Congress’ Independence Day Gift to Trump

Policy, politics, process.

Happy Fourth of July! I’ll make it quick today, since I know you have barbecues to get to. This morning’s newsletter isn’t directly about Independence Day, but in a sense: it is. It’s about a major piece of legislation passed by Congress. As per the American system, voters will now be given the opportunity to reward or punish their representatives for the bill in the next election cycle — and, in the meantime, I can take advantage of my First Amendment right to tell you about it, which means, together, it’s our way of continuing the American experiment launched in Philadelphia 249 years ago. 🇺🇸

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After hours of frenzied negotiations — and a record-long speech by Hakeem Jeffries — the U.S. House approved the One Big Beautiful Bill Act on Thursday in a 218-214 vote, along party lines except for two Republican defections. The measure now heads to President Trump, who is poised to sign it at a ceremony at 5 p.m. ET today.

Let’s look at the measure from three angles…

The substance: Most importantly, a word on what the 870-page bill will do. The package is a sweeping piece of legislation that will cut taxes for about 85% of American households, including by making Trump’s 2017 tax cuts permanent. It will make the biggest cuts to Medicaid and food stamps in the history of the two programs, resulting in an estimated 11.8 million Americans losing health insurance and 3 million losing food assistance. It will make good on some of Trump’s key campaign promises, allowing workers to deduct tips and overtime pay from their federal income taxes. It will supercharge ICE’s funding, making it the largest federal law enforcement agency in the country. It will slash the clean energy tax credits approved during the Biden administration, while favoring oil, gas, and coal projects. It will enact the first national school voucher plan and impose new caps on certain student loans. And it will add an estimated $3.3 trillion to the federal deficit, while raising the debt ceiling by $5 trillion.

The politics: At least in the short term, the passage of the Big Beautiful Bill is a major victory for Trump. As I’ve written previously, Trump has mostly opted to go around Congress when taking action during his presidency, figuring it to be an easier route to enact change. In reality, though, longer-lasting change can only happen through legislation, which means this bill (his first major legislative push since returning to office) constitutes some of the most consequential policy moves of the second Trump term — and, frankly, in the end, it wasn’t really all that difficult.

All things considered, when taking into account the deep divides within the party, Trump and Republican congressional leaders were able to get this bill passed without swallowing much pain. (Sure, there was a delay here or there, but think of his 2017 attempt to repeal Obamacare, or the year-long Democratic effort to “Build Back Better.” In comparison, this was a walk in the park.) That’s a credit to Trump’s complete dominance over the GOP, which will only be reinforced now that the party has fallen in line to deliver his top legislative ask by his requested deadline.

President Trump, appropriately enough, watching over House Republicans just after they passed his major bill. (Photo by the White House)

In terms of raw power, the bill is a major flex for Trump. In terms of the policy, though, the bill also shows the ways in which the party has taken over Trump, not just how Trump has taken over the party. There isn’t much in the legislation that reflects Trump’s much-heralded realignment or his supposed populist coalition: instead, much of the package is pretty standard Republican fare, cutting taxes and entitlements. Trump may have remade the party but stylistically — as evidenced by the bill’s name, and the YMCA dance Republican leaders did after approving the bill — but, on substance, the package is something of a throwback.

The problem for the GOP is that cutting entitlement programs isn’t particularly popular, which means, in the long term, the bill could end up doing the party more harm than good. As

G. Elliott Morris

notes over at Strength in Numbers, the Big Beautiful Bill is the second most unpopular major piece of legislation since 1990, outpaced only by the Republican attempt to repeal Obamacare in 2017. Democrats are confident that the package provides their path back to power in 2026.

However, one important note that could scramble the politics on the bill: Republicans cleverly made it so that the popular parts of the legislation (the new tax cuts) start this year. Meanwhile, the least popular parts, including changes to Medicaid and food stamps, largely don’t take effect until after the 2026 midterms. It could be difficult for Democrats to message against the bill if some of its most dramatic impacts haven’t yet been felt.

The process: “This is the legislative process,” House Speaker Mike Johnson said on Wednesday night, as the Big Beautiful Bill crept towards passage. “This is exactly how the Framers intended for it to work.”

Well, not exactly. As I’ve been writing throughout the drafting of the GOP megabill, it’s worth taking a step back to consider how far our legislative process has traveled from how it was originally envisioned, to the point where majority parties can’t enact many of their top priorities because of the Senate filibuster, but also they get approximately one chance a year where they can ignore the filibuster and do a bunch of stuff by majority vote anyways, but also there are opaque and difficult-to-understand limits to what they can do, which are largely left up to interpretation by a little-known, unelected official.

The uneasy marriage of the filibuster (which prevents too much sudden policy change from happening every four years) and reconciliation (which allows some sudden policy change to happen, to ensure that majorities aren’t doing nothing) may well be the right equilibrium for Washington policymaking, but that doesn’t make it any less strange.

It should also be noted that the boundaries of this combination keep getting stretched, most notably this year by Republicans adopting a current policy baseline to assert (without asking for advice from the parliamentarian) that $3.8 trillion in extended tax cuts actually cost $0. Just like how Trump was able to remake the federal judiciary because Democrats blew up the filibuster for nominations, this takes us one step closer to the effective end of the legislative filibuster — and sets a precedent that the opposition party will eventually benefit from, as it now widens the range of the fiscal impact Democrats could make with future reconciliation bills.

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I’ll have a lot more to say about the One Big Beautiful Bill as the dust settles in the next few days. As always, I want to hear your questions, so I can know what parts of the package you’re interested in learning more about. Leave your questions in the comments — I’ll do an OBBA-themed mailbag edition in the coming days, so let me know what you’re curious about, on any of these three themes (policy, politics, or process).

Until then: Happy Fourth. Have a great holiday weekend!