It passed in the Senate
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So much packed into this bill. Hard to be brief; it's called the "one big beautiful bill" for a reason.
My biggest concern is the price tag. We keep spending way more money than we have. And this bill takes money from people who don't have much and gives it to people who do.
And we are leaving a lot of people behind when it comes to medical care. Kaiser has a great summary of changes to a lot of programs.
https://www.kff.org/tracking-the-medicaid-provisions-in-the-2025-budget-bill/
CNN hits the highlights of how this will affect various groups:
https://www.cnn.com/2025/07/01/politics/congress-senate-bill-tax-spending-trump-gop-explainer
@wtg said in It passed in the Senate:
We keep spending way more money than we have. And this bill takes money from people who don't have much and gives it to people who do.
Yeah, I would be quite OK with spending money we don't have on investments, like infrastructure, resource development, education, R&D, etc.
Unfortunately it looks like this bill takes on huge deficits to cut taxes for the very rich.
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That’s the whole purpose. Always was.
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A new absurdity in the bill:
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/02/upshot/republicans-food-aid-alaska.html
It goes like this:
- the intent was originally was to make the states that have higher error rates when it comes to administering the food stamp programs pay more -- supposedly this is to encourage states to "have skin in the game" to lower error rates when administering the food stamp programs.
- But to get Murkowski's vote, with Murkowski representing the state with the highest food stamp administration error rate, the Senate bill ended up adding a provision that exempts states whose food stamp error rates exceeding certain threshold from having to pay anything at all (at least for a while).
- so if the Senate bill ended comes to pass, the states with high error rates will be exempt from paying for the food stamps (at least for a while), while states with low-enough food error rates will have to pay something.
- in effect, this may end up incentivizing states to jack up their food stamp administration error rates (at least for a while) to avoid having to pay anything towards the their food stamp programs.
The modern GOP really sucks at governing.
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A new absurdity in the bill:
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/02/upshot/republicans-food-aid-alaska.html
It goes like this:
- the intent was originally was to make the states that have higher error rates when it comes to administering the food stamp programs pay more -- supposedly this is to encourage states to "have skin in the game" to lower error rates when administering the food stamp programs.
- But to get Murkowski's vote, with Murkowski representing the state with the highest food stamp administration error rate, the Senate bill ended up adding a provision that exempts states whose food stamp error rates exceeding certain threshold from having to pay anything at all (at least for a while).
- so if the Senate bill ended comes to pass, the states with high error rates will be exempt from paying for the food stamps (at least for a while), while states with low-enough food error rates will have to pay something.
- in effect, this may end up incentivizing states to jack up their food stamp administration error rates (at least for a while) to avoid having to pay anything towards the their food stamp programs.
The modern GOP really sucks at governing.
Random Internet sites inform me that the Murkowski provision was eliminated from the bill right after Murkowski voted. Not sure if if that’s possible.
Have not been able to verify.
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Inside Hakeem Jeffries' decision to filibuster Trump's big bill
The overwhelming consensus on Capitol Hill was that House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) would only delay President Trump's "big, beautiful bill" by about an hour. As noon approached on Thursday, that expectation was shattered.
Why it matters: For months, the Democratic base has been demanding their party's leaders "fight harder" and use every tool at their disposal to stymie the GOP agenda. In the eyes of many lawmakers, this is Jeffries delivering.
Jeffries blasted the GOP's marquee tax and spending bill as an "immoral document," vowing to "stand up and push back against it with everything we have on behalf of the American people."
As of late Thursday morning, Jeffries was on track to surpass then-Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy's (R-Calif.) record-breaking, 8-and-a-half hour speech to delay the Build Back Better vote in 2021.
If Jeffries keeps speaking until 1:23pm ET, he will have set a new record.
https://www.axios.com/2025/07/03/hakeem-jeffries-speech-big-beautiful-bill-trump
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The dueling House and Senate bills differ on details but agreed on a key point: Both would massively expand federal spending on immigration enforcement.
Overall, the Senate version will dedicate $175 billion to an immigration crackdown, including an extra $30 billion for ICE, which can be spent over four years. To put that in perspective, ICE’s current budget is about $8 billion per year.
