Trump’s WashingtonHow President Trump is changing government, the country and its politics.Good evening. Tonight, I explain why President Trump’s “big beautiful bill” is likely to pass even though Republicans don’t particularly like it, and we look at the gimmick they are using to make it seem less costly than it actually is. We’ll start with the day’s big news.
Why a bill nobody likes feels inevitable
The path for the One Big Beautiful Bill, as President Trump calls his signature domestic legislation, has not been linear. The bill, which would extend the 2017 tax cuts and cut into the social safety net to pay for it, barely passed the House. It was heavily rewritten in the Senate. In recent days, various provisions have been rejected by a key Senate official whose job is to make sure that lawmakers color inside the lines of such budget bills, leaving senators scrambling to add back in what they can. Then there’s the fact that, as my colleagues Carl Hulse and Catie Edmondson wrote today, nobody really loves the bill. But this is Trump’s Washington. And trifling matters like not knowing quite what’s going to be in the bill — and not particularly liking it — will probably not stop Senate Republicans from voting for it, potentially as soon as this weekend. I asked Catie, who has covered every twist and turn of this bill’s winding path, to explain how it became a policy grab bag, why it makes so many Republicans uncomfortable — and why none of that probably matters when it comes to its chances of becoming law. As we speak, Republicans are scrambling to save various provisions that the Senate parliamentarian believes run afoul of the rules governing budget bills. You’ve covered Congress since the first Trump administration, and you have seen a lot of sausage-making in that time. Is it always, uh, like this? To some degree, this is a normal part of the process, one that has been a challenge for both parties in the past. When Democrats used budget reconciliation to pass both President Biden’s landmark inflation reduction act as well as his Covid stimulus package, the parliamentarian threw out major elements of their legislation, including a provision to raise the federal minimum wage. On the other hand, I do think the back-and-forth on this reflects the extent to which this legislation has become a grab bag full of policies, some of which have little to do with the budget. The bill contains tax cuts, and cuts to Medicaid and to nutrition assistance programs, but also provisions that would ban states from regulating artificial intelligence, loosen certain gun laws and sell off public lands. What role is President Trump playing? Are his actions — or inaction — shaping the chaos here? He rallied support for the bill at the White House yesterday, but we have not seen him become too deeply involved in whipping votes yet. The game plan on the Hill for these big votes has always been to bring him in at the very end, to whip the final holdouts into submission. There’s also this dynamic playing out that we’ve seen time and time again, in which lawmakers who have a qualm with this legislation have called the president, hoping he’ll support their view. And President Trump will tell them he agrees with them. It does make it a little harder for lawmakers to figure out what he actually wants, since his desires can change as a result of these conversations. We’re seeing that specifically right now on Medicaid. A number of senators have said that they believe the Senate plan cuts too deeply into Medicaid. A couple of senators took this concern to the president, including Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri, who came back and said Trump had told them he prefers the House plan, which leaves more of the program intact. The fight over Medicaid is one of several playing out between Republicans when it comes to this bill. What other intraparty fault lines has it exposed? Medicaid is part of this broader debate over the question of how much federal spending should be cut. At the beginning of this process, you had a number of fiscal hawks, both in the House and Senate, say that they did not want to vote for any legislation that would increase the deficit, so they wanted lost revenue from the tax cuts to be offset by new spending cuts. That did not happen in either the House or the Senate. Both plans would increase the deficit by trillions of dollars. That is not what these deficit hawks wanted to use their governing trifecta to do. Does anybody actually like this bill? Republicans believe they have to pass this legislation, because if they don’t extend the 2017 tax cuts, then everyone’s taxes go up. The bill also contains new tax breaks on tips and overtime, something Trump promised to do on the campaign trail. But aside from those, they are essentially extending the status quo — the tax breaks that were created in 2017 — while cutting quite deeply into very popular programs. If you’re up for re-election in a purplish state or district, you know that Democrats are absolutely going to hammer you on the cuts to Medicaid and food assistance programs that this bill will enact. Many of them have already heard from constituents about this at their town halls. Does any of what we’re talking about — all of the reasons that Republicans have to not like this bill, and their difficulty keeping it intact — actually jeopardize the likelihood that it will pass? I don’t think so, although it might complicate their timeline and the exact shape of the final product. Ever since the House passed its version, there has been a sense of inevitability to this. They’re likely to pass a bill that potentially poses significant political risk, and that nobody loves. Got it. Why? It’s a potentially risky vote that isn’t in service of a sweeping political idea, which sets it apart from certain other tough votes we’ve seen both sides take over the years. But this is something that Trump has asked for. I think there’s a sense among Republicans that they may lose their House majority in the midterm elections, just looking at historical trends, which leaves them limited time to pass major legislation. And they do feel a real ideological imperative to extend those 2017 tax cuts. All of that combined, plus the fact that this is essentially a single up or down vote on the president’s agenda, makes it extraordinarily unlikely that this is going to absolutely collapse. IN ONE GRAPHIC
So how much, exactly, will the Big Beautiful Bill cost? It depends how you count — and where you start counting from. I asked my colleague Andrew Duehren, who covers tax policy and swears that it is fun, to explain the budget gimmick Republicans want to use to keep their numbers looking better. Any budget involves making assumptions about the future. How much am I likely to spend on groceries next month? Am I going to get a raise at work? Your answers to those questions can then help you answer other questions, like: Can I afford this vacation? Washington works in the same way, just on a much bigger scale. Republicans and Democrats have, over time, agreed to a set of assumptions for what the country’s budget will look like in the future, absent any additional changes. They then use that base line to decide whether they can afford to, say, cut taxes. Senate Republicans want to shake up how Washington makes those assumptions about the future. For decades, a tax cut that only lasts for a few years was treated as a special expense; it was assumed that in the long term, taxes would go back up, as planned, and more money would start flowing into government coffers. Senate Republicans think this is all wrong. They argue that the temporary tax cuts they passed in 2017 should be part of the long-term assumptions for the budget. Reframing those tax cuts like that would mean that extending them, as they wish to do with this bill, does not actually seem like a new expense. It’s the equivalent of taking out what was originally a special, temporary expense, like a lease on a luxury car that you only thought would last a few years. But instead of finding a cheaper option when the lease ends, you tell yourself you always planned on a heftier car bill and can afford another fancy car. Got a tip? THE MOMENT
Arrival, and departureHaiyun Jiang, the Times’s newest staff photographer, is interested in photographs that tell a story about power. That’s what she found while traveling with President Trump to The Hague this week. Haiyun was waiting with other photographers Tuesday night for Trump to arrive at the Huis ten Bosch, a royal palace, where he was set to meet with the Dutch king and queen and spend the night. It was the kind of engagement Trump loves, full of pomp, circumstance and bona fide royalty. When Trump arrived in his armored limousine, Haiyun saw a chance to show how the president’s authority was clearly on display, too. “I was trying to use the car window to frame him, because I knew that the Secret Service agents would open the door for him, and I just felt like that was a way of capturing power,” Haiyun told me. Another chance came moments later. As Haiyun and the other photojournalists were being rushed off, she saw that palace guards were already cleaning up the trappings of power.
Andrew Duehren contributed to this newsletter. Read past editions of the newsletter here. If you’re enjoying what you’re reading, please consider recommending it to others. They can sign up here. Have feedback? Ideas for coverage? We’d love to hear from you. Email us at onpolitics@nytimes.com.
|
