Despite the major affect it’ll have on working families, House Republicans on Wednesday bulldozed through President Donald Trump’s massive “One Big Beautiful Bill” — a sweeping law that rips health care away from 17 million Americans, guts food assistance, and drains public resources to shower billionaires and corporations with massive tax giveaways.
The massive legislative package, called by Democrats the “Big Ugly Bill,” passed mainly along party lines with only two Republicans joining Democrats in opposition, and targets Medicaid, the Affordable Care Act (ACA), and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), slashing nearly $1 trillion over the next decade by tightening eligibility and curbing enrollment.
“Today’s passage of Trump and Republicans’ so-called ‘Big Beautiful Bill’ is nothing short of devastating for everyday, working-class people who will have to live with its consequences while billionaires and corporate profiteers are handed tax breaks,” said Rep. Summer Lee of Pennsylvania. “There is nothing beautiful about telling a grandmother she’ll be forced out of her nursing home because she is one of 17 million people losing health care.”
The bill axes more than $200 billion in nutrition assistance, threatening SNAP benefits for millions of low-income families. Democrats and independent analysts warn the cuts will force parents to skip meals to keep their children fed, squeeze seniors already struggling to pay for rent and medicine, and push college students out of higher education.
“There is absolutely nothing beautiful about a child having worse asthma attacks or our neighborhoods flooding or thousands of people losing their jobs because this bill reverses investments in clean energy,” Lee continued. “This is a deliberate choice to strip dignity from our seniors and to push children and parents deeper into poverty and hunger.”
The legislation also nearly halves funding for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a move advocates say will open the floodgates for predatory lenders to exploit working families.
“For many people who live paycheck to paycheck, this will be a financially devastating law,” said Center for Responsible Lending President Mike Calhoun. “This act of Congress will take critical resources away from people with the least wealth, making it more likely they will go bankrupt. Alongside steep cuts to health insurance coverage and food assistance, it will nearly halve available funds for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, making it easier for predatory financial firms to cheat people out of their money. At the earliest opportunity, federal lawmakers should repeal this legislation to halt this approaching catastrophe.”
The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) condemned the bill as a “reckless and dangerous” attack on the nation’s most vulnerable.
“It is disheartening that elected officials in Congress rushed to approve a sprawling budget exceeding 900 pages without transparency and with little consideration for our country’s most vulnerable populations — seniors, children, and low-income families,” said SPLC President and CEO Margaret Huang. “It is unconscionable to see elected officials celebrate a budget that strips people of essential health care, takes food from hungry families, and inflicts unnecessary suffering to enrich millionaires.”
At the same time, Trump’s allies advanced the deep cuts, the president’s administration has racked up at least $72 million to $92 million in taxpayer costs tied to personal indulgences and political spectacles. The Army’s 250th Anniversary Parade — staged on Trump’s 79th birthday — cost as much as $45 million, plus $16 million in road repairs. Frequent golf trips to Trump-branded properties have drained taxpayers of more than $30 million in just six months, not counting millions more in Secret Service expenses and logistics.
David Kass, executive director of Americans for Tax Fairness, called the bill a windfall for the wealthiest Americans.
“Today, Congressional Republicans and the Trump administration have finally achieved their craven goal of delivering massive tax giveaways to the billionaires and wealthy corporations that fund their campaigns at the cost of average Americans,” Kass said. “This bill represents a massive transfer of wealth from the working class to the top 1%. It enacts the largest Medicaid and SNAP cuts in history while adding over $3 trillion to the national debt. Furthermore, it makes the tax code more complex with new special interest tax breaks and handouts to the ultra-wealthy.”
Kass also advised about next steps to push back against the Trump administration’s policies.
“In the coming years, Democrats must prioritize repealing and replacing these disastrous policies to protect American families from rising costs and loss of health care coverage,” Kass said. “We need to create a truly fair tax system and an economy that works for all Americans, not just the wealthy few.”