Republicans did the final deal: 218 to 214. President Trump pushed his omnibus power grab “Big Beautiful Bill” (BBB) through Congress on July 3, barely. Add that to Elon Musk’s DOGE rampage of radical cuts and firings in federal agencies that serve the American people along with Trump’s foreign policy failures and you can get a new acronym for MAGA: “Make America Go Away.”
The pre-Trump America constitutional government with checks and balances that also orchestrated a web of safety nets in healthcare, food security, research support and financial protections is now hollowed out and replaced by Trump’s power grab and dystopian vision. The BBB consolidates his increasingly unchecked power while attempting to justify permanent tax cuts for billionaires that adds $3 trillion to the deficit. Legislators’ votes expose their siding with Trump over their constituents.
Entrepreneurs who invested time and money in renewable energy businesses (following Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act) lost as Trump turned backwards to a climate destructive energy policy. Farmers who spent decades cultivating trade relationships abroad are losing customers over excessive and volatile Trump tariffs. And $45 billion is allocated to ugly, wasteful detention centers—concentration camps to be imposed on local landscapes with money that could instead fund nationwide affordable housing.
The bill grants windfalls for the tech surveillance complex, driving billions into AI-driven spying tools that will enrich Silicon Valley while eroding Americans’ privacy and cherished first amendment rights.
We are not safer with the vastly-bloated defense budget that includes funding for Trump’s Golden Dome missile defense dream with costs ranging from $175 billion to trillions—a questionable and wasteful missile defense system that enriches the arms industry, bankrupts America and could increase reckless US provocations abroad. Defense overspending also sparks an upsurge in nuclear assets and a certain arms race that will make conflicts more likely and lethal, whereas a peaceful vision reinstating arms agreements and eliminating nukes would save billions while making us safer by building lasting security through honest and intelligent diplomacy.
Talk about waste and abuse! Republicans bestow unneeded tax breaks on billionaires during a time of high interest rates, leaving future generations to bear costs of Trump’s overspending spree that adds to an already-dangerous deficit. Some Republican lawmakers had misgivings about Medicaid cuts and adding $3 trillion to the deficit, but they bowed to the “Don’s” dictums lest they be primaried. Americans are trapped in a system based on threats, lobbyist bribes and gangster-like leadership.
The Democratic Party with only about 17% approval is in the grip of an aged leadership stranglehold that supplied Israel’s Gaza genocide and saddled Trump with an unneeded Ukraine War waged by a provocative collective West pushing NATO to Russia’s long, vulnerable border. Increasingly seen as the party of the privileged, it lost its New Deal brand and the 2024 presidential election with its unappealing, appointed candidate. Authentic reform is needed but unlikely. Will Elon Musk’s America Party succeed in shaking up the “Uniparty” that has failed to give Americans their sought-after peace and real choices?
Post-WWII government created our middle class with the G.I. Bill and progressive taxation. Trump’s regressive vision increases inequality and skeletonizes programs that make America livable. As Trump’s populist platform gives way to the billionaire’s agenda, the midterm battle cry should become: “Repeal Trump’s steal!”
-Cynthia Munley Salem
