Congressional Republicans celebrated our nation’s 249th birthday by ensuring at least 51,000 people won’t live to see the next one. Not that Republican leaders like House Speaker Mike Johnson, Vice President JD Vance, or President Donald Trump care; after all, they finally got their sweeping domestic policy agenda, the “One Big Beautiful Bill” passed. The same goes for the 268 Republican members of Congress who voted for this abomination, many of whom folded after publicly opposing parts of the bill.
The “Big Beautiful Bill” fails to live up to its name in almost every imaginable way. The bill cuts over a trillion dollars from healthcare programs, which will lead to 17 million people losing health coverage and tens of thousands of deaths per year. The tax cuts are a massive giveaway to the wealthy at the expense of working Americans. It imposes work requirements on food stamps that would prevent even disabled veterans from receiving aid, not to mention the bill’s equally devastating effects on education, immigration, clean energy, and the national debt.
So why did Republicans pass such an obviously disastrous bill? Most of the commentary on this points to peripheral reasons, mainly the political games and grandstanding we have come to expect from a broken Congress. Trump publicly threatened Republicans who voted against his signature legislation with primary challenges; allegiance to Trump certainly played a role.
And at least some Republicans genuinely believe the label on the snake oil: that this bill will magically eliminate government “waste, fraud, and abuse,” lower prices, and grow the economy.
But this analysis ignores the core reason: Republicans in Washington have sold their party to the large corporations that will profit the most from the “Big Beautiful Bill,” and Democrats can’t—or won’t—stop them.
For a party that railed against expensive groceries on the campaign trail, Republicans were eager to hike prices on just about everything under the sun. Repealing clean energy tax credits will increase average electric bills by over $110 a year. That’s a major gift to utility companies like Eversource, NextEra, and Dominion.
The bill’s tax adjustments will raise housing prices for lower-income and first-time buyers, while higher-income buyers and real estate investors get more tax breaks for luxury homes and renovations. That’s a giveaway to the National Association of Realtors and big real estate developers like Greystar, the nation’s biggest private apartment landlord. There’s nothing beautiful about corporate inflation—and we can only pay that price in pain.
But the ugliest example of the bill’s price hikes have to do with orphan drugs, or medications for rare conditions. Take Imbruvica, which treats various forms of lymphoma and leukemia. The Biden administration lowered the cost of a month’s supply of Imbruvica by 38% last year as part of its Medicare drug price negotiations.
However, the bill exempts orphan drugs that treat multiple diseases from future negotiations, meaning the federal government cannot renegotiate the price of Imbruvica, nor can it lower the cost of orphan drugs like Gleevec and Rubraca since they were not already included in price negotiations.
This bill is not simply a theft of money—pharmaceutical companies stand to gain $5 billion from the orphan drug exemption—but a cruel theft of human life. How many Americans will die because the Trump administration allowed companies like Novartis to raise the price of lifesaving cancer drugs? We’ll find out soon enough.
That’s the legacy of this bill: the deaths of tens of thousands every year, and the misery of additional millions because an investment banker wanted a tax writeoff on his bathroom renovation. Rural hospitals around the country, many of which rely on Medicaid funds and already operate on slim margins, face imminent budget cuts, delayed care, and closure; before the House even voted, Curtis Medical Center in southwest Nebraska announced it would close its doors.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is about to receive $45 billion over the next four years on detention alone, which will undoubtedly lead to the creation of more ghastly sites like Florida’s “Alligator Alcatraz.” From hospitals to schools, from grocery stores to migrant detention centers, our nation has sadistically chosen to inflict shame and suffering on untold millions of our fellow citizens and neighbors. This is what putting America First looks like.
Congressional Republicans were almost unanimous in their support for this bill—just five of them voted against it. With Democrats a minority in the House and Senate, there was infuriatingly little they could do to stop this bill. That made what little opposition they put up even more galling, like House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries’ eight-and-a-half hour speech to delay the final vote and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s point of order to change the bill’s official name.
It seems like all the Democratic establishment can do is make speeches and sabotage Democrats who actually win elections, when they desperately need new leadership and a fresh set of principles: labor power over corporate control; a bold, progressive agenda over a dysfunctional status quo; and a commitment to everyday, economic issues. It’s the only way forward for a party led by its elites to the brink of disaster.
Next year, our nation will celebrate its 250th birthday. Just four months later, we will elect over 6,000 state legislators, 39 governors, 435 representatives and 35 senators to office. Many Republicans will lose their seats to Democrats capitalizing on outrage against this bill.
And maybe a Democrat will win the presidency in 2028. Then what? It won’t be enough for this Democrat—as previous Democrats did—to throw up their hands and accept regressive Republican policies as political realities, because there is nothing acceptable about children who can’t see the doctor because CHIP was gutted, seniors who can’t afford cancer medication because a drugmaker drove their prices up, rural residents who die at home because the nearest hospital was closed, disabled veterans who go hungry because they lost their SNAP benefits, or immigrants who endure inhumane conditions because their autism awareness tattoos and Michael Jordan jerseys were gang-affiliated.
Beginning this Fourth of July, all of us who truly love our country must recover it from this bill’s senseless, shocking, and shameful cruelty.
Aspiring high school history teacher. Some of my opinions are OK
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