Trump's Big Beautiful Budget is a declaration of war on everyone in the US but the very rich.
This is the audio version:
This is the transcript:
Is Trump at War with America? All the signs are that he is.
Take one example. Over the weekend, Moody's, the credit rating agency, decided that they had to downgrade the quality of US national debt because they thought that Trump is literally undermining the credibility of the US economy.
Let's look at another thing. Over the weekend, the Republicans pushed forward the Bill that is before the House of Representatives at present in the US Congress, called the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which is supposed to supply the tax cuts that Donald Trump is demanding and the spending cuts that are supposed to help finance them.
It's that Bill that does, perhaps, most of all, represent Trump's attack on America. Let's just think about what he's doing.
He's offering tax cuts that are well in excess of $4 trillion, the benefit of which will almost entirely go to wealthy America.
$3.6 trillion of those cuts are in fact the continuation of measures that he put in place in his first term as president, which are now due to be renewed, and he wants to renew them at enormous cost to the country, which it seems that credit rating agencies and others think it cannot afford to pay.
The other tax cuts are relatively modest, in comparison. There will be some benefits for some older people.
There will be some benefits for some higher-paid people, but those who are nothing alike in the billionaire category will get most of the benefits from most of the cuts that will be continued.
But what is really going to be seen is something that is much more significant, and that is punitive tax measures. For example, the tax bill on American universities on the interest that they earn on their endowment funds is going to increase from 1.4% to 21% and the only reason for that is the right wing hatred of liberal education in the USA, provided by universities like Harvard, right down to the local state university, if it has any funds invested in this way, all of whom are now subject to right wing hatred, because they quite rationally wish to include balanced discussion on what freedom might really represent in the USA, which the right wing wish to close down.
The net cost of this combined package is thought to be between $3.5 and $5.5 trillion. Most commentators think it's most definitely at the high end of that range. Trump is trying to give tax cuts that will not make America rich again, but will make the American rich even richer.
But there's worse still to come. That is in the cuts that this same Bill is proposing to deliver for the Trump agenda, and there are relatively few measures in question, but each of them is deeply pernicious.
The biggest and boldest and most aggressive and most offensive is cuts to Medicaid.
Medicaid supports the health provision of 71 million people in the USA, including one quarter of all American children. Trump wants to cut the spending by $900 billion, and how is he going to do that? He's going to insist that those who get this benefit must be in work. In other words, if you're too sick to work, you're going to be denied this benefit.
He also wants to deny this benefit to the children of undocumented parents.
He wants to penalise those states who are trying to improve the package.
He wants to basically reduce the support available to the poorest Americans so that they will suffer, and there's no other way to describe this. He is trying to impose suffering, and it is deliberate. There is quite literally implicit in this Bill the idea that there are deserving and undeserving poor, and the undeserving poor are those who can't work and they do not, as a consequence, apparently have the right to medical support. You could not be more callous than that.
But there are other areas where this is seen as well.
There is the SNAP programme, which basically provides food stamps to those who are most vulnerable and poorest in the USA. This has been vital to programmes to beat child poverty in that country. And guess what? Trump wants to cut it by at least $100 billion. This, again, is a direct assault on those who are poorest so that they might fund tax cuts for the rich.
And the other really big programmes that are going to be cut are clean energy measures, which, of course, are therefore going to make America very much less prepared for the future that we are all inevitably going to have to face.
And there are cuts in student loan schemes. In particular, what Trump is trying to do is reduce the number of Pell grants in the USA. Now, a Pell Grant is a grant that is provided to the poorest students to get them to the point where they can go to university. These students are absolutely on the margins of affordability when it comes to their capacity to pay to go to any university in the USA. And we're not talking about Harvard here, we're talking about the local state university. And these are the people who can only go if they can combine work with study. And the purpose of these grants is to deny loans to those students who get too few credits from their student activities a term, meaning that those who have to work hardest to get to university will be denied the additional funding that these grants normally provide to ensure that they can get the education they desire to advance themselves and get out of the situation that they find themselves in.
Who's going to suffer most? Well, almost invariably, it will be minority groups in the USA.
There will be massive repercussions for the black community.
The Hispanic community will suffer as well, and so, of course, will anybody who is basically hard up in the States.
This is a deliberate attack on minorities and the lower class in the USA; precisely the groups that did in fact vote for Trump, but they're going to be penalised enormously. These students are going to be denied the chance of economic mobility so that they might improve their position.
You could, again, not find anything that is clearer indication of what the American far-right want.
They don't want to provide opportunity.
They don't want to encourage competition from people who have ability, but without the capital to afford to improve their situation except by having access to federal loans.
They want to keep those people in place.
