House Republicans passed a multi-trillion-dollar tax and spending package after months of debate, which included many of President Donald Trump‘s priorities. 

Now, policy experts are bracing for Senate changes as GOP lawmakers aim to finalize the “big bill” by the Fourth of July.

If enacted as currently drafted, the House’s “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” would make permanent Trump’s 2017 tax cuts, while adding new tax breaks for tip income, overtime pay and older Americans, among other provisions.

More from Personal Finance:
What the House GOP budget bill means for your money
House bill calls for bigger ‘pass-through’ business tax break
What Medicaid and SNAP cuts in House bill mean for benefits

The House bill also approved historic spending cuts to programs for low-income families, including Medicaid health coverage and SNAP, formerly known as food stamps.

“Overall, the [Senate] bill is not going to be that much different,” said Howard Gleckman, senior fellow at the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center.

But there will be “a lot of debate” about the Medicaid provision, as well as other changes, he said.

Here are some other issues to watch during negotiations, policy experts say.

“We have enough to stop the process until the president gets serious about spending reduction and reducing the deficit,” Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., said last week on CNN’s ‘State of the Union.’

An earlier version of the House package could raise the deficit by an estimated $3.8 trillion over the next decade, according to the Congressional Budget Office. However, the agency hasn’t released an updated score to reflect the bill’s last-minute changes.

Other cost estimates for the House-passed reconciliation bill have ranged between $2 to $3 trillion over 10 years.

Under reconciliation, the Senate bill also must follow the “Byrd Rule,” which bans anything unrelated to federal revenue or spending.

After the Senate vote, House lawmakers must approve changes to the bill, which could be tricky with a slim Republican majority.

“That’s where the fight is really going to happen,” Gleckman said.

One sticking point during the House debate was the current $10,000 limit on the federal deduction for state and local taxes, known as “SALT,” which is scheduled to sunset after 2025.

Enacted by Trump via the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, or TCJA, of 2017, the $10,000 cap has been a key issue for certain lawmakers in high-tax states like New York, New Jersey and California.

Before TCJA, filers who itemized tax breaks could claim an unlimited deduction on state and local income taxes, along with property taxes. But the so-called alternative minimum tax reduced the benefit for some higher earners.

After lengthy debate, House Republicans approved a $40,000 SALT limit. If enacted, the higher cap would apply to 2025 and phase out for incomes over $500,000.

But the SALT limit is likely to be lower than $40,000 after Senate negotiations, experts say.

Staying closer to the current $10,000 cap “seems like a very natural place to start,” but the final number could be higher, said Alex Muresianu, senior policy analyst at the Tax Foundation.

The Senate could also expand the child tax credit further, policy experts say.

If enacted in its current form, the House bill would make permanent the maximum $2,000 credit passed via the TCJA, which will otherwise revert to $1,000 after 2025.

The House measure would also make the highest child tax credit $2,500 from 2025 through 2028. After that, the credit’s top value would revert to $2,000 and be indexed for inflation.

But some senators, including Josh Hawley, R-Mo., have called for a bigger tax break. Vice President JD Vance also floated a higher child tax credit during the campaign in August.

With the House-approved tax breaks favoring higher earners, “there’s some recognition that they need to do a little more” for families, Gleckman said.

“That’s going to be a fun one to watch,” he said of the upcoming Senate debate.

Earlier this spring, consumers were feeling good about their summer vacation prospects. More people were planning to take a trip compared to last year, and summer travel budgets were up, too, according to a new report from Deloitte.

But just a few weeks later — after President Donald Trump announced widescale tariffs and the stock market dropped precipitously, bubbling up recession fears — some would-be vacationers abruptly scaled back their spending plans, a second round of the survey found.

About 53% of respondents plan to take leisure vacations this summer, up from 48% in 2024, according to a new report by Deloitte. 

The report is based on two surveys: one was conducted between March 26 and April 1, 2025, and another between April 7 and April 9. The first survey reached 1,794 travelers and 2,132 non-travelers while the second reached 1,064 travelers and 880 non-travelers.

Initially, Deloitte found, the average summer travel budget was set to grow 21% year over year, to $4,967. In the second round of the survey, travelers expected to spend just 13% more than last year, or about $4,606.

When looking at budgets for their longest trip of the season, respondents initially planned to spend an average $3,987, 13% more than 2024. That anticipated budget declined to $3,471 in the second poll, an increase of less than 1% from a year ago. 

More from Personal Finance:
Trade tensions drive consumers to cut back
Student loan borrowers brace for wage garnishment
House Republican tax bill favors the rich — how much they stand to gain, and why

Deloitte conducted a second poll because the firm noticed “softness” in consumer spending across other areas of their research, said Kate Ferrara, the transportation, hospitality and services sector leader at Deloitte.

