At Noon, The GOP Is Scheduled To Declare Class War On Working Families— Let Them Eat Tax Cuts

Señor T Orders GOP To Cut Health Care & Starve The Poor—They Obey

Senate Republicans will be taking their first vote on Trump’s Big Ugly Bill today at high noon. In some ways it’s even worse than the extremely unpopular version that passed the House (by one vote). The problems most likely to derail the bill are the Medicaid cuts, the SALT deal and SNAP cuts (to food stamps). Trump has been clear that any Republican who votes against it will feel his wrath. And right now there are several who haven’t committed to supporting it, especially members facing the voters next year, like Susan Collins (ME) and Thom Tillis (NC), as well as Josh Hawley (MO) and Lisa Murkowski (AK).

Yesterday, in a NY Times analysis, Carl Hulse and Catie Edmondson noted that it’s a bill with plenty of hate. Republicans “are preparing to back a measure that they fear gives their constituents little to love and lots to hate. The struggle Republicans are experiencing in securing votes for the legislation emanates from the fact that they are being asked to embrace steep cuts to the government safety net that could hit their states and districts hard— all in the service of extending existing tax cuts that don’t offer much in the way of new benefits for most Americans. The heart of the legislation— $3.8 trillion in tax cuts— is already in place, enacted eight years ago during the first Trump administration. The measure simply extends those tax breaks, leaving Republican lawmakers unable to trumpet generous new tax savings for Americans. On the other hand, the bill would scale back popular health and nutrition programs to pay for part of the enormous cost of keeping the tax rates that are already in place. Reductions to Medicaid, SNAP and other safety net programs are not the only elements dividing the party. Republicans in states that have new clean energy projects started under a Biden-era program want those projects protected, while others want them ended immediately. A proposal to sell off public lands in the West has split Republicans from the region. A ban on states regulating artificial intelligence for 10 years is in dispute. Hard-right Republicans want much deeper cuts across the board. At the same time, the bulk of new spending in the legislation goes to the Pentagon and border security, two areas where Americans won’t feel any boost in their own bank accounts. ‘Generally speaking, it is not a success strategy,’ Senator Thom Tillis, Republican of North Carolina, said about the difficulties of pushing legislation that has lawmakers so leery. Tillis, who is up for re-election next year, privately warned his Republican colleagues this week that the political consequences of the bill could be disastrous.”

Multiple independent analyses have found it would cause millions of people to lose Medicaid and food assistance, and Democrats have made clear that those impacts will be the centerpiece of their campaigns to defeat Republican candidates next year and win back the majority in Congress.

… A Fox News poll released this month found that voters opposed the legislation by a roughly 21-point margin, with about half of respondents saying it would hurt their family. A separate poll of registered voters released on Thursday by Quinnipiac University found that 55 percent of respondents opposed the legislation, and only 29 percent said they supported it.

Despite the myriad objections and issues, Senate Republicans still hope to approve the legislation as early as this weekend and send it to the House for quick passage despite skepticism there. They are under tremendous pressure to pass the legislation by the Fourth of July, the type of symbolic media moment that Trump relishes.

But they are going into the process in a defensive crouch, with many conceding that the final product is far from ideal.

… As they fend off detractors, Republicans have stepped up their efforts to emphasize that no action would mean that Americans would be hit with a hefty tax increase if they failed to pass the bill— though it was Republicans who originally made the tax cuts temporary.

… Trump also signaled that he would not look kindly on any Republicans who balk at what has become the signature legislation of his first year, characterizing them as “grandstanders.”

Not good people, they know who I’m talking about,” he said. “We don’t need grandstanders,” the president said. On Friday, he again stated that about $1.7 trillion in cuts to safety net programs would be made with no discernible impact on beneficiaries of Medicaid and other assistance programs.

“It won’t affect anybody,” he said at the White House. “It is just fraud, waste and abuse.”

That is at odds with the findings of many independent groups that have studied the bill, and ignores the very real concerns of Republican senators that the measure would harm their constituents. Some of them have been working to scale back the Medicaid cuts or find a way to help hospitals and other providers absorb them so that fewer Americans will find themselves without care.

“My position is that cuts, and especially drastic cuts, to Medicaid have to be avoided,” said Senator Bill Cassidy, Republican of Louisiana.

He and others have been pushing to change a provision that would sharply limit a tax maneuver that many states use to finance their Medicaid programs, reverting to the House bill, which they see as less detrimental for rural hospitals.

“The Senate cuts in Medicaid are far deeper than the House,” said Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine and a potential “no” vote against the measure.

Republicans have also openly grumbled about an array of extraneous provisions that have been added to the sprawling legislation as it moved from the House to the Senate, from the proposal allowing the sale of public lands to the A.I. regulation ban.

“Why are we doing this at all?” Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri asked of the A.I. moratorium, adding: “I will do everything I can to try to kill it.”

So… they’re about to walk the plank for Señor TACO— and they know it. At 12— although I expect it to be postponed— they’re supposed to be lining up to vote for a bill so brutal, so grotesquely rigged for the ultra-wealthy, that even Republicans are openly admitting it could destroy them politically. And still, they march on, whipped into submission by a two-bit fascist game show host threatening to “punish” any Republican who puts their own constituents before the latest presidential vanity project— not to mention economic terrorism on behalf of the billionaire class.

It sure doesn’t help anyone struggling to pay rent, fill prescriptions or put food on the table. With a few minor exceptions, the bill gives Americans nothing new— just more pain for the working class and more yachts for the donor class.

Some Republican senators— Thom Tillis, Bill Cassidy, Susan Collins, Josh Hawley— are panicking in plain sight. They’ve been flailing to water it down, to reverse the deepest Medicaid cuts, to undo the sell-off of public lands, to block the obscene 10-year ban on A.I. regulation. And yet, despite these objections, they’re still entertaining the idea of voting “yes.” That’s not leadership; it’s cowardice.

The fact that this mess could pass before the Fourth of July is a sick joke. What better way for Trump to celebrate Independence Day than by yanking food out of poor kids’ mouths and booting sick people off Medicaid— while promising billionaires they’ll never pay another dime in taxes? Fireworks for the oligarchs, hunger for the rest of us. It’s a  blueprint for cruelty and a declaration of class war. No wonder Trump freaked out over Mamdani’s big victory of the oligarchs— including some of his biggest donors— in NYC. This bill is a moral crime, not just bad policy— and every Republican who votes for it should be tattooed with it for the rest of their career. Let hem vote; let them strap themselves to Trump’s sinking ship. Democrats should plaster every district with the receipts— every hospital closed, every child cut off from meals, every family kicked off insurance. This is what the Republican Party stands for now: greed, cruelty and obedience to a man who cares more about revenge than he does about the people of this country.

And for anyone doubting what Trump has in store for them if they dare to disobey, his superPAC just started running these TV ads in northern Kentucky against Republican Congressman Thomas Massie: