For all the US President’s talk of being a real champion for American workers, many of his supporters are going to feel real pain in the coming months if this bill passes
As is common these days, when Donald Trump’s Republican allies can no longer stomach his policies, they must be very careful to avoid criticising the President himself. It is always now those around him who are to blame for leading him astray.
We saw this yet again this week. Although Senator Thom Tillis had already announced he was not seeking re-election, it was clear he did not want to directly criticise Trump and his “big, beautiful bill”.
Rather, said the Republican from North Carolina, it was the President’s aides who had failed to tell him how the measure would affect ordinary Americans.
“I did my homework on behalf of North Carolinians, and I cannot support this bill in its current form. It would result in tens of billions of dollars in lost funding for North Carolina, including our hospitals and rural communities,” Tillis said.
He added: “The people in the White House advising the President are not telling him that the effect of this bill is to break a promise.”
Trump’s bill, which has been returned for revisions to the House of Representatives after being narrowly passed by the Senate, will cut taxes for high earners, sharply reduce benefits for the poorest and add $3.3trn (£2.4trn) to the nation’s debt over the next ten years.
Tillis was one of three Republican senators – including Rand Paul of Kentucky, and Susan Collins of Maine – not to vote for the bill.
Trump said when he had heard it had been passed by the upper chamber it was “music to my ears”.
But the bill faces further hurdles on Wednesday, with several Republicans threatening to block it in defiance of Trump’s demand that it be enacted by 4 July. Trump was due to meet with various contingents of the party at the White House today to press Republicans into supporting the bill.
Some have called it the most regressive of any similar bill in decades. Republicans know that the bill, which rewards the better-off with tax cuts while cutting support for struggling Americans, will harm many of the very people who voted for them and for Trump back in November. And that includes Trump’s Make America Great Again (Maga) base.
There has always been something strange about the way Trump, a billionaire reality TV star, has been able to position himself as a champion of the downtrodden and forgotten.
If you spoke to his supporters at a rally, they loved the fact he had flown in on his own plane and had a former model as his wife and First Lady. Even during his first term when independent experts said his 2017 tax cuts helped those people who were already better off than poorer voters, nobody seemed to think it was strange. Why should he not have his own plane?
Independent analysis of Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” again suggests the poorest are going to suffer the most.
A new work requirement for users of Medicaid, a government programme that provides health insurance for adults and children with limited income and resources, could see as many as 12 million lose their cover over the next decade.
The new rules mean people who receive food stamps would have to show they are working if they want to keep them. Across the nation – in red states and in blue – the number of people going to food banks has soared. A report in January found that food banks had witnessed a post-pandemic surge in demand, following a 28 per cent rise in the price of groceries in five years.
There has always been something of a myth about the average Trump voter, and studies after the 2016 election suggested they earned more than people who supported other candidates. But last year, Trump was able to pull together a much more diverse coalition than in either 2016 or 2020.
There is concern that for all his talk of being a champion for American workers, many of his supporters are going to feel real pain in the coming months if this passes.
Steve Bannon, Trump’s top adviser during his first campaign, and who remains an influential voice, has criticised many parts of the bill.
Trump’s decision to cut Medicaid came after he repeatedly insisted during the election campaign he would not do so. As recently as May, during an interview with NBC News’s Meet the Press, he claimed no such cuts would be happening.
“They’re looking at fraud, waste and abuse. And nobody minds that,” he said. “If illegal immigrants are in the mix, if people that aren’t supposed to be there, people that are non-citizens are in the mix, nobody minds that. Waste, fraud and abuse. But we’re not cutting Medicaid, we’re not cutting Medicare, and we’re not cutting Social Security.”
A challenge for Trump, and for fiscal conservatives, is that he declined to increase taxes on even the super wealthy, but insisted on extending the 2017 tax cuts.
There was simply not enough money without major cuts to government spending, much targeting the social security net on which so many Americans rely.
Democrats hope they can use public anger over the cuts to win over voters in the 2026 mid-terms.
“I have been warning for months that this gutting of the Medicaid programme puts Georgia seniors, Georgia mothers, Georgia children at risk,” said the state’s Democratic Senator Jon Ossoff.
Another Democratic Senator, John Warner of Virginia, predicted the bill could end up harming Republicans, and helping his party’s chances of winning control of the House and even the Senate next November.
For Republicans, he said, the bill would be a “political albatross”.
He added: “You can put as much lipstick on this pig as you want.”