“We still see a strong summer travel season, but perhaps with a more frugal approach,” said Ferrara.

Broadly, travel costs have declined, which may help travelers looking to stretch their budget. Hotel room rates are down 2.4% from a year ago, according to a recent report by NerdWallet. Rental car costs are also down 2.1% in that same timeframe, while airfares are down 7.9%.

Round-trip domestic airfare for this summer is averaging $265 per ticket, according to the 2025 summer outlook by Hopper, a travel site. That’s down 3% from $274 in 2024 and down 8% since 2019, the lowest level in three years.

Travel costs for international travel are generally down, said Hayley Berg, the lead economist at Hopper. The average round-trip airfare between the U.S. and Europe, the most popular international destination, costs $850 per ticket this summer, down 8% from 2024, Hopper found.

In spite of slightly lower prices for travel, people are generally spending more due to inflation, and might have less leftover money to spend on non-essential items like travel, said Deloitte’s Ferrara.

Denmark has moved to increase its retirement age to 70 — making it the highest retirement age in Europe.

Yet it may be difficult for the U.S. to follow its lead.

The new change in Denmark will apply to public pension retirements starting in 2040. Since 2006, the country has been adjusting its retirement age to reflect changes in life expectancy.

The U.S. does not technically have an official retirement age. At age 65, individuals become eligible for Medicare coverage. At age 66 to 67, depending on date of birth, an individual becomes eligible for full Social Security benefits based on their earnings record.

More from Personal Finance:
House Republican tax bill favors the rich
Some lawmakers want to defer capital gains taxes for mutual funds
What the House GOP budget bill means for your money

However, those individuals who wait until age 70 to claim Social Security retirement benefits stand to get the biggest payout — an increase of 8% for each year beyond full retirement age. (The full retirement age is when beneficiaries are eligible for 100% of the benefits they’ve earned based on their work records.)

Yet few people wait until age 70 to claim benefits. While more than 90% of individuals would benefit from delaying Social Security until that age, only about 10% actually do, according to a 2023 paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research.

While age 70 is not the official U.S. retirement age, it is the threshold based on economists’ definition — the age at which you can’t accrue any more benefits, according to Teresa Ghilarducci, a labor economist and professor at The New School for Social Research.

“In the United States, it’s been 70 for decades, and we had the highest retirement age than any other country for years,” Ghilarducci said.

In 1983, Congress passed legislation to gradually raise the full retirement age for Social Security from 65 to 67. That change is still getting phased in today, with people born in 1960 and later subject to the higher 67 retirement age.

In December, an amendment to raise the full retirement age to 70 was introduced by Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., during last-minute efforts to advance legislation that increased Social Security benefits for certain public pensioners.

The bill, the Social Security Fairness Act, was voted into law. However, the proposal to raise the retirement age was struck down.

Paul called for raising the retirement age by three months per year until it reached age 70, to reflect current life expectancies. The change would have created nearly $400 billion in savings for the program, while the Social Security Fairness Act added $200 billion in costs to the program over 10 years.

Other Republican proposals have likewise called for raising the retirement age.

The Social Security Administration faces looming depletion dates for the trust funds it relies on to help pay benefits. To help resolve that issue, lawmakers may consider raising taxes, cutting benefits or a combination of both. Raising the retirement age is effectively a benefit cut.

Like the changes enacted in 1983, raising the retirement age could be on the menu.

In 2023, research published by the Danish Center for Social Science Research found increasing good health and educational resources for 60- to 70-year-olds, along with higher demand for older workers, could point to retirement age increases in the future.

In 2025, Denmark residents can retire with public pensions when they are 67. That will gradually increase to age 70 as of 2040.

“That means simply that younger people today will have to work longer before they can go on retirement,” said Jesper Rangvid, professor of finance at the Copenhagen Business School and co-director of its Pension Research Centre.

That retirement age affects everybody entitled to basic public pension income, according to Rangvid. However, those with private pension savings may retire earlier.

“There’s nothing that prevents you from retiring earlier if you have the funds and the means to do so,” Rangvid said.

Denmark does offer options for early retirement, including an early pension. However, raising the retirement age conveys a message, Rangvid said.

“It sends a signal that this is what the positions would like, that you should work longer,” Rangvid said.

In contrast, the U.S. faces high national debt that requires the country to spend more on interest payments than on the military.

Budget legislation that is currently under consideration in Congress could add an estimated $3.3 trillion to the debt including interest, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.

That package would not touch Social Security or its retirement age. However, other proposals have suggested that change, a benefit cut that would be a “pretty powerful lever” toward helping to resolve the program’s funding issues, according to Munnell.

One proposal scored by the Social Security Administration’s actuaries found raising the full retirement age to 70 would eliminate 26% of the program’s 75-year shortfall.