Senate passes Tax Cuts and Jobs Act 51-49

HOUSTON, Texas (FOX 26) - For the first time since the mid 1980's a new tax reform has been passed by the senate.

It happened in the early hours of Saturday morning at just about 2:00 am. It's called the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act and passed by 51 to 49.

"Not only is it a historic tax reform but it's the beginning of repealing Obama care as well, you know included in this tax bill was the repeal of the Obama care mandate which fined people for not having health care", says chair of the Harris County Republican Party Paul Simpson.

Some says senators were barely given enough time to read it.

"That's not the way to do business I mean you do business for the public, in public, with public input, this bill doesn't have any of that, in fact it was 500 pages, some of the pages were x'd out, some had little chicken scratch on the side, so I think all of the senators especially some of the senators on the democratic side weren't even given a heads up or time to read the bill", says district 6 Texas Senator Sylvia Garcia.

Many are still wondering, what is it. Simpson says it will help Americans. "Trillions of dollars are being left over seas, want to bring those jobs back home for Americans, it also expends personal deductions so it makes tax a lot simpler, expands child tax credits for families and one of the things Senator Ted Cruz was instrumental in passing is an expanded benefit for education savings from kindergarten through twelfth graders", he says.

Senator Garcia says it's not a good idea. "If you make less than $50,000 and you're concerned because you think it's going to be a tax cut well sorry it's not, you better call your member of congress, you better call your senators and let them know that you want real cuts for you and you want them now, not later", says Senator Garcia.

We took to the streets of Houston to see what folks here knew about it.

Blake Messick says, "it takes away social security if you don't have a social security number, which means if you are undocumented you can't get a tax break anymore and I think that's a good thing because if you're undocumented versus people that are documented and you're taking away the tax breaks from people everyone should have the same amount if you're a citizen"

"I think it's good because the money that they earn they will be able to keep it and spend more on things they need", says Mary Bajor.

"The Senate passed their bill and nobody really knows what's in it because they changed so much on it before they voted on it and then of course it's different from the house bill so who knows what the final product is going to look like", says Chris Scott.

Now the House and the Senate will have to come together to work on what exactly will be sent to President Trump to sign before the end of the year.