Trump’s Big Beautiful Mess of a Bill

Taking it away shold be the only takeaway

After all the chatter, partisan parroting, and arm-twisting, Congress has passed that massive spending bill—what every good Republican bootlicker calls the “One Big Beautiful Bill.” Nearly 1,000 pages long, it marks a dramatic realignment of the federal government’s role in American life—from social safety net programs to trillions in new spending on tax cuts, immigration crackdowns, and national defense.

It was sold with recycled myths and hollow bromides—pitched to an audience still clinging to trickle-down daydreams and Reagan-era fables about welfare cheats and moral decay.

But beneath the branding, the talking points, and the inevitable GOP victory lap lies a brutal truth: this is a massive redistribution of wealth upward—and a gut punch to the programs that help America’s most vulnerable survive.

The bill was born out of a single motive: to extend Trump’s 2017 tax cuts, which would have expired at the end of this year. This bill makes them permanent.

Republicans also like to say there are tax cuts for everyone, or maybe they mean “everyone else,” tossing in a few crowd-pleasers —crumbs, if we’re being honest:

1. A $200 increase to the Child Tax Credit—hardly a windfall.

2. A temporary bump in SALT deductions, which mostly helps higher-income households in blue states.

3. No taxes on tips, which will expire in 2028, and deductions on overtime and American-made car loans—nice, but not life-changing.

The total tax cuts in the bill are estimated to amount to $4.5 trillion over the next decade.

The White House claims the bill will deliver a blue-collar boom.

Boy, that rhetoric sounds familiar, doesn’t it? That’s right, it’s the same old theory: give enough to the wealthy, and some of it will eventually trickle down to everyone else. Only this time, they didn’t call it “trickle down”—because even they know the brand is toxic since it just doesn’t work. So they rebranded it as a “blue-collar boom.” Trickle-down economics in a hard hat.

But it’s the same broken promise. Just like in 2017, the spigot runs dry long before anything reaches the people who actually need help. Blue-collar voters didn’t see a dime of those last tax cuts. They’re not going to see these, either. Let them eat cake.

If you want to see just how skewed these tax cuts are, look at what different groups actually got back on last year’s tax returns.

The top 1% of earners received an average tax cut of over $60,000. The bottom 60%? Less than $500.

According to the Tax Policy Center, about 60% of the benefits from the new round of tax cuts would go to the top 20% of households.

Put another way: households in the top 1%—those making over $500,000 a year—and the top 5%—those above $250,000—would receive tax cuts worth more than triple what the bottom 60% (earning $75,000 or less) would get combined.

For context, the average U.S. salary is $63,932, and about a third of Americans earn less than $50,000 a year.

So yes, there are cuts “for everyone”—but only one group walks away with the lion’s share.

And we already know how this story ends. When the original Trump tax cuts passed in 2017, the Congressional Budget Office estimated they’d cost $1.9 trillion over a decade. Making them permanent will add another $400 billion per year, starting in 2027.

$108,000. That’s how much is owed by every American citizen. Except the citizens the administration plans to deport.

These aren’t numbers pulled out of a think tank's wish list. They’re hard, measurable consequences—and they don’t lie about who’s being prioritized and who’s being cast aside.

The question is how to pay for all this? Answer: Cut federal spending. Guess where? It’s a Republican bill so the answer should be easy. That’s right, programs for the poor, in this case, Medicaid and food stamps.

Assault on Medicaid

Let’s take a closer look at what these cuts actually mean for real people, starting with healthcare, and then food assistance.

Medicaid is the public insurance program that covers, among others, people with low incomes and disabilities.

But the Congressional Budget Office says that with this bill’s passage,a as many as 12 million Americans could become uninsured by 2034, which the NY Times describes as “one of the largest retrenchments in the federal safety net in a generation.”

But even those savings “only offset a fraction of the total cost of the bill, which is still expected to add more than $3 trillion to the federal debt by 2034.”

Republicans say it’s all part of an effort to reduce waste, fraud, and abuse, they claim exists in these entitlement programs, and that the bill is a “deal for working people.”

Hard to see how they say that with a straight face. Still, they keep repeating: Medicaid is safe:

House Speaker Mike Johnson: “I'm going to say this very clearly. Our legislation preserves Medicaid, strengthens Medicaid for the people who actually need it and deserve it.

From Newsmax, Sen Roger Johnson, R-KS: Look, we're going to do everything we can to strengthen Medicaid, to preserve it for those who need it the most.

Trump, interview with Hannity: Medicare, Medicaid, none of that stuff is going to be touched. -Nothing. -You don't have to.

Funny how they all sound like they’re reading from the same page of talking points.

