'Big Beautiful Bill' is the curse that keeps on cursing

The budget measure that President Trump bullied Congress into passing last month provides a new “spigot” for “trickle-down” nonsense, and regular Americans are still learning how and when they’ll be affected.

Besides cutting SNAP food assistance, expanding a Farm Bill loophole letting farmland owners (as opposed to farmers) benefit even more from federal programs, enacting tax breaks for gun silencers, and revoking countless grants for green-energy projects, dramatic changes in health care loom.

Immediately, Medicare Savings Programs will be harder to enroll in;

next month, grants to states for rural health-care providers will be available – but they’re 10% of what was sought;

on Jan. 1, 2026, premiums for the Affordable Care Act will increase by 15%;

Oct. 1, 2026, legal immigrant will no longer be eligible for Medicaid;

Dec. 31, 2026, will usher in Medicaid re-determination authorization will be mandated at least every six months;

on Oct. 7, 2027, federal funding will decrease for states that expanded Medicaid coverage;

Oct. 1, 2028, will see co-payments for Medicaid increase; and

on Dec. 31,2028, new work requirements will take effect for Medicaid enrollments.

 

It’s all laissez-faire capitalism, meaning “let people do what they want” – with little or no regulations, more privatization and few taxes. A laissez-faire approach assumes wealth eventually will trickle down to the rest of us (which hasn’t worked since Ronald Reagan popularized the concept in the 1980s.)

Of course, it’s not unusual for the GOP to sacrifice everyday workers for fat cats, but the scale of the damage alongside the scope of enriching the wealthy is as enormous and insulting as Republican lawmakers’ devotion to the Bully-in-Chief.

Republicans occasionally respond to reform ideas with accusations of “class warfare,” but they neglect to admit a key detail, which multi-billionaire Warren Buffet explained in 2006: “There’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.”

Jill Schlesinger –an Emmy Award-winning business analyst, author (“The Great Money Reset”), podcaster and network commentator – recently wrote about winners and losers from the “Big Beautiful Bill.”

The biggest winners are the wealthy. “The richest Americans would receive the biggest benefit, instead of losing 2.9% in income like the bottom earners, the top 5% would gain 2.9%. The bill also permanently increases the estate-tax exemption to $15 million ($30 million for married couples), beginning in tax year 2026. This rule obviously benefits the wealthiest families.”

The middle class faces a “mixed bag,” she said, depending on whether you work overtime, rely on tips, or own a home in a high-tax state.

And the bottom 20% of households “lose the most,” she continued, citing the Penn Wharton Budget Model. “Those earning less than $18,000 would see their income reduced by 2.9%, or about $885 in 2030. The reason is that many of these people are not paying much in federal income taxes to begin with, so there's not much to save. But they are likely to get hit by cuts to Medicaid and SNAP, valuable and important benefits on which these families rely.”

(UAW President Shawn Fain was more forceful in his criticism, saying, “The bill that the Republicans passed isn't just bad policy—it's a full-blown attack on America's working class. For the UAW and the millions of workers we represent, four core issues define what it means to live and work with dignity: a livable wage, affordable health care, retirement security, and time to enjoy life beyond the job. On every one of those fronts, this bill delivers nothing but setbacks. [It’s] a brutal agenda: stripping working-class people of security, dignity and power while lining the pockets of billionaires.

“This bill isn't governance,” Fain said. “This is a class war waged from Capitol Hill. It shifts the balance of power even further toward the billionaire class and hollows out the rights and dignity of labor. By passing this legislation, the government is telling working-class families they're on their own while billionaires get even more tax breaks. It's a total betrayal.”)

The U.S. economy will be “a loser,” Schlesinger added,  “This bill is going to cost at least $3.3 trillion over the next decade. According to Wharton, the bill will lower GDP growth over the next 30 years.”

Thomas Kahn, former staff director of the House Budget Committee under Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, said, “The consequences of this debt explosion are not theoretical — they hurt working Americans. Growing debt pushes prices higher at a time when inflation is already too high. It drives up interest rates for people paying off credit card debt, families trying to buy homes or cars, and small businesses looking to expand. It siphons off trillions in taxpayer money to pay interest to bondholders — money that could otherwise fund education, health care or defense. And it makes our country more vulnerable to foreign adversaries such as China, which owns almost $1 trillion of U.S. debt, and it could wreak havoc on our economy by unloading it.

“The last thing America needs is another multi-trillion-dollar tax cut vastly tilted toward the wealthy, especially one that adds trillions in debt and slashes support for society’s most vulnerable.”