https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/june-9-2025
"At 10:19 last night, White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller posted
on social media: “Stand with ICE. Pass the B[ig] B[eautiful] B[ill].”
And there it is. The Republicans’ “One Big, Beautiful Bill” is the MAGA
regime’s attempt to replace the American government we’ve had since the 1930s
with one that reflects the antidemocratic values of Project 2025. The measure
is unpopular. According to a new
CBS News/YouGov poll, 60% of Americans think
the bill will help wealthy people, while 54% think it will hurt poor people.
Forty-seven percent think it will hurt the middle class, while only 31% think
it will help the middle class. As Simon Rosenberg of
Hopium Chronicles noted,
it’s “[s]tunning how badly Trump and the Rs have lost the debate on what their
reconciliation bill will do.”
The measure changes the nature of the American government by extending tax cuts
for the wealthy and corporations and adding significantly more money to
immigration enforcement and defense spending. According to the nonpartisan
Congressional Budget Office, the measure will add as much as $2.4 trillion to
the deficit over ten years; with interest costs of that new debt, the Committee
for a Responsible Federal Budget concluded the measure would increase the debt
by nearly $3 trillion.
At the same time that it moves money upward and into the white nationalist
project of expelling immigrants, the measure guts federal policies and agencies
that serve the American people, apparently with the goal of pushing such
policies and agencies to the states. The CBO estimates that as many as 13.7
million Americans will lose healthcare coverage if the measure passes, and cuts
of nearly $300 billion from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program will
mean cuts of about 30% to the programs on which millions of Americans depend.
Miller’s post underscores the administration’s need to change the conversation
around the measure, whose 1,000-plus pages lay out the MAGA vision for the
United States. “Don’t kid yourself,” Senator Brian Schatz (D-HI) posted.
“[T]hey know they are absolutely getting cooked politically w[ith] their
terrible bill and rising prices, and they want to create a violent spectacle to
feed their content machine. It’s time for the mainstream media to describe this
authoritarian madness accurately.”
Maanvi Singh of
The Guardian put the right lens on events in Los Angeles
today, noting “Trump’s dramatic escalation” and his vow “to crush opposition to
his immigration raids.” Singh identified the administration’s escalation as the
trigger for “a roaring backlash.”"
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