Except the math doesn't support those claims. As the Kaiser Family Foundation put it, “The math is conclusive: Major Medicaid cuts are the only way to meet House budget resolution requirements.”

The biggest change? Imposing work requirements on many low-income recipients covered under Medicaid Expansion—a key part of the Affordable Care Act. Some see this as a backdoor way to dismantle Obamacare, or at least one part of it, by pushing millions off the rolls

Basically, under the bill, to get Medicaid, recipients would have to prove they worked, volunteered, or went to school for 80 hours a month. That alone is projected to “cause over five million Americans to lose coverage by the end of the decade.”

But if you ask Mike Johnson, that’s not a problem—because they’re only targeting a certain kind of person.

You don't want able-bodied workers on a program that is intended, for example, for single mothers with two small children who's just trying to make it. That's what Medicaid is for, not for 29-year-old males sitting on their couches playing video games. We're going to find those guys, and we're gonna send them back to work.

Okay, thanks for the out-of-touch stereotype, Mike. Sure, it plays well with a certain crowd—but here’s the problem with your argument: there is very little fraud. Of the 71 million people on Medicaid, nearly half are children. Among the adults, nearly two-thirds are working. The rest have a disability, are elderly, care for family members, or attend school.

In fact, research has found that fraud in Medicaid is primarily committed by providers rather than beneficiaries, and most improper payments are due to documentation errors rather than intentional fraud.

So the cuts in this bill don’t trim fat—they sever lifelines. And that’s just healthcare. Wait till you see what they’re doing to food assistance.

Yet, Republicans won't stop painting lurid scenarios of Medicaid freeloaders. For instance, here's the current head of Medicare and Medicaid services, Dr. Oz, with a glimpse into what he really thinks work requirements are for.

I have confidence in the American people. You give people a chance to work, and we know we have twice as many jobs as there are people looking for them. Go out there, do entry-level jobs, get into the workforce, prove that you matter, get agency into your own life. It's a much more enjoyable experience if you're going through life thinking that you control your destiny, and you'll get better insurance at the same time.

Hold on. Prove that you matter? So your worth is tied to whether you’re punching a clock?

This from a guy whose fame comes from hawking supplements and pseudoscience on a show that only existed because a network exec read one of his ghostwritten books after seeing him on Oprah and thinking, “Hmm, great medical advice.”

Ya know, this whole Republican argument about phantom freeloaders gaming the system sounds like a direct descendent from that Welfare Queen crap peddled by Ronald Reagan decades ago. And that story was never true, but it worked. And now it’s back: different outfit; same argument.

It fits this mythology that Americans are naturally industrious, bootstrappy do-it-yourself tough guys ready to do any job, anytime, anywhere, no questions asked.

Where does that myth even come from? Maybe from Depression-era desperation? Or the Horatio Alger “rags-to-riches” narrative we’ve been fed for generations? Either way, it’s a fantasy—and policy built on fantasy is almost always cruel.

Honestly, it’s hard to listen to this rhetoric and not think of the way certain groups in history have dehumanized others, labeling them “unproductive,” reducing their value to whether they could labor or not.

The Nazis had a word for it: Lebensunwertes Leben—“life unworthy of life.” More popularly translated as, “useless eater.”

Let’s be clear: I’m not saying this is the same in scale or intent. But the language echoes that same dangerous instinct—to strip people of dignity and turn survival into a merit badge, all so they can make heartless actions feel righteous.

And these cuts wouldn’t just hit Medicaid recipients—they’ll hit hospitals, too.

Medicaid is a major funding source for hospitals across the country through something called a provider tax. So when you gut Medicaid, you don’t just strip insurance from individuals—you undercut the entire healthcare infrastructure.

As a result, “rural hospitals are likely to be forced to reduce services, cut staff, or close altogether.”

When you take all of the bill’s healthcare provisions together, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that 16 million more people will be uninsured by 2034 than would otherwise be the case.

And it’s not like people haven’t tried to warn Republicans. At a recent town hall, Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa got an earful from constituents opposed to the bill who get what’s at stake.

When you are arguing about illegals that are receiving Medicaid benefits, 1.4 million, they are not eligible, so they will be coming off (audience member: They’ll die). Well, we all are going to die, so, for heaven's sakes... For heaven's sakes, folks.

The next day, clearly rattled, she tried to apologize:

Hello, everyone. I would like to take this opportunity to sincerely apologize for a statement that I made yesterday at my town hall. I made an incorrect assumption that everyone in the auditorium understood that, yes, we are all going to perish from this earth. So, I apologize. And I'm really, really glad that I did not have to bring up the subject of the tooth fairy as well.

