The details of President Donald Trump’s “Big, Beautiful Bill” (BBB) are less important than the fact that he managed to pass it through Congress — by his Fourth of July deadline, no less.
That means Trump will have the political momentum to continue building on the achievements of his first six months in the job. Unlike other second-term presidents, he will not be seen as a lame duck, but as a leader who is gaining strength.
Think back to this point in 2017, in the first year of Trump’s first term. The president had hoped to deliver on his promise to repeal and replace Obamacare, but the same Republicans who had campaigned on that pledge since 2010 could not agree on a plan.
By the end of July 2017, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) would deliver his infamous “thumbs down,” slamming the brakes on Trump’s agenda and delighting Democrats and the media.
The next few weeks were a disaster for Trump, culminating in the Charlottesville riots. No, Trump never said the neo-Nazis in Charlottesville were “very fine people” — in fact, he said they “should be condemned totally” — but the public recoiled at the chaos, and the Democrats succeeded in associating him with it.
True, Trump signed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act into law that December — but it had taken all year for Congress to do it.
When Trump came back in 2018, he hoped to move on to his signature issue, border security. He offered Democrats a compromise: a “path to citizenship” for so-called “Dreamers,” in exchange for his border wall. They rejected the deal, partly because they believed he didn’t have the political muscle to oppose them.
Trump tried his best, even forcing a government shutdown, but could not make Congress pass wall funding.
For the rest of his presidency, Trump was on the back foot, especially once Nancy Pelosi was back in the Speaker’s chair.
He conducted foreign policy with great success; he nominated Supreme Court justices; he even beat back an impeachment effort.
But he was no longer fully in control. Because he had failed to unite his party — which controlled Congress — in his first year, he could not achieve all he had been elected to do.
Trump has learned from his mistakes. Yes, the “Big, Beautiful Bill” spends too much money. Yes, it is rather “swampy.” But you can’t drain a swamp — at least, not easily — by diverting the rivers that feed it. You have to drain a swamp by planting trees that consume its waters.
Trump’s policies, over time — like kicking illegal aliens off Medicaid — will shrink the welfare state and focus the government on what it is meant to be doing.
Political momentum may be intangible, but it is a real thing. So is branding. “BBB” was actually Biden’s idea — in the form of his “Build Back Better” plan, which never passed.
Some of Biden’s proposals survived in the so-called “Inflation Reduction Act,” which was really the “Green New Deal” in disguise. But Biden’s BBB was a loser, and he went on to become a one-term president.
Trump has turned “BBB” into an A+ legislative win.
There are flaws in the “Big, Beautiful Bill”: in some respects, it is actually rather ugly, as critics suggested. But those flaws can be fixed in later rescission or reconciliation bills, and Trump will have enough political capital to force those through, as well.
With the BBB signed into law, Trump can celebrate six months of success — and look ahead to the 250th year of American independence — with even bigger, and more beautiful, ideas.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of Trump 2.0: The Most Dramatic ‘First 100 Days’ in Presidential History, available for Amazon Kindle. He is also the author of The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency, now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
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