This Essay was posted on 7/10/2025.
If Donald Trump’s big beautiful bill were so popular then what explains all the protesting and anger? Republicans won’t talk about the real issues regarding the priorities.
Take the big beautiful bill. It makes the original Trump tax cuts permanent and adds even more cuts. To pay for these cuts, the bill makes big ugly spending reductions in Medicaid, Food Stamps, and Renewable Energy Programs. There are also organizational cuts that further reduce spending in Education, FEMA, foreign aid, medical research, EPA, Weather Forecasting, and others.
Labeling these changes as a part of the Republican agenda would hide the priorities that go into them, starting with the deficit. The easiest way to deal with the deficit is to maintain or restore the old tax levels that were working fine before the cuts. Clearly, the first priority is to enrich the people who are already rich. But that is only half the story.
Republicans make the priority of enriching the rich higher than providing health care and food to the poor or providing emergency help to hurricane and storm damage that is getting worse as global warming gets more serious.
And, by tripling the ICE budget by 2028, Republicans make arresting and deporting law-abiding immigrants who contribute to the economy a higher priority than balancing the budget. In fact, the combination of Trump tax cuts and Trump spending increases will add a projected $3 Trillion to the National Debt.
People are angry because Republican priorities don’t add up.
Click for Next Essay: The Nuclear Threat