I’m betting you folks have an idea of what I’m about to talk about. Y’all, this irks and concerns me. I know I shouldn’t be surprised by Republicans, but I still am. I want to talk to my inside self and say, “Really? Why do you let this consistently happen to yourself?” And what’s outside, what I use to think, to write, has no answer. From MSNBC columnist Michael A. Cohen:
Early Wednesday, when most Americans were snuggled in their beds, Republicans in the House of Representatives were working hard to take away the health care of millions of Americans, blow a $3 trillion hole in the budget deficit and make the wealthiest people in America richer and the poorest Americans poorer.
If this sounds like hyperbole, it’s not. The GOP-controlled House Rules Committee convened at 1 a.m. Wednesday morning to discuss a bill that hasn’t been fully drafted and the provisions of which were still part of intense negotiations. Indeed, the real work on the legislation was happening behind closed doors as House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., tried to cobble together enough votes to pass something, anything, so he could meet his self-imposed deadline for a floor vote by Memorial Day. Late Wednesday, GOP leaders released yet more significant changes to the bill, and on Thursday morning the full House passed the bill by a single vote.
WHAM. Part 1 has hit. If you remember my piece on one sentence of that bill, if you remember what Denis wrote earlier today, you know some details. The above gives you the overview, so to speak. It’s intimidating. It’s annoying. It’s angering. And of *course* tRump’s promise NOT to cut Medicaid was overturned to make room for tax breaks for the wealthy. As late as this week, he was making a ‘Bigly’ Deal about NOT cutting it. And the Republicans did anyhow. Good grief! (And we know Agent Orange breaks his promises as easily as if they were a single strand of spaghetti. THAT is *not* surprising.) Let’s have some more quotes, shall we?
What we do know about the legislation the GOP is calling the “One Big Beautiful (Ugly) Bill Act” is genuinely terrifying.
According to an analysis published Tuesday by the Congressional Budget Office, the numbers in the GOP’s draft legislation are brutal. The bill would increase the federal deficit by $3.8 trillion — a rise that is spooking bond markets already worried about the president’s tariff increases. The bill would slash $267 billion in federal spending for SNAP, which more than 42 million low-income people rely on to put food on the table for their families. And it would cut nearly $700 billion from federal funding for Medicaid.
All this is being done to extend the Trump tax cuts, which disproportionately benefit wealthy people. The impact of the GOP’s bill is extraordinary in both its cruelty and its extreme inequality. According to the CBO’s estimate, household resources for the poorest people would decrease by 4% over the next eight years, while the richest people’s household resources would increase by 4%.
Now isn’t that lovely? We knew they wanted to put tax breaks for the wealthy into this thing. But seeing the robbing of the poor in plain, straightforward graphs, to give to the rich is, well, I don’t have a word for it. Cruelty, I guess, stealing from some of Michael’s column. I would also guess those tax cuts are probably going to drive the middle class downwards. All in the name of more money for the rich. Sheesh. I’m going to skip ahead in the quotes, then close.
If enacted, the bill would constitute the largest transfer of wealth from the needy to the wealthy in American history.
It’s no wonder, then, that Republicans were rushing this bill through while most Americans slept. If you were robbing the poor on behalf of the rich, you, too, would do it in the dead of night.
Earlier this week, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt claimed that this bill, which would blow a $3 trillion hole in the federal budget, wouldn’t increase the deficit. Leavitt even claimed that there are “$1.6 trillion worth of savings in this bill” and that this number represents “the largest savings for any legislation that has ever passed Capitol Hill in our nation’s history.” (Leavitt provided no source for this figure, and it appears she simply referred to the spending cuts in the bill while ignoring the trillions in lost revenue that will come from the tax cuts.)
It is as stunning a lie as perhaps any other uttered by members of the Trump administration (and that is saying something). Even one House Republican, Thomas Massie of Kentucky, is publicly calling the White House and his colleagues liars for promoting this fiction.
In states where work requirements have been imposed on Medicaid recipients, the result is a drop in coverage, which almost certainly is the reason Republicans are including them in their big, beautiful bill. The fewer people on Medicaid, the greater the cost savings, and the more money there is for tax breaks.
Indeed, what is happening on Capitol Hill can hardly be described as legislating. Making laws means hearing from experts, considering data and weighing pros and cons. The GOP’s “Big, Beautiful (Ugly) Bill” is none of those things. It’s highway robbery, and Republicans desperately don’t want the American people to know that they are the ones holding them up.
I’m going to keep reaching out to my Congress Critters (thank you for the phrase, Denis!). I’ve found some others I think might listen. That “Trump Will Be King” is bad enough. But this? For the tax cuts? Raises that bar exponentially. This Big Ugly Bill needs to be torn up, and Congress needs to start over. It won’t happen, but it would be wonderful. By the way, I added “Ugly” to the quotes from Michael. Otherwise, we can keep up the pressure as best we can. At least midterms are coming. Thanks for sticking with me!
*****And now, please read ******
Zoomers, we are always in need of donations. It’s been an especially rough month, and my own health has not been great these past few weeks, which just adds to the frustration. Anything you can spare will be immensely appreciated. And thank you to all who have donated generously already. Ursula
it’s going to take from Medicare also something like $500 million and the courts won’t be able to order contempt of court for congress and the executive office and other positions
Derp, I thought I covered that. Thanks for adding it in!
Going by tRump becoming a king, the courts won’t have any power anyhow….. unless I’m missing something?
And, we just see more evidence of GOP hypocrisy (“GOPcrisy” can now be the appropriate term?). You just know that if a Democratic-controlled House had pulled the same stunt, the GOP leaders (yeah, I know–that’s an oxymoron but I’m describing a situation back when members of the GOP didn’t just kowtow to and rubberstamp everything a GOP President did) would’ve been in front of every media outlet they could get to–even legitimate media outlets like NBC and CBS, not just Fox Propaganda–raging at the Democrats’ “sneaky maneuvers.” I can recall, not that long ago, when GOPers would fume at how “a thousand-page budget plan” would be rushed to a vote with the House membership having less than a day to go through the whole thing and use THAT as a campaign plank for their next election. Now, it seems they’re less concerned by all the “sneaky maneuvers”–especially when they help the big-money donors. (I still believe the Democrats–assuming they can ever get back in control of Congress–need to impose a tax on the big-money donors. If a donor can afford to spend $10 million on 10 different political campaigns, he or she can certainly afford to pay $10 million in taxes. And if they really want to move to a lower-tax country, then their money becomes “foreign” money and they’re banned from contributing to any US campaigns–but their US revenues will still be subject to the appropriate tax rates.)
GOPcrisy I LOVE IT! (Now I just have to remember how to spell it.) Yea, if the Democrats had done this, there would be SO much screaming. I wish the Democrats *would* scream – at least they’d be doing something! I’m most worried about Trump Will Be King and then everything Denis listed, but most of all, robbing the poor and giving to the rich. Grrrrrrr. (Foreign money heh, heh, heh.)