.”

Democrats are outnumbered in the Senate, where Republicans control 53 seats to their counterparts’ 45. Two members are Independents who caucus with the Democrats: Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Angus King of Maine.

But Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., told CNN on Sunday that he believes there’s enough opposition to the bill to “stop the process until the president gets serious about the spending reduction and reducing the deficit.”

Johnson said those issues will be discussed when the Senate delves into deliberations the president hopes will result in a bill being signed on July 4 at the latest.

Schumer on Monday accused House Republicans of sneakily passing their “downright ugly” bill “In the dead of night last week” to appease party extremists.

“It will bring deeper, harder, and even faster devastation for the American people,” the 74-year-old senator from Brooklyn warned.