Senate Republicans Pass Sweeping Tax Bill

WASHINGTON — The Senate passed the most sweeping tax rewrite in decades early Saturday, with Republicans lining up to approve an overhaul that will touch almost every corner of the United States economy, affecting families, small business owners and multinational corporations, with the biggest benefits flowing to the highest-earning Americans.

Senators voted 51-49, as Republicans approved the nearly 500-page bill in the early morning hours after lawmakers received a rewritten version, which contained significant changes from the original bill that passed two Senate panels last month along party lines.

Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader and Kentucky Republican, called it “a great day for the country.”

The president praised Republican lawmakers on Saturday morning on Twitter, saying, “Biggest Tax Bill and Tax Cuts in history just passed in the Senate. Now these great Republicans will be going for final passage. Thank you to House and Senate Republicans for your hard work and commitment!”

House Speaker Paul D. Ryan, Republican of Wisconsin, said in a statement that with Senate approval “we will move quickly to a conference committee so we can get a final bill to President Trump’s desk.”

The last-minute revisions prompted an outcry from Democrats, who said it was impossible — and irresponsible — for lawmakers to read and digest a significant piece of legislation in such a short period of time.

Speaking on the Senate floor ahead of the vote, Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the minority leader, called the Republican approach “a process and a product that no one can be proud of and everyone should be ashamed of.”

He went on to warn that changes made to the bill “under the cover of darkness” would “stuff even more money into the pockets of the wealthy and the biggest corporations while raising taxes on millions in the middle class.”

Many of the changes stemmed from a series of last-minute agreements reached to convince a handful of holdout Republican senators, including Susan Collins of Maine and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, to throw their support behind the legislation. One of those Republican holdouts, Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee, voted against the legislation.

Early on Saturday morning, Vice President Mike Pence provided a tiebreaking vote to pass an amendment offered by Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, that would allow people to use up to $10,000 a year from tax-advantaged 529 savings accounts to fund tuition at private and religious K-12 schools or certain educational expenses for home-schooled students. Right now, such accounts can only be used to pay for higher education.