(The Center Square) – Illinois elected officials are taking expected positions after the passage Thursday of the “big, beautiful bill” in Washington D.C.
U.S. House Republicans finally united around the Senate-revised “big, beautiful bill” and passed it in a 218-214 vote Thursday afternoon, sending the multitrillion-dollar budget reconciliation package to the president’s desk. President Donald Trump is expected to sign the measure on Independence Day.
Vice President J.D. Vance, who cast the deciding vote in the Senate earlier this week, said he doubted they’d be able to get the bill across the finish line by July 4.
“But now we’ve delivered big tax cuts and the resources necessary to secure the border,” Vance posted on X. “Promises made, promises kept!”
Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker claims that hundreds of thousands of people in Illinois will lose health care and food assistance.
“I don’t understand the thinking of the people in Congress who voted for this but we’re going to do everything we can to protect people in the state of Illinois and I just want you to know that we’re hard at work trying to figure out how to deal with the problems that Washington has now foisted up on our state,” Pritzker said in a video message on social media.
The $3.3 trillion megabill, formerly titled the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, hikes the debt ceiling by $5 trillion and implements the bulk of Trump’s tax, energy, border and defense agenda.
Illinois U.S. Rep. Mike Bost, R-Murphysboro, voted for the measure.
“Republcians were given a majority to put America First and that’s exactly what this bill does,” Bost posted on X.
Bost highlighted that the measure fully funds the wall at the southern border, permanently extends the 2017 tax cuts, removes thousands of illegal aliens from Medicaid, ends taxes on tips and overtime, defunds Planned Parenthood, streamlines federal bureaucracy and invests in American jobs and infrastructure.
Illinois U.S. Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, D-Shaumburg, called the measure the “Large Lousy Law,” and said it “rips health care from millions, spikes costs for working families, and hands out massive tax breaks to the ultra-wealthy.”
“It’a a moral failure – punishing those trying to make it while rewarding those who already have it made,” Krishnamoorthi said. “I will never stop fighting to protect the people of Illinois from this kind of betrayal.”
Illinois U.S. Rep. Darin LaHood, R-Peoria, said the measure will give “rocket-fuel to the United States economy, provide predictability and certainty for small businesses, and deliver historic tax relief for the American people.”
“This legislation invests in the future of Illinois agriculture and protects high-paying manufacturing jobs in Illinois’ 16th Congressional District while boosting local economies across central and northwest Illinois.”
Thérèse Boudreaux contributed to this story.
