U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine called it the “Hurt People, Kill Jobs and Spike the Debt to Reward the Rich Act,” but it’s closer to becoming law despite the votes of the lawmaker and his colleagues who represent the Fredericksburg area in Congress.
Kaine and fellow Democrat U.S. Sen. Mark Warner, both former Virginia governors, voted against President Donald Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill” on Tuesday, but the measure passed the Senate 51-50 when Vice President J.D. Vance cast the tiebreaking vote. Sens. Susan Collins of Maine, Rand Paul of Kentucky and Thom Tillis of North Carolina were the only Republicans to vote against the legislation, which was opposed by all the Senate Democrats.
Rep. Eugene Vindman, a Democrat whose 7th District includes the Fredericksburg region, previously voted against the president’s signature bill when it was approved in the U.S. House.
Having passed the Senate, the budget bill must now be approved again in the House before going to Trump. He has said he wants the legislation on his desk by Friday.
“The One Big Beautiful Bill just PASSED the U.S. Senate, moving the landmark legislation one step closer to President Donald J. Trump’s desk — and once again, it was done without the support of a single Democrat,” a White House statement said.
The statement said the bill will lower taxes, strengthen border security, protect Medicaid, modernize air-traffic control, revolutionize the nation’s defense, protect family farmers, unleash American energy dominance and reverse runaway spending.
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, however, says the legislation would “increase deficits by $2.8 trillion over the 2025-2034 period.”
And in a joint statement Tuesday, Kaine and Warner said the bill would “strip health insurance from about 323,000 Virginians, saddle families with medical debt, cut SNAP benefits for more than 204,000 Virginians, and devastate rural communities.”
The senators also said the bill would jeopardize more than 20,000 Virginia jobs, raise energy costs, give the richest 0.1 percent a $255,125 tax cut and eliminate a program allowing Americans to file federal taxes for free.
“Today, Republicans jammed through a partisan megabill that slashes Medicaid, nutrition assistance and other critical programs that Americans rely on in order to pay for massive tax breaks to the very rich,” Kaine and Warner said in the statement. “It’s clear that the Trump administration and congressional Republicans are only interested in helping the wealthiest — even if it means ripping off working- and middle-class people, killing jobs and hurting our economy.”
Kaine and Warner introduced a series of amendments in an attempt to what they said would improve the bill, but Republicans blocked them.
Kaine announced several amendments Monday, including one to rename the bill the “Hurt People, Kill Jobs and Spike the Debt to Reward the Rich Act.”
Other changes, the senator said, would have protected Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, commonly known as food stamps, from cuts by reversing tax cuts that benefit the wealthy and large corporations; protected Virginians’ health care coverage by eliminating the estate tax cut for multi-millionaires; and prohibited the firings of veterans who are federal employees without submitting a report to Congress.
Another amendment would have required agencies to cease illegal mass firings and illegal withholdings of appropriated funding, Kaine said.
And a very specific amendment would have prevented the transfer of the Space Shuttle Discovery from the National Air and Space Museum in Chantilly — where it is available for viewing by the public free of charge — to Houston.
“The transfer would cost hundreds of millions in taxpayer dollars and force Americans to pay an admission fee to view the shuttle,” Kaine said.
An amendment by Warner concerned the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority, which oversees Reagan National and Dulles International airports. It also would have directed the establishment of a permanent memorial honoring the victims of the Jan, 29 mid-air collision of American Airlines Flight 5342 and an Army helicopter over Reagan National.
As for Vindman, he released a statement on social media that made clear where he stands.
“I wouldn’t be able to sleep at night if I voted to rip health care away from 17 million Americans,” he wrote. “Apparently, some of my colleagues can. I voted NO on Trump’s budget the first time it came to the House — and I’ll do it again.”
