After the Senate’s narrow 51-50 passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act on Tuesday, with Vice President JD Vance’s tiebreaking vote, Republican senators celebrated finally getting the massive 10-year fiscal framework across the finish line there.

The bill passed the Senate despite the “no” votes from Republican Sens. Rand Paul of Kentucky, Susan Collins of Maine, and Thom Tillis of North Carolina.

Senate leadership spent plenty of time talking to Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, who was one of the three Republicans who helped kill another GOP 10-year budget bill back in 2018, but she ultimately fell in line this time.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., explained to reporters that “it’s a collaborative process,” when asked how he was able to get Murkowski on board with the bill. 

The budget bill included provisions that provided a tax exemption for fishermen in Western Alaska, allowed some whaling captains to deduct more of their expenses, and put more federal dollars behind Alaskan health care providers.

But those concessions are small potatoes in the grand scheme of things, as the bill provides funding for border security and defense while extending and expanding President Donald Trump’s 2017 first-term tax cuts.

“With this legislation, we are fulfilling the mandate we were entrusted with last November and setting our country—and the American people—up to be safer, stronger, and more prosperous,” Thune said on the Senate floor shortly after the vote. 

Another of the last-minute issues that Republicans resolved to get to final passage was that of deregulation........

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