Big Beautiful Bill Not so Beautiful After All
What's in it and Why Does it Matter?
Hello, Friend,
Before we dive into the fray, here’s something you might enjoy: a countdown clock of the second term of Donny. This clock is making a lot of assumptions, but I’m good with that.
Here’s what the utter crapfest of a bill passed in the house in the wee small hours of this morning contains. It’s massive. This covers some of the lowlights.
Let me start by saying there are a lot of little carrots to divert attention like no taxes on (reported to employer) tips, no taxes on overtime pay, increases in standard deductions, expanded child tax credits, no tax on car loan interest, the $1000.00 Trump (yup) accounts for babies, a $4000.00 tax credit for elderly folks. The interesting thing is most of this expires in 2029. It’s almost as if these carrots are dangling from sticks to keep the base preoccupied while the big beautiful permanent tax cuts for the rich folks are enacted. (To be fair, the Democrats do these delayed rollouts and rollbacks too, but IMHO they’ve never passed any legislation as egregious as this.)
Think of this as a reverse Robin Hood scenario, which will likely crash our economy and blow up the federal deficit, proving once and for all that the endless prattle about responsible government spending from the GOP is, as we all know, absolute bullshit.
And now for the mountain of rotting garbage beneath the carrots, much of which goes into effect in 2029. You see how this works, right?
Cuts all tax incentives towards alternative energy. No green new anything except more greenbacks for the petrochemical and coal industries. Let’s get those skies smoggy, waters polluted, and land filled with contaminants! HUZZAH!
While we’re on the subject of land, the bill opens up the sale of our public lands to the highest bidders for mining, logging, and drilling. This land is made for them and them…and not you or me. This was removed from the bill at the last minute.
Removes taxes on gun silencers. Seriously.
Cuts all funding for Planned Parenthood.
Helps defund public education through 5 BILLION dollars in vouchers for private schools, religious schools, and homeschooling.
Removes Biden’s ‘anti-fraud and sudden closing’ student loan cancelations. Guess Donny is still miffed about the Trump U settlement.
Increases taxes on private university endowments. Slashes subsidized student loan programs and Pell Grants. They’re really coming for education.
Seriously limits the power of judicial rulings through a nasty little bit of trickery, which would make most restraining orders and injunction rulings unenforceable (retroactively, even.) This would, in essence, create a dictatorship. You can read more in this essay from Erwin Chemerinsky, Dean and Jesse H. Choper Distinguished Professor of Law, University of California, Berkeley School of Law. PLEASE CALL YOUR SENATORS AND REPRESENTATIVES ABOUT THIS!
No more $800.00 de minimus import tax exemption. No more duty free on small packages shipped from overseas. This will make it cost prohibitive to buy cheap crap from Temu and Shein, and I’m not sad about that because of the ecological impact. However, this is also a big hit to small and mid-sized businesses who relied on this exemption to keep supply costs down.
No more free income tax filing online. We see you, H&R Block and TurboTax.
Eliminates year round ACA open enrollment for people with income lower than 150% of the federal poverty level.
Increases maximum out of pocket limits by 15%. (They are already sky high.)
Limits annual open enrollment period for the ACA to one month.
Rolls back extended tax credits for ACA. This will result in a significant loss of enrollees.
Note: All of this is designed to be death by a thousand cuts for the ACA, the goal of the GOP since it was enacted. Without the ACA, people like me will go back to not having health insurance, due to pre-existing conditions. Most everyone has a pre-existing condition. I can assure you that not having any health insurance is a total nightmare.
Adds an 80 hour a month work requirement for Medicaid that doesn’t kick in until 2027 (moved up from the original 2029 date.) Note that this is after the mid-terms. Lots of paperwork and twice annual reviews to ensure compliance. These complexities will result in millions of people losing healthcare and raise the cost of ACA plans significantly. The logistics of what sounds simple and reasonable is never what it seems. Most people on Medicaid already work.
Bans gender affirming care coverage for ACA, CHIP, and Medicaid.
Defunds Medicaid to the tune of 700 BILLION dollars.
Defunds Medicare to the tune of 500 BILLION dollars. Just a reminder, this is money that was taken out of our paychecks. Yoink! It’s ours now, old poors! Donny needs a golden dome!
Defunds SNAP to the tune of 267 BILLION dollars. Extends work requirements to people between the ages of 54 and 64 and parents of children over the age of 7. Get to work, poors, or no more free food!
The American taxpayers will pay (at least) 1 BILLION dollars to retrofit Donny’s ‘free’ flying golden palace that he gets to take with him when he leaves. (Is anyone doing a Donny’s slush fund calculation with the licensing deals, meme coin grift, Super Bowl trip, military birthday parade, golf trips and costs associated with secret service stays at his resorts that go into his pockets, Melania’s Prime Video ‘documentary’, strong arming of social media sites and TV networks through frivolous lawsuits, special access pay to play events, Inauguration and Easter Egg hunt funds…how much grift is this grifter grifting?)
150 BILLION dollars for the Defense Department.
25 BILLION dollars for Donny’s Golden Dome.
69 BILLION dollars in increased ‘border security’ and deportation spending.
46.5 BILLION dollars for more for the Border Wall, easily bypassed with a ladder.
Charges asylum seekers $1000.00 to apply. These are people who have lost everything and are fleeing unthinkable horrors. Pony up the Benjamins or hit the road, Jack.
This crapfest passed by one vote. (I’m sorry to have to say this being an older person who hates ageism, but FFS, Dems could have stopped this if they’d asked their sickly elderly members to resign and make way for healthier and younger replacements. The Democrats have a problem and it has to be addressed if we want any chance at all of regaining power. Three Dems have died in office this year, two from cancer, all of them over the age of 70. That makes three votes that could have stopped this horrible bill from progressing. We absolutely have to enact term limits on the legislative and judicial branches.)
And there you have it, friend. There’s more, this monster is 1100 pages long. Don’t like it? Contact your Senators and Representatives before it heads back to the house for final passage. Don’t let those dangling carrots distract you, because this is a massive transfer of wealth which, if it is completed, will be the final nail in the coffin of the American Middle Class and the American Dream.
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WOW!! I have no words...this is just getting shittier and shittier. Thank you...♥️