Jodi Ernst apologizing. Note the tombstone on the right.

Wow! Do these people even hear themselves? What is it we used to say in my old neighborhood when someone was babbling a bunch of moronic bullshit? “Every time you open your mouth you weaken the nation.”

You hear that apology and think, What the hell is she talking about?

And then you look closer—and realize: she recorded the damn thing at a cemetery.

You’re talking about the obvious—yes, everybody dies eventually, no one believes in the Tooth Fairy—and you chose to film that from a graveyard?

That’s when “What the hell is she talking about?” turns into “What the hell is wrong with you?”

Because no, Senator, it’s not about the fact that people die.

It’s about the fact that this bill could make people die sooner than they otherwise would.

Or are we just comfortable now with creating our own category of “useless eaters”?

Massive cuts to SNAP

And then there's the other crucial program on the chopping block: food.

SNAP—the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, better known as food stamps—currently helps more than 41 million Americans. It’s the nation’s largest food aid program. This bill proposes to slash SNAP by $287 billion over ten years.

Just like with Medicaid, one of the main levers here is expanding work requirements. SNAP already has them, but this bill makes them even more punitive. According to the Congressional Budget Office, over five million people could lose at least some of their food assistance.

But it gets worse—and more absurd.

For the first time in its modern history, SNAP benefits will no longer be entirely funded by the federal government. Starting in 2028, this bill shifts some of that cost to the states. Specifically, it requires them to cover a portion of SNAP benefits and increased administrative costs—an estimated $121 billion over ten years.

In other words, while the federal government is offloading costs onto states, it’s also cutting state revenue.

Here’s how. One of the “taxpayer wins” Republicans tout in this bill is an increase in the State and Local Tax (SALT) deduction cap—from $10,000 to $40,000 for five years. That means high-income taxpayers will deduct more, leaving states with less revenue to work with.

So let’s get this straight:

• States are being told to pay $121 billion more for SNAP.

• At the same time, they’re going to collect less tax revenue because of the expanded SALT deduction.

• And all this while state budgets are already under strain from covering growing Medicaid and Medicare costs.

It’s like taking away someone’s sneakers and then telling them to run a marathon.

Across the country, Medicaid is already the second or third largest expenditure in most state budgets. And now you’re hitting them with another multibillion-dollar cost... while taking away one of the only tools they have to raise the money?

What genius came up with this fiscal incoherence?

So now, what are states realistically supposed to do? Their options are bleak:

• Cut benefits

• Restrict eligibility

• Or, in some cases, opt out of SNAP entirely.

How else are they supposed to balance their budgets?

According to the CBO, just this cost-shifting provision alone would reduce or eliminate SNAP benefits for 1.3 million people.

Well, what about food banks, you say? Don’t expect them to be the safety net.

Food banks across the country collectively distribute about 113 million meals a year.

You know how many meals SNAP provides annually?

9.5 billion. That’s billion. With a B.

It’s very easy to accept that work requirements are needed and limits should be put on who gets these benefits, but it’s important to understand a couple of things:

First, study after study shows work requirements don’t actually increase employment. What they do lead to are large drops in participation—including among people who are still eligible for help.

Why? A little thing called administrative burden.

That’s the term for all the obstacles people face when trying to access programs they’re already qualified to receive—paperwork, interviews, check-ins, deadlines, recertification processes—all the red tape that can kick someone off a program even if they still meet every requirement.

And it happens far more often than you'd think.

One survey of people who were eligible for, but not participating in, SNAP found that 40% were deterred by the paperwork, and another 37% said the application process was too time-consuming given their work and family responsibilities.

Let’s pause on that. They were taking care of people. They had jobs. These are exactly the things that should make them eligible.

Yet the survey found this:

Policymakers have created so many hoops that participants must jump through that those who most need help are far too frequently denied it.

And that survey? It’s from 2022.

This bill, in 2025, would make all of that worse.

Rat now, people need to prove their Medicaid eligibility once a year.

This bill? It would require checks every six months—and in some states, every single month.

And it’s not just about checking a box. You’d have to upload piles of documentation to prove your income and your health status—repeatedly.

Things like:

• Pay stubs

• Bank statements

• Asset reports

• Doctor’s notes

• Prescription records

• Medical reports

• Termination notices from jobs you haven’t had in years, maybe from companies that no longer even exist

• Oh, and something called Form 1095-A

Anyone know what that is? Most people don’t. But you m’s r lose healthcare if you don’t find it, fill it out, and send it in correctly—on time.

And remember: this bill forces states to pay for part of SNAP for the first time ever. That includes not just benefits, but also administrative costs—the cost of running the system.

