The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, Donald Trump’s signature second-term domestic legislative package, is winding its way through Congress. Republicans in the Senate and House are working on their versions, and the president hopes to sign the act into law by Independence Day.
If enacted, the OBBBA would be among the most consequential pieces of legislation in recent memory. It would cost more than Trump’s COVID-rescue bill, Joe Biden’s COVID-rescue bill, Trump’s first-term tax cut, George W. Bush’s tax cut, or Barack Obama’s stimulus package; it would dwarf the Affordable Care Act in its budget impact. Still, two in three Americans say they have heard little or nothing about it.
I cannot definitively say what will end up in the legislation; no one can at this point. Elected Republicans are actively negotiating, and the Senate parliamentarian—a nonpartisan official who determines whether individual precepts are permissible, according to Congress’s technical rules—is scrutinizing the proposal. Still, the OBBBA’s broad strokes are clear.
The legislation is, first and foremost, a tax cut. The proposal extends the temporary tax breaks Trump enacted in his first term and creates new ones, meaning the federal government would raise roughly $4 trillion less in revenue over the coming decade. The proposal would permanently fix the top income-tax rate at 37 percent and make a number of other fiddly changes, including giving a tax break to high-income households in high-tax states and exempting mammoth inheritances from taxation. If you’re looking to give $29,999,999 to your heirs, this bill is for you.
The tax code would become more regressive. By one estimate, households in the top 0.1 percent of the income distribution would get a $296,160 annual tax break. Families in the top 1 percent would retain $78,650 a year. The average family in the bottom fifth of the income distribution would get a tax cut of $160.
On the campaign trail, Trump promised to get rid of taxes on Social Security benefits. The bill does not do that. Trump also promised “no taxes on tips.” The bill creates a profession-specific, fine-print loophole for tipped income. But many hairdressers and barbacks do not earn enough to pay federal income taxes anyway, and tax professionals figure that rich people will exploit the provision by making their earnings look like tips. As the OBBBA makes the tax code more regressive, it also makes it more complicated, a boon for multinational corporations employing creative accountants and a blow for American business dynamism.
To pay for these tax cuts for rich people, the bill destabilizes the American medical system, guts anti-hunger programs, hikes utility costs, and makes education more expensive.
The bill is likely to cut billions of dollars in Medicare funding, though Trump swore he would not touch the program. It strips coverage from authorized immigrants and might trim Medicare’s savings programs, which help poor seniors afford care. An older couple earning $21,000 a year could spend $8,340 more a year on premiums and out-of-pocket costs, according to one projection.
The legislation eviscerates Medicaid, stripping it of $1 trillion in financing and shrinking it by more than 10 million enrollees. The proposal would require 19 million childless adults to demonstrate that they were working or volunteering in order to qualify, and would force them to reenroll twice as often as they do now. Studies have shown that Medicaid work requirements do not raise the employment rate, because most adults on Medicaid already work if they can. They just don’t have fancy white-collar jobs that come with health coverage, such as senator or president.
The proposal would limit states’ ability to tax health-care providers to pay for Medicaid. The hospitals that actually pay such taxes say this is a bad idea, because it would put coverage at risk. The OBBBA would prevent states from distributing extra money to hospitals and doctors to achieve public-health goals, such as keeping remote clinics open or reducing the infant mortality rate. Republicans are currently debating a financing change that would lead to the Medicaid program more or less collapsing in nine states.
As a result of the legislation, millions of Americans will forgo medical care. A new study published in Annals of Internal Medicine estimates that 1.9 million people would lose their primary-care doctor, 1.3 million would not receive necessary medication, and 380,270 women would miss out on a mammogram, thanks to the bill. Hundreds of health clinics, hospitals, nursing homes, and long-term-care facilities would close. Republicans are scrambling to create a $25 billion fund to support rural clinics and prevent the formation of care deserts. Common sense suggests that $25 billion won’t do much to offset $1 trillion in health spending cuts.
Each year, the legislation would kill 51,000 Americans, researchers at Yale have estimated.
The bill raids the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. The legislation forces veterans, homeless people, and former foster youths to comply with a work requirement, and forces the states to shoulder more of the program’s cost. It is likely to slash benefits for every single SNAP recipient, including 16 million children and 8 million seniors. As many as 16 million kids could lose access to free school meals too.
Similarly, the OBBBA gets rid of billions of dollars in federal financing for Americans attending college and graduate school. The Senate version of the legislation would require typical borrowers with college degrees to pay $2,929 more a year for their loans. Students who anticipated their debt being forgiven in a decade might end up having to make payments for 30 years. The legislation trashes the public-service loan-forgiveness program, which encourages nurses, doctors, and dentists to work in underserved areas. .
Finally, the bill quashes the production of green energy, ripping back billions in financing Congress approved just a few years ago. Money for home-energy audits, green renovations, advanced manufacturing plants, heat pumps, electric vehicles: all gone. The bill penalizes firms constructing new solar and wind farms unless they use parts from non-Chinese manufacturers—an impossibility given China’s role in the supply chain. Even a tax program for bicycle commuters gets the axe.
The bill would spur “extraordinary economic growth,” Speaker Mike Johnson argues. “That’s reality.” It is not reality. The bill would have a muted effect on GDP, forecasters estimate.
The bill would pay for itself, the White House argues. It would not. The Congressional Budget Office finds that the legislation would increase the deficit by $2.8 trillion over a decade. Americans would pay billions more a year in borrowing costs.
The “big, beautiful bill” finances largesse for the rich with austerity for the poor. It will kill tens of thousands of Americans and impoverish millions more to grant million-dollar tax cuts to Trump and other billionaires. It will gut the Affordable Care Act to enrich corporations that move jobs overseas. And it will do nothing to solve the cost-of-living crisis that propelled Trump into office.
Americans would hate the law if they knew what was in it.
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