Action 16 - Oppose Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill”

Background:  President Trump’s top legislative priority is to roll much of his initial agenda into one giant bill to cover immigration, taxes, and energy policies, as well as a provision lifting the debt limit. Trump refers to it as his “great, big, beautiful bill.”

The bill would be submitted as a “budget reconciliation” bill. Under Senate rules, budget reconciliation bills cannot be filibustered and can pass by a simple majority, rather than by the supermajority of 60 required if filibustered. That means this giant bill could be passed without any Democrat votes if all Republicans vote for it. Or it could pass if a few Republicans fail to vote for it but a few Democrats support it.

Why is this bill so important?  Because it would extend the Trump tax cuts for the super-rich passed in the first Trump administration. Those cuts are now scheduled to expire at the end of 2025. Extension of those cuts would cost $4.6 trillion over the next ten years. Under the rules, a budget reconciliation bill cannot increase the deficit. So, the Republicans must cut $4.6 trillion dollars from somewhere else in the budget. But Trump has vowed not to cut defense or social security or Medicare.  And the budget must fund the national debt. If these items remain in the budget at their projected levels and $4.6 trillion in projected revenues comes out of the budget, massive cuts would be required in the rest of the budget.

This is where the magical thinking comes in. Trump proposes to fund the tax cuts with tariffs. But most of the cost of the tariffs would be borne by ordinary Americans, as other nations increase the prices of the things they sell us and as these nations also place retaliatory tariffs on the things made by our workers that we sell to them.

The net result: a massive gift of tax relief to the oligarchs and an equally massive reduction in living standards for most of us, both because prices will go up while all kinds of government support that now goes to ordinary Americans will decline or just disappear altogether.

The Republican leaders in the House and Senate are divided on whether to push for one giant bill or two giant bills, but their aim, either way, is to put enormous pressure on the holdouts in their own party to go along with the whole strategy. 

What normally happens is that the appropriations for each department and agency are separately considered by each committee responsible for that department or agency on its merits, with hearings, opportunities to hear from witnesses, and for members of both parties to question the witnesses and work out their differences. That process is called “regular order.” It is intended to produce considered, bipartisan legislation. Regular order is democracy in action.

The Founders created the Congress as a check on unbridled executive power. Bypassing regular order and putting these massive changes in just one or two bills and rushing them through the Congress would amount to a budget coup by the executive, a coup that must be stopped.

 Continued on next page

Action Requested: Call or email the offices of Senator Collins, Senator King and Representative Golden to express your opposition to:

1.     The proposed extension of the Trump tax cuts for the rich

2.     Using the budget reconciliation process to consider legislation on non-budget policy issues

3.     Bundling all proposals contained in the “One Big Beautiful Bill” into just one or two pieces of legislation

And your support for:

4.     Using the bipartisan process of “regular order” to consider all of the budget and policy issues now bundled into the “One Big Beautiful Bill” 

Call:

Senator Susan Collins is chair of the Appropriatons Committee and has significant power in this process, call her DC Office at 202-224-2523 or her Maine office at 207-945-0417

Or, send an email directly to her Senate website at:  https://www.collins.senate.gov/contact/email-senator-collins

Senator Angus King’s Office in DC:  202-224-5344 and in Bangor: 207-945-8000

And send an email directly to his Senate website at:

https://www.king.senate.gov/contact

Jared Golden’s office in DC: 202-225-6306 and in Bangor at 207-249-7400

And send an email directly to his House of Representatives website at:

 https://golden.house.gov/contact

Urgency:  Trump wants Congress to pass the legislation by April. But the process has already begun. Let our delegation know now where you stand on the big issues now.  We will let you know how the Trump team’s strategy develops and send you alerts when needed along the way.

Further Reading:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reconciliation_(United_States_Congress)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_order_(United_States_Congress)

https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/voodoo-trade-policy-comes-to-america

https://www.wsj.com/politics/why-trumps-one-big-beautiful-bill-is-bad-for-democracy-f6ba4023