But who created the cost for taking care of these administrative burdens?

Congress did.

They piled on more work—more eligibility checks, more documentation requirements, more red tape—then turned to the states and said, “You pay for it.”

Meanwhile, the same bill slashes states’ revenue by raising the cap on the State and Local Tax (SALT) deduction.

Talk about FUBAR. And not just in the abstract—this is a textbook example: fiscally, morally, logistically. A mess created at the top and dumped on the states to clean up, with fewer resources than before.

More work, less funding, and millions left hungrier for it.

How's that for trickle-down?

For the 71 million Americans on Medicaid—half of whom are children, 20% seniors or disabled, and many low-income workers—all that paperwork is a bureaucratic nightmare, especially if you're not computer savvy, or don't have reliable internet.

It disproportionately harms the most vulnerable—those who are sick, disabled, or living with mental illness, precisely the people Medicaid is meant to help.

Besides, I thought the goal was to reduce red tape in Washington. Does this sound like that? Because this doesn’t sound like a “work” requirement—it sounds like a paperwork requirement.

Honestly, it feels a lot like what Republicans have tried to do with voting: manufacture bureaucratic hurdles to roadblock rights people already have, dressed up as “integrity” or “efficiency.”

And the contradiction here? Republicans campaign on “cutting red tape,” yet this is the opposite. It doesn’t look like streamlining—it looks like sabotage. A deliberate strategy to push out people they don’t like, don’t care about, or don’t want around anymore.

Classic Washington: Take bureaucratic bullshit and find a way to make it even worse.

Republicans will insist these new work requirements are effective, and that no one who’s “truly deserving” will be left behind.

But take a look at Georgia.

Ever heard of something called Pathways to Coverage? It’s the Medicaid program the state launched in 2023 for low-income adults who didn’t qualify under traditional Medicaid rules.

It’s the bureaucratic maze I just described: a mountain of paperwork, a complex application process, and work verification hurdles that would make Kafka proud.

It’s the exact kind of waste, fraud, and abuse Republicans say they’re fighting against.

Pathways cost Georgia $86 million to launch. And three-quarters of that went to—get this—consultants.

Consultants. Are we in the wrong line of work, or what?

And what did they get for it?

Out of the roughly 250,000 Georgians eligible, only 6,500 have enrolled.

That’s not a success story. That’s a warning.

And yet, as ProPublica has pointed out, this is the model Republicans are using for the Medicaid provisions in the bill about to become federal law.

The vast majority of the “cost savings” Republicans claim this bill will deliver won’t come from kicking off people who don’t qualify for Medicaid or SNAP.

It’ll come from people who do qualify—people who have coverage right now—but who’ll lose it, and won’t be able to get it back because of the bureaucratic barriers this bill puts in place.

And for what? To fund what? Here’s Senator Bernie Sanders during a Senate Finance Committee hearing asking Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to explain.

Sanders: Why do you think it's a good idea to cut Medicaid for low-income and working-class people by $700 billion to give $235 billion in tax breaks to the very very very richest people in this country, perhaps a few hundred families... Explain to the American people why you think that's a great idea.

Bessent: I think that this will increase small businesses substantially, that most small businesses they are--

Sanders: Has zero to do... come on, you're smarter than that. This is the top two-tenths of 1%. This is not a mom-and-pop store. These are multi-billionaires, and the savings go to their kids after they pass away. This is nothing more than a gift to billionaires in this country… You can't justify that because morally it is totally unjustifiable.

He’s right. You can’t explain it, or justify it. Bessent sure didn’t. Because it’s not a policy based on logic. It’s based on a value system. And that system says: if you’re rich, you get more. If you’re poor, you’re on your own.

It’s hard to believe that isn’t by design.

And here’s the irony: these same Republicans routinely soil themselves over burdensome regulations that, they say, “stifle small business” and “crush economic growth.”

Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin: I was tired of hearing small businesses say we can hardly make it because of the stack of paper we have to fill out.

Pennsylvania Congressman Dan Meuser: Every hour spent on paperwork is an hour not spent on growing their business.

Representative Virginia Foxx of North Carolina: This paperwork and red tape will bury workers and businesses trying to make a living.

Iowa Senator Joni Ernst: Small businesses continuously list Washington red tape and regulation as a top issue, keeping them from growing and, in too many cases, simply surviving.

All Republicans.

These people are full of shit. Totally full of shit.

Sure—regulations can be burdensome for businesses. But this isn’t about building codes or compliance checklists.

This is about medicine for the sick. And food for the hungry.

So why are we making life easier for one, and harder for the other?