The battle against President Trump's much-talked-about tax package has passed through the Senate. It involves both major tax cuts and extensive cuts to government spending.

The US president has long wanted to introduce what he has called The Big Beautiful Bill. On Tuesday evening Norwegian time, the Senate voted through the tax package.

The package will now be sent to the House of Representatives for approval, before Trump gets it to his desk in the Oval Office for signature. The president is confident that the budget will pass there as well, according to Reuters.

Trump's goal was to get the budget approved before the national holiday on July 4. He can do that if the House of Representatives votes for the budget on Wednesday, July 2.

The tax package is $3.3 trillion. It includes tax cuts, especially for the richest, and sweeping cuts to government spending, which will hit the US public health program and food stamp programs hard.

The cuts to the Medicaid health insurance program, which the Senate approved on Tuesday, will be greater than originally proposed.

Small margins

Shortly after voting began in the Republican-controlled Senate on Tuesday, Reuters reported that the budget proposal had been approved.

Bloomberg writes that the vote ended 51-50 after Vice President J.D. Vance cast the deciding vote.

In an attempt to keep the party united, Trump has threatened party members that they are unlikely to be re-elected in next year's midterm elections if they vote no. Nevertheless, according to NTB, three Republican senators voted against the proposal.

The proposal has not only met with strong opposition from Democrats, but also from some of Trump's fellow Democrats in Congress, who want even greater government cuts to keep the US national debt from growing.

Thom Tillis of North Carolina, Susan Collins of Maine and Rand Paul of Kentucky were the Republican senators who ultimately voted against the proposal.

– The big, and not so beautiful, law has been passed, Paul said after the decision.

Not quite on target

Democrats, who do not have a majority in either the House of Representatives or the Senate, have called the proposal a disaster for ordinary people.

In May, an earlier draft passed the House of Representatives with the narrowest possible majority. However, the proposal that has now been passed in the Senate has been changed in several respects. Among other things, the cuts to the public health program Medicaid have become even greater, according to a draft presented over the weekend.