Ali Vitali lays out the Big Beautiful Bill that the House just passed. It is a grand theft on the working class. Rich sanctioned stealing by our government from the working class.
The One Big Beautiful bill.
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Summary
MSNBC’s Ali Vitali unpacks a 1100-page House bill—plus a 40-page manager’s amendment—revealing that, despite cosmetic tweaks to appease warring GOP factions, the legislation still extends Trump-era tax cuts, balloons the deficit by an estimated $3.8 trillion, slashes Medicaid and SNAP, rolls back clean-energy credits, and embeds fresh culture-war attacks on reproductive and LGBTQ+ health care while leaving working-class Americans to foot the bill.
Key Take-Away Bullet Points
- Deficit Explosion: Joint Committee on Taxation projects a $3.8 trillion debt increase driven mainly by permanent 2017 tax-rate extensions.
- Selective Tax Breaks: The SALT deduction cap rises from $10k to $40k, heavily benefiting wealthy blue-state homeowners; tip income is nominally untaxed for lower-wage workers already below the filing threshold.
- Health-Care Cuts: Work requirements and eligibility red tape for Medicaid and CHIP would strip coverage from 8.6 million people, with additional bans on gender-affirming care for minors and Planned Parenthood reimbursements.
- SNAP Overhaul: A $260 billion reduction forces states to shoulder more costs and imposes tighter work rules on food-assistance recipients, threatening millions with hunger.
- Climate Rollbacks: Terminating Biden-era clean-energy credits and other green provisions sacrifices renewable-energy growth and jobs while adding long-term environmental costs.
In truth, the so-called “Big Beautiful” bill reads like a masterclass in upward redistribution: It shovels fresh tax giveaways to corporations and the affluent, kneecaps the social safety net that sustains low-income families, and hamstrings the nation’s clean-energy future—all while cynical culture-war riders distract from the raw class warfare at its core. The Senate must gut this budgetary smash-and-grab or watch voters recoil at a governing vision that finances billionaires’ windfalls by literally taking food off America’s tables and health care from its most vulnerable citizens.
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House Republicans’ late-night gamble delivered what President Donald Trump triumphantly calls the “One Big Beautiful Bill.” A sterner label—“Big Working-Class Theft Bill and Budget Exploder”—captures its essence more honestly. The legislation pairs eye-catching tax giveaways with draconian cuts to programs that anchor the working class while torching the fiscal restraint conservatives claim to champion. The House passed the measure by a single-vote margin, 215-214, after Trump personally leaned on holdouts and leaders sweetened the text with narrow favors to blue-state centrists and Freedom Caucus ideologues alike. The bill now advances to the Senate, where only an energized public can prevent its most harmful provisions from becoming law.
A deficit time-bomb masquerading as reform
The Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) projects the bill will swell the deficit by $3.8 trillion over ten years—almost the size of the entire social-safety-net budget—because the measure extends and expands the 2017 Trump tax cuts, slashes corporate rates on offshore income, and exempts gratuities, overtime pay, and even car-loan interest from taxation. Moody’s Analytics reaches a similar conclusion, warning that deficits near record highs will pressure credit ratings and raise borrowing costs for ordinary Americans. Yet Republicans still market the package as “fiscally responsible,” exposing the party’s commitment to austerity as little more than a cudgel to shrink government for everyone except the wealthy and well-connected.
Tax windfalls for the rich, crumbs for workers
The bill overwhelmingly benefits high-income households in affluent suburbs by tripling the cap on the State and Local Tax (SALT) deduction to $40,000. A Brookings-Tax Policy Center distributional table shows that households earning more than $500,000 capture most of the SALT windfall, while families below $100,000 see virtually no change. Meanwhile, the vaunted “no tax on tips” promise is mainly symbolic; workers already owe no federal income tax if their earnings fall under the standard deduction. This sleight of hand lets Republicans claim they reward service workers even as the overall package drains future revenue for schools, infrastructure, and health care.
A direct assault on health care and nutrition
Nothing in the bill embodies its cruelty more than the new Medicaid and SNAP work requirements. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) calculates that 8.6 million people will lose health coverage as complex paperwork trips them up or locks them out altogether. Fully 3 million households will see food assistance vanish each month, even though the vast majority already work, care for family, or struggle with illness. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities emphasizes that such requirements do not boost employment long-term; they cut people off when they need help most. Yet the bill still devotes $300 million to barring Planned Parenthood from receiving Medicaid reimbursements, spending taxpayer dollars to defund health-care access.
Rolling back the clean-energy transition
Republicans shred every major climate provision enacted since 2022, repealing production tax credits for wind, solar, and battery storage and clawing back funds for environmental justice programs. The move undercuts one of the fastest-growing job sectors in the country and surrenders global leadership to China in clean-tech manufacturing. Analysts at the Rhodium Group estimate the rollback could add 600 million metric tons of carbon emissions by 2035—enough to erase a decade of climate gains. While the bill sprinkles $25 billion into artificial-intelligence research, that investment pales next to the $150 billion hike in Pentagon spending and $70 billion for border walls and surveillance, priorities that deliver little economic multiplier for communities hurting from deindustrialization.
The political math: robbing supporters to reward donors
The irony is stark: the districts most likely to bleed Medicaid coverage, disaster aid, and SNAP benefits are solidly red. Arkansas’s governor and Missouri’s Senator have already begged for Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) relief after spring megastorms. Yet, the same bill carves FEMA’s budget while fattening defense contractors and private-equity landlords. Trump’s base pays higher grocery bills because of the tariff war, higher insurance premiums because of Medicaid cuts, and higher sales taxes when state budgets scramble to plug federal holes. Meanwhile, the donor class pockets fresh tax shelters months before the election season. This is redistribution in reverse—upward class warfare wrapped in populist branding.
A progressive path forward
Progressives must reject the false choice between ballooning deficits for the rich or austerity for everyone else. Congress could raise taxes on capital gains and stock buybacks, expand the IRS’s capacity to audit wealthy tax cheats, and negotiate drug prices across the entire Medicare program—savings that dwarf the bill’s ostensible deficit reduction. The Senate must strike the Medicaid and SNAP provisions, restore clean-energy incentives, and sunset the top-bracket cuts. Grassroots pressure works; senators know the 2026 re-election map tilts against them if they green-light a budget that visibly harms their own voters.
This debate crystallizes the stakes of 2025: lawmakers cement a plutocratic order that privatizes gains while socializing risks, or voters reclaim government as an engine of shared prosperity. The “Big Beautiful” moniker cannot mask the ugliness of ripping health care and food from millions to subsidize private jets and stock dividends. Only a mobilized electorate can ensure the Senate buries this budget exploder and writes a bill that invests in people over profiteers.
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