The “One Big Beautiful Bill” Has Passed

[Husseinisdoingfine]

What’s in the “Big Beautiful Bill”?

Big tax cuts:

• Extends Trump’s 2017 tax cuts permanently
• Lowers corporate taxes
• Boosts the child tax credit (up to $2,500)
• New deductions for things like tips, overtime, and car loans
• Raises the SALT deduction cap to $40k
• Creates “Trump-accounts” (tax-free savings for kids)

Massive spending cuts:

• Cuts over $1 trillion from Medicaid
• Adds work requirements and stricter eligibility
• Cuts food stamp (SNAP) funding
• Wipes out a bunch of clean energy tax credits

Big bump to defense & border spending:

• $150B+ for the military
• $170B+ for immigration control: border wall, detention beds, ICE expansion

Debt & deficit impact:

• Raises the debt ceiling by $4–5 trillion
• Adds about $2.4–4 trillion to the national deficit over 10 years

[Hardkill]

According to the consensus of numerous Independent experts, it's the worst bill ever enacted since the mid to late 1800s.

The Democrats better fucking figure out how to use this as major ammunition for the 2025 off-year elections, 2026 midterms, 2027 off-year elections, and the 2028 presidential election year.

However, I fear that Trump and his party could steal or cancel all elections starting in 2026. I also fear that the Democrats and progressives will bungle it up again, especially in 2028.

 

Edited July 3 by Hardkill

[GroovyGuru]

@Hardkill Who cares about the Democrats. Both parties are controlled by corporate interests. And the Democrats have already proven how utterly useless they are. Complete embarrassment of a political party! Trump is worse, but I am totally done with "the lesser of two evils" bullshit. They are both evil and corrupt to the gills. We need new options.

Edited July 3 by GroovyGuru

[Socrates]

Civil war is inevitable; get ready, folks.

[zazen]

21 minutes ago, Socrates said:

Civil war is inevitable; get ready, folks.

 

[PurpleTree]

58 minutes ago, zazen said:

 

God this guy is a time traveler.

[hoodrow trillson]

Crazy how the GOP has grasped such power in a democracy like this.  

And on the other side it’s “they go low, we go high” and get absolutely nothing done.

Going from $2 billion budget for ICE to $140+ billion now?  Insane.  Cutting Medicaid?  Killing Free school lunches for low income kids?  

It’s too late to be angry now though, the bill has passed and it will be signed.  Unless there’s more roadblocks ahead for this bill due to the fact that it has probably been sensationalized, it’s over.

[Socrates]

@zazen I'm impressed by this outstanding analysis

[integral]

Why did this pass?

Dont they need majority vote?

[MarkKol]

1 hour ago, integral said:

Dont they need majority vote?

No, they don't have brains.

Republicans will vote for Trump's asshole to be displayed in Time Squere as long as it deports more immigrants and increases military spending

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DLpqHjNxOQ1/?igsh=MXRtdDJjcjZ6MTRuOA==

Edited July 4 by MarkKol

[Hardkill]

34 minutes ago, integral said:

Why did this pass?

Dont they need majority vote?

They only needed a simple majority in both chambers of Congress to pass this bill via budget reconciliation in the Senate and they got it done with razor-thin majorities in both the US Senate and US House.

Edited July 3 by Hardkill

[Apparition of Jack]

Republicans are ghouls. When we finally defeat them our victory will taste all the more sweeter.

[DocWatts]

The main takeaway of the MAGA Murder Bill:

17 million Americans are being kicked off from their health insurance and $3.5 trillion is being added to the national debt to a fund a secret police force and a series of domestic concentration camps.

There's more, but the rest is just window dressing by comparison. If we wanted to put a dividing line between the United States being a democracy and it being a hybrid regime, this plus the recent SCOTUS decision that killed nation wide injunctions has pushed us over that line.

(A hybrid regime is essentially a failed democracy that's in the process of authoritarian consolidation, but isn't a full-on authoritarian state yet).