The bill also designates $45 billion for detention facilities, which can also be spent at any time over the next four years. By comparison, the U.S. spends about $8 billion a year on the Bureau of Prisons.
From The Intercept:
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Who are the winners, and who are the losers. Bloomberg reporting.
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Murkowski doesn't give a *^&) about people in states other than her own. She admits the bill is bad but votes for it anyway in hopes that useless Mike will cover her (&&. Makes me want to barf. My opinion of her actions really isn't fit for printing.
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Is Murkowski worse than the other 49 GOP Senators who voted for the bill? Presumably these 49 GOP voted more enthusiastically for the bill compared to Murkowski.
Presumably these 49 GOP voted more enthusiastically for the bill compared to Murkowski.
Well, that's what makes Collins and Murkowski so bad. They betray themselves. Collins, over and over again, makes sure we know how concerned she is, yet almost always fails to reach the conclusion that her logic should dictate. (She held her ground on this vote, good for her.) Murkowski flat out stated how bad the bill was and that she hoped shallow Mike would change it in the House. How f'n clueless can you be? These two excel at abdicating responsibility--responsibility that they spend a lot of time trying to convince us they have a handle on, when in fact it boils down to little more than a show because more often than not they don't have the spine to do the right thing. But we know they're concerned and they've thought about saving the day, but in the end, they cave.
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Presumably these 49 GOP voted more enthusiastically for the bill compared to Murkowski.
Well, that's what makes Collins and Murkowski so bad. They betray themselves. Collins, over and over again, makes sure we know how concerned she is, yet almost always fails to reach the conclusion that her logic should dictate. (She held her ground on this vote, good for her.) Murkowski flat out stated how bad the bill was and that she hoped shallow Mike would change it in the House. How f'n clueless can you be? These two excel at abdicating responsibility--responsibility that they spend a lot of time trying to convince us they have a handle on, when in fact it boils down to little more than a show because more often than not they don't have the spine to do the right thing. But we know they're concerned and they've thought about saving the day, but in the end, they cave.
@Bernard said in It passed in the Senate:
They betray themselves.
On that note:
The article rounds up the GOP legislators who publicly savaged the bill then voted for it anyway.
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@Bernard said in It passed in the Senate:
They betray themselves.
On that note:
The article rounds up the GOP legislators who publicly savaged the bill then voted for it anyway.
@Axtremus They're all bankrupt, of course. And it's absolutely sickening.
Representative Andy Harris of Maryland, the chairman of the Freedom Caucus, said that he and other conservative holdouts were swayed after discussions with Mr. Trump about “executive actions” and other steps he and his administration could take to change the way the law would be implemented.
That's an absolute travesty, but it does put those idiots in a different category from Murkowski. At least they think (ha!) the law will be implemented differently than what they voted on. Gawd, they're pathetic.
After accepting bribes, Murkowski hoped the bill would be changed in the House. And she frequently criticizes the President. Her convictions obviously don't go very deep. And, as the article points out, she held leverage. And she threw it away.
None of this should be construed to mean I hold the remainder of the Senate and House republicans in esteem. Hawley: spineless hypocrite, along with countless others.
Bottom line for me is that Collins and Murkowski often find themselves in positions of holding leverage, but instead of doing the right thing, they habitually disappoint.
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More on the grotesqueness of it all: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/01/us/politics/murkowski-republican-bill.html
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This process starting with Schumer having leverage and throwing it away.
I'm past the past the point of hoping the Democrats will have a spine.
This was the straw that broke the camel's back for me.
@Daniel. Well, there is that too. There is a lot of rot in settled politics. Too many long-termers at the top. I get a glimmer of hope from today's younger generation. I'm heartened by Mamdani's primary win in NYC over the Dem establishment and hope the party leadership wakes up.
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ACA subsidices eliminated.
So, basically the ACA overturned.
'Big Beautiful Bill': Higher healthcare premiums for Obamacare https://share.google/5ARmA5e1XCQWER8c2
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Trump’s Medicaid cuts are coming for rural Americans: ‘It’s going to have to hit them first’
Experts worry the tax-and-spending bill will gut healthcare and hospitals, especially in states like North Carolina
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jul/04/rural-americans-medicaid-cuts-trump-bill
