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ACCORDING TO LIZ - As Trump celebrates the passage of his “big, beautiful bill” we-the-people urgently need to address what’s in it – and not in it – for the rest of us.
Five Republican Representatives on the Budget Committee – Josh Brecheen, Andrew Clyde, Ralph Norman, Chip Roy, and Lloyd Smucker – defied both the president and House Speaker Mike Johnson on Friday voted the bill down and progression of the bill to the House floor ground to a halt.
Following some behind-the-scenes arm-twisting and a Sunday late-night meeting, the behemoth budget was allowed to advance. But without the support of four of the holdouts who simply voted ‘present’.
Unless the unknown number of Republican not-so-faithfuls, caught between the party line and pressure from constituent ire – individuals and local businesses – grow some guts and follow the lead of the five hardliners from Friday or enough emulate the four from yesterday and not vote at all, the bill could still clear the House before the Memorial Day weekend recess.
To encourage defections, the Democrats would be wise to underline the harm Trump’s budget would cause those constituents. That even the vengeful president’s threat to back a more malleable opponent in the primaries would backfire on the White House if their voters feel sufficiently aggrieved.
As reported, this “beautiful” budget boosts military funding to include the president’s $25 billion “golden dome” missile shield – clearly the Pentagon’s next multibillion-dollar scandal – and is further bloated by three other Trump priorities: deregulation, especially with regards to energy, bankrolling a plethora of anti-immigration measures, and his promised tax cuts.
- the continuing forever-war squandering of tax-dollars – from funding Netanyahu’s genocide to the $7 billion bombing of Yemen, a country that most Americans couldn’t find on the map
- building a wall at the U.S.-Mexico border with its attendant land use challenges and ecological devastation
- making Musk’s DOGE slash-and-burn gutting of government permanent even as evidence emerges that while this may have advanced ideological agendas, actual savings have been meager and costs as challenges wade up and down the courts may be staggering
- extending Trump’s signature 2017 tax cuts which disproportionately benefit the wealthy, with half the cost going to people making over $400,000 a year
To fund the attendant costs, Republicans are scrambling for other programs to decimate, the most divisive of which are ones that help low-income families, most specifically, their children.
Medicaid covers 42% of American children; SNAP aka food stamps provides food assistance for nearly 20% of them and is pivotal in combating food insecurity. Any cuts will strain people’s budgets affecting their ability to afford other basic necessities: housing, healthcare and utilities.
These deepest-ever cuts to Medicaid, booting out eight million Americans and an undeterminable number more with the intimidation of more complex paperwork and more fees, effectively is cutting support for the poor to fund tax cuts for the rich.
Shifting the burden for food stamps to the states will force them to cut other benefits for the already underserved, especially children and seniors. Many of whom live in red states.
Reversing clean energy, climate change and industrial safety improvements and removing protections against air, water and food contaminants that protect lives, health and futures.
Also at risk are large swathes of already-approved funds for the previous administration’s life-saving Inflation Reduction Act. It continues to create jobs and spur private investment across the country. Business and consumer investment in its first two years totaled almost half a trillion dollars, a 71% increase from the two-year period preceding its passage.
Two-thirds of the jobs created by the Inflation Reduction Act are in construction, manufacturing, and the expansion of clean energy – directly supporting blue-collar workers and the communities in which they live. Many in red states.
Costs for ordinary Americans are already too high, and Trump tariffs, uncertainties, and deregulations are driving them higher.
Reducing regulations inevitably hurts everyone except those deregulated.
Repealing clean energy tax credits and letting incentives promoting beneficial innovation expire, both of which are job-creators and climate change curtailers, would raise electricity prices for all Americans. An average household’s utility bills would rise $100 or more annually. Businesses would pass along their increased energy costs of 10% plus, plus to the consumer.
The existential damages already done under DOGE – everything from eviscerating the State Department and humanitarian aid, disembowelling medical research, to filleting the tax system – have imperiled America’s standing internationally and come with huge price tags to undo.
In proposing the country’s first trillion-dollar war budget, the president is delivering on a promise made while meeting with Netanyahu, violating his campaign promise to “expel the warmongers” and “stop the war profiteering.”
This budget may be big, but it is certainly not beautiful, and too many of the “savings” will not kick in until Trump’s next term… Bite my tongue!
Moderate and populist Republicans dependent on working-class Americans, many of whom would walk away if the party slashes benefits, argue that the bill already cuts too much. Like Josh Hawley, many see the value of Medicaid and worry that the cutbacks imperil their electability next year. But they risk the wrath of a Trump who could oust them in the primaries to put a Toad trusty in place.
Congress must pass two pieces of legislation: a regular budget, and a separate “reconciliation” budget to force it through the Senate without possibility of a filibuster. Senate Republicans will propose differing legislation, and the two chambers will need to merge the bills.
But few have the interests of average Americans in mind.
Still, there are lots of obstacles to passage, the biggest being opposition from ordinary voters.
With people worried about the cost of living, Republican proposals will only drive costs higher.
Then there are the ancillary costs.
Standard & Poor’s, Fitch, and now Moody’s have all downgraded the United States’ once robust ratings, so real and perceived risk factors will potentially raise the costs of borrowing at a time when Trump is demanding more made-in-the-USA manufacturing, and affecting everyone especially lower wage earners who must spend the majority if not all their income on essentials.
The latter don’t have the option of deciding between luxuries or savings when there’s nothing left in their bank accounts.
The main challenge may be to ensure no idiosyncratic big donor-dependent Democrats switch over to the dark side.
(Liz Amsden is a former Angeleno who now resides in Vermont and is a regular contributor to CityWatch on issues that she is passionate about. She can be reached at [email protected].)
