Well the U.S. Senate voted last night to advance the worst bill in recent history to a floor vote, confirming that insanity reigns supreme in the Republican (excuse me Trumplican) party in 2025. The 940 page text was just released yesterday, so I’m sure of course all of the senators have read every line and totally understand what’s in it before voting (snicker). While lots of people have talked about good game going into this, looking at you Josh Hawley, Ron Johnson, Jim Justice, Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski just to name a few, but at the end of the day only two senators had the balls to say no. Rand Paul and Thom Tillis. Both have already been threatened by Trump; which of course is the new mantra of the party. If we don’t get our way, threaten some form of revenge or violence. Rand Paul voted no because of raising the debt limit, while Tillis was the only senator who actually voted to support his constituents. They will be hurt by this bill, and those are the people he is elected to represent. We’ll see if he can remain a no now that it is on the floor.
Let’s recap what this bill accomplishes.
Facilitates the largest wealth transfer in U.S. history by taking money from the poor, the sick, the children, the hungry, the elderly and giving the vast majority of it to the top 1% of the population so they can buy another yacht or mansion or whatever. God knows those purchases will make America Great. Meanwhile, a few “scraps” are thrown to the working class, like no taxes on tips or overtime as if those are meaningful amounts of the total tax cut.
It starts the slow death of Medicaid in this country and will almost assuredly result in millions of people losing health care coverage, under the illusion of addressing “waste and fraud”. Don’t worry America, you don’t really need health care, just like you don’t need toys for your kids or pencils for school. It is predicted to cause the shutdown of many rural hospitals, ironically of course directly hitting many of Trump’s base in rural America. The Republicans know it will do that so they created a slush fund to “help” rural hospitals. Right. So what happens to doctors and clinics and other health care providers in an area when hospitals close? What do you think? Think that is limited to Medicaid?
It devastates the renewable energy industry, sending us back to the good, old days of fossil fuels right when the weather screams at us every week that climate change is real. Just for good measure it throws in a tax cut for coal. Seriously, for coal? The dirtiest fuel we have. China already leads the U.S. in producing affordable EV’s, widespread implementation of solar power and battery storage technology so by all means give up and let them win that race. By god we’re going to show them, we’ll drill in the Arctic Wildlife Refuge, inevitably creating another environmental disaster while rewarding our buddies in the Oil and Gas Industry (who have the Trumplican party in their pocket). Tax credits for new solar power facilities will only be given if they are completed by year end 2027, essentially meaning no new projects will be started, and billions of dollars in investments will be stranded. Wonder where those costs will land? Solar and wind are now the cheapest form of new electrical capacity in the U.S., cheaper even than gas fired turbines, but who cares about power costs? Trump calls this unleashing American Energy Dominance, I call it American Energy Incoherence. You better believe your power bills are going up America, because what are we going to do with all this new oil and gas fueled power? Building data centers, and let residential consumers pay for them.
A few other highlights. The Senate changed the accounting methodology so extending the tax cuts doesn’t actually show up as deficits. The rationale for this? Well, it looks bad when you show the deficits so we can’t have that! Never mind that the actual baseline from a a budgeting standpoint is that the 2017 Tax Cuts expire if this bill isn’t passed, which would REDUCE the federal deficit in the coming years. But we’re not really serious about the deficit are we? Of course not, we’re increasing it by trillions over the next 10 years, while completely ignoring the fact that Social Security and Medicare will cease paying full benefits in 8 years. Much more important to hand tax cuts to billionaires than help working class or retired Americans.
We will spend billions of new dollars continuing to turn Homeland Security into the new police state. Masked agents arresting anyone who even looks like an immigrant, including many U.S. citizens, without warrants and deporting them off to hell holes without due process. Don’t stop and develop a comprehensive immigration policy, just assume all immigrants are bad because that NeoNazi Stephen Miller said so, and get rid of them. Who needs immigrants? Oh that’s right, the agriculture, hospitality, health care and construction businesses just to name a few but too bad. “Real” Americans will flock to those jobs just like they have been for the last 10 years. I can just see all those unemployed young male gamers and drug dealers rushing out to be fruit and vegetable pickers now. Forget the fact that the primary initiators of new small businesses in America are who again?……oops immigrants.
Sell off public lands so that real estate scammers (ring a bell Donald?) and oil well drillers can make profits off of them, none of which go to make America a better place.
Us the budget to support all the wing nut conspiracy theory “hot buttons” like vaccines are bad, the education department is trying to impose liberal ideology on god fearing Americans (those with no Christian mercy or forgiveness), foreign aid is evil unless it’s given to Israel to kill Palestinians, the “deep state” continues to thwart Trump’s agenda and of course my favorite- courts are not allowed to rule against any executive actions even when unconstitutional because that isn’t their “role”. Aren’t those policies what all of us voted for?
The worst bill in history is about to become law, sending us back to the 1950’s, and devastating our ability to address the upcoming key challenges of our time like climate change, universal health care and ensuring social security. All to reward the billionaire class who have done NOTHING to help everyday Americans. You know what happens when you give billionaires tax cuts? They get richer. Just like they did during the pandemic and all of the last 20 years in America. Then they spend it on themselves buying ostentatious luxury items, not creating jobs or making America a better place for all of us. The system is so broken now it is pathetic. The rich own America, they own the political system, there are no checks and balances when one party is in on it 100% and the other one is impotent. Continue to stand there America, while the Trumplican party screws you over while telling you they care, as the Democrats stand in a circle and fret. Is this what we fought a revolutionary war, a civil war and two world wars for?