Grieve if you need to.  Spend time with friends and loved ones. Make arrangements if you're among the groups being targeted.

This is undeniably a dark and disturbing turn, but the fundamentals haven't changed. Trump is an unpopular autocrat, and his Cult of personality is incredibly unlikely to survive him. His regime is going to make life for %80-90 of the country noticably worse than it is now. 

Americans haven't had to fight for our democracy in generations, and this moment is going to demand more of us than a lot of us were expecting. This regime is NOT all powerful - the only way this is over is if we give up. Don't obey in advance. Don't try to placate or reason with MAGA - they're our version of the Nazis, and need to be socially osctricized. No more humoring folks who want a dictator.

We survive this through organization, solidarity, and principled yet uncompromising opposition to this regime and it's enablers.

Edited July 4 by DocWatts

[Frylock]

Good job America 👏 You get exactly what you voted for!

[Rafael Thundercat]

Ray Dalio feedback. On his X 

"Now that the budget bill has passed Congress, we can see what the projections look like for deficits, government debt, and debt service expenses. In brief, the bill is expected to lead to spending of about $7 trillion a year with inflows of about $5 trillion a year, so the debt, which is now about 6x of the money taken in, 100 percent of GDP, and about $230,000 per American family, will rise over ten years to about 7.5x the money taken in, 130 percent of GDP, and $425,000 per family. That will increase interest and principal payments on the debt from about $10 trillion ($1 trillion in interest, $9 trillion in principal) to about $18 trillion (of which $2 trillion is interest payments), which will lead to either a big squeezing out (and cutting off) of spending and/or unimaginable tax increases, or a lot of printing and devaluing of money and pushing interest rates to unattractively low levels. This printing and devaluing is not good for those holding bonds as a storehold of wealth, and what’s bad for bonds and US credit markets is bad for everyone because the US Treasury market is the backbone of all capital markets, which are the backbones of our economic and social conditions. Unless this path is soon rectified to bring the budget deficit from roughly 7% of GDP to about 3% by making adjustments to spending, taxes, and interest rates, big, painful disruptions will likely occur."

[DocWatts]

Sometimes a picture says it all.

[PurpleTree]

19 minutes ago, DocWatts said:

Sometimes a picture says it all.

I mean i think the US already had the highest incarceration rate since like 2002 compared to other countries.

[DocWatts]

54 minutes ago, PurpleTree said:

I mean i think the US already had the highest incarceration rate since like 2002 compared to other countries.

The scope and human rights violations of the existing prison system is going to look tame compared to the domestic gulags that are coming.

Read about Kilmar Garcia's experience at CECOT if you want a preview of what MAGA is hoping to do to American citizens.

If anyone thinks that this will stop at immigrants (regardless of their legal status) then I've got a lucrative pyramid scheme for them to invest in.

The intent was always to use immigrants as an onramp for implementing fascism. This process will begin with folks the regime think it can get away with disappearing, but it won't end with them.

We need to be loud and uncompromising as humanly possible in standing up and denouncing this. Your family and friends who "don't follow politics" need to be confronted with the ugly reality of this.

Edited July 4 by DocWatts

[PurpleTree]

56 minutes ago, DocWatts said:

The scope and human rights violations of the existing prison system is going to look tame compared to the domestic gulags that are coming.

Read about Kilmar Garcia's experience at CECOT if you want a preview of what MAGA is hoping to do to American citizens.

If anyone thinks that this will stop at immigrants (regardless of their legal status) then I've got a lucrative pyramid scheme for them to invest in.

The intent was always to use immigrants as an onramp for implementing fascism. This process will begin with folks the regime think it can get away with disappearing, but it won't end with them.

We need to be loud and uncompromising as humanly possible in standing up and denouncing this. Your family and friends who "don't follow politics" need to be confronted with the ugly reality of this.

I live in Europe but yea i think America dipping into fascism will also have huge implications for Europe unfortunately. Already these dweebs are attacking the EU the ICC etc. and are supporting far right dweebs like the Afd.

[zazen]

😂