The Big Beautiful Scam
- Daniel Marzullo
- Jul 31
- 4 min read
As I am sure you have heard by now, congress has passed Trump's tax legislation through a process known as budget reconciliation. Through budget reconciliation, a simple majority is needed in both the House and the Senate. With J.D. Vance acting as the tie-breaking vote in the Senate, 'The Big Beautiful Bill' (BBB) was approved in both chambers and has become law.
The BBB will extend the tax cuts that were passed in 2017 and introduce more tax cuts - no tax on tips, no tax on overtime pay, no tax on car loan interest, increases to the standard deduction, increases to the SALT deduction, and inclues a deduction for senior citizens. The tax cuts alone will cost $4.5 trillion over the next 10 years. The bill also introduces increased spending for the military and immigration enforcement to the tune of $325 billion. This cost is partially offset by spending cuts.
As I elluded to in my previous post, the total amount in spending cuts that were being proposed were not possible unless we reduced spending in the biggest programs that the Federal Government pays for - Social Security and Medicaid. The lucky winner(s)? Cuts to Medicaid, SNAP, and changes to Student Loan provisions will reduce to federal budget by about $1.4 trillion over a decade. That leaves the total estimtated cost of these tax cuts at $3.4 trillion over the next decade. Not all the tax cuts are created equally, some are permanant extensions, and some expire in 2028. With help from the Congressional Budget Office, the Joint Committee on Taxation, and the Bipartisan Policy Center (all of which are non-partisan organsiations that analyze tax policy), below are tables to help summarize the major pieces:
I recommend reading the full report here:
Did you catch anything interesting in the breakdown? Tax cuts for the tax brackets are permanent. Tips, over-time, auto loan interest, and the deduction for seniors expire in 2028. I mentioned in a previous post that changes to the tax brackets unevenly benefit higher income earners. These are the permanent cuts. The cuts that will benefit lower income workers? Those are only temporary. A classic bait-and-switch strategy implemented to perfection by the Trump Administration. Factor in the cuts to Medicaid that will leave millions uninsured and raise premiums across the board for those who remain. Factor in the cuts to SNAP that could leave millions of children with less food. Factor in the cuts to Federal Agencies that work to protect the average consumer. Factor in the rising costs of most goods from tariff policies that are essentially just a tax on the consumer. Factor in the green energy cuts that help lower utility bills for millions of people. Who was this bill for?
Our billionaire overlords. Billionaires and the wealthy walk away with massive tax cuts, and we all pay for it.
Did I mention increases in budget deficits at our current debt levels could drive the interest rate on government debt even higher? Did I mention the potential interest expense could increase the deficit by another $500-$700 billion? Did I mention higher interest rates could lead to higher mortgage rates, car loans, student loans, and personal loans?
Don't worry everyone, if we just continue to give billionaires and corporations more money, it will eventually trickle down to the rest of us! It hasn't trickled down yet over the last 40+ years but maybe this time it will!
I found inspration for this next portion of the blog from Kathryn Anne Edwards. Kathryn is a labor economist and writes opinion pieces on economic policy that she posts on Bloomberg Opinion. Kathryn also pops up on my Tik Tok for-you-page and has incredible breakdowns on current economic policy. Kathryn recently posted a blog post on these tax cuts from a different angle - what could we have afforded instead of giving tax cuts to billionaires? Below is a table summary, but I highly recommend reading the full post and more of her work here.
Kathryn focuses her approach and analysis on what can be done to help and support the children of our country. An approach that I am also a major advocate for. By simply not expanding these tax cuts, we can afford a paid family and medical leave program, provide free child care and preschool, free lunches and breakfast for every child in public school, and expand the child tax credit. This would only cost a little more than half of what the tax cuts cost. This also means we don't cut medicaid, SNAP, and can continue to forgive student loans.
Imagine what we could afford if we - god forbid - RAISED taxes on billionaires and multi-trillion dollar corporations. Imagine universal healthcare, affordable housing, investments in infrastructure, investments in sustainable energy, and a universal basic income. These progressive policies are not unaffordable. Progressive economic policies are simply against the interests of the billionaire class who own our collective political will through their wealth and power over the government. Elon Musk has an estimated net worth of $415 billion as of the time of this writing. Elon spent $200 million dollars on the last election to elect Donald Trump, or 0.04% of his wealth. Imagine with me for a second, hypothetically, we were able to tax his wealth at 99%. Elon would only have a mere $5 billion left to live his life. Oh what a travesty! How would he survive!
I'm not sure where we go from here, but I know for a fact that we cannot continue down this economic path. We are prioritizing the wellbeing of the 0.01% over the rest of us. This is not sustainable. This is how empires begin to fall. We still have the power through collective action and advocacy and it starts with education on progressive policies that will benefit us all. We don't have any other choice, our lives literally depend on it now.
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