President Donald Trump has the chance to accelerate his political momentum and tighten his power grip on the country by driving his most significant piece of second-term legislation through Congress and taking a July Fourth victory lap.
The measure, dubbed the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” with the president’s trademark provocative hyperbole, is Trump’s attempt to engineer lasting change through legislation in an administration that is also wielding huge and questionable executive power.
It is significant for its own sake, both ideologically and symbolically. And its blend of vast tax cuts and reductions in social safety-net spending will have far-reaching political impacts for the country, Trump’s legacy and the GOP.
It codifies some of Trump’s key goals — from financing his deportation crackdown to slashing green energy projects. The legislation, which offers new benefits to working Americans but more strikingly rewards the rich, is a snapshot of the transformation and contradictions of the modern Republican Party.
But the bill is also part of the wider story of Trump’s second term. Days after he bombed Iran; stopped it and Israel firing missiles at each other; and celebrated a Supreme Court ruling that will facilitate his aggressive claims of executive authority, passing the bill would exemplify the growing power of a president dominating and disrupting this era in the US and abroad.
Because senators made major modifications to the original House bill, the high-stakes legislative dance may see significant pushback from far-right House Freedom Caucus Republicans concerned about its effect on the national debt. Any changes designed to appease this group could mean the July 4 deadline slips, and the bill may need to be reconciled with the Senate version.
But the stakes for Trump are so high, and his control over the party’s base is so complete, that the bill is highly likely to become law in some form. And a compromise on state and local taxes in the Senate defused a brewing revolt by more moderate GOP House members who will be critical to the party’s hopes of holding on to its majority next year.
Republicans argue that the centerpiece bill of Trump’s second term will honor the promises that he made to Americans in his election victory last year.
“President Trump ran on this. He said we are going to change America for the better. We’re going to make sure that hardworking people can keep more of their money,” GOP Sen. Katie Britt of Alabama told CNN’s Jake Tapper on “State of the Union” Sunday.
“We’re going to make sure that we have secure borders, not just now, but for generations to come,” Britt said. “We’re going to make sure that we have a strong national defense. … We’re going to unleash American energy. And we’re going to make sure that people who have been unseen are seen.”
But Democrats blasted the bill’s permanent extension of Trump’s first-term tax cuts as a massive giveaway to the president’s rich friends and warned that cuts to Medicaid spending will shatter rural health care and hurt working Americans.
“What this does, and the baseline is all these cuts, all this cutback on health care, to provide the wealthiest in our country a disproportionate share of tax cuts, that just doesn’t seem fair,” Virginia Sen. Mark Warner told Tapper. “The more we can get that (message) out — I think this will be a political albatross.”
Which of these dueling political narratives comes closest to solidifying in the mind of voters could dictate the outcome of next year’s midterm elections.