This package, which is probably going to give away tax cuts, which might be worth more than $5 trillion to the very wealthiest in the USA, is going to impose cuts that will have a direct assault on the wellbeing of the poorest people in the USA at a saving to the federal government of approximately $1.6 trillion.
The balance still leaves the US running a bigger deficit, as is glaringly obvious. There could be a deficit of $3 trillion in this programme, which will increase US federal debt from $36 trillion, as it is now, to $39 trillion, as it will become. There is, then, nothing Republican about this. They are actually printing money to fund their tax cuts for the wealthy and are subsidising those tax cuts for the wealthy by imposing cuts on the poorest.
This is an assault on America.
It's an assault on its economy because it is denying that economy with the funds it needs to keep going.
It's an assault on the American poor because they are being denied the opportunity to access healthcare and education, both of which are fundamental to their progress.
It's an assault on the investment that is required in the US economy to make sure that it can advance in a world where climate change is very real, and yet there's going to be cuts in that area.
And simultaneously, the wealthiest in America will get wealthier, which does nothing whatsoever for the US economy at all. As has been shown time and again, when the wealthy get wealthier, they do not invest in productive capacity in an economy.
They do buy land.
They do inflate its value.
They do buy stocks and shares and inflate their value.
But they don't actually create value in the economy at all. Wealth never trickles down.
In other words, this programme is not about Making America Great Again, nor is it about making America wealthier again, nor is it about putting America to work. This programme is about making a few in America notionally very much richer, whilst punishing everybody else for having the basic temerity to exist.
Trump is declaring war on most people in the USA, in other words. It's there in black and white. This Big Beautiful Act is actually an assault on the people of the USA, and they ought to realise that and they ought to rise up against it.
And everybody, in every other country where the right-wing are becoming very powerful, and are threatening the status quo, should also realise that whatever the faults in that status quo, and there are many, let's be clear - we're not excusing the status quo here - but whatever the fault in that status quo might be the answer to the question that it poses with regard to its replacement is not to be found on the far-right.
The far-right is only offering programmes that will enrich a few, will impoverish the majority, and will undoubtedly make us all worse off.
This is a programme of hate.
Trump hates America.
Trump is showing that with this Bill, and at some point, this is going to rebound horribly on the whole of the USA, and who knows what will happen then?
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The One Big Beautiful Bill will no doubt excite Nigel Farage and Reform.
While we are still permitted to ask questions, perhaps we could enquire…
Would they like to emulate the Bill in the UK? Will they work with Liz Truss, Robert Jenrick and their cronies in The City to bring about real change? Will they increase interest rates to protect the pound against the inevitably weakened dollar?
We could also request Farage and co try a little harder to demonstrate some knowledge of the real economy where most of us survive – just?
I anticipate that Farage will do a Curate’s Egg – ‘parts of it are excellent!’ – but decline to specify which. Our supine (mostly) media will be unlikely to pursue it.
Which leaves the open question: how to supress the results of the elections supposed to be held next year? – working on the basis that a very large number of people will be very unhappy and will not vote for the Trump party.
The United States of Trumpism may well head towards Ruzzia in terms of how democracy (does not) function.
From Heather Cox Richardson’s “Letters from an American” 18 May 2025:
“And while the tax cuts would go into effect immediately, the cuts to Medicaid are currently scheduled not to hit until 2029, enabling the Republicans to avoid voter fury over them in the midterms and the 2028 election.”
Sneaky as well as nasty. They’re treating hundreds of millions of Americans as though they are idiots hoping that they won’t educate themselves as to what the vile billionaires and their Commander in Chief are up to.
She said that part of the Bill also prohibits State laws from regulating AI for the next ten years.
“Despite its gargantuan energy demands, harm to the environment, and threats to privacy, the administration is pushing AI hard, and the country’s leading AI entrepreneurs, including Elon Musk, Sam Altman of OpenAI, Jensen Huang of Nvidia, Ruth Porat of Google’s parent company Alphabet, and Andy Jassy of Amazon all traveled with Trump to Saudi Arabia last week. The Saudis are looking to diversify their oil-dependent economy and are now the world’s largest investors in artificial intelligence.”
The Bill is expected to pass in the House of Representatives by this weekend.
I can’t imagine how much worse this is going to be for ordinary families in the US. This is horrific. Trump wasn’t lying or joking when he said he didn’t care about them just about their votes.
The impact will be immediate.
People will realise it is coming. The fear will not go away.
It seems that most of the Act will not kick in until just after the next Presidential election.
Inflation pain for the average US citizen with little prospect of realistic wage increases to compensate for the foreseeable future.
One can only hope for the US that at the next Presidential election the Republicans are replaced and the Democrats have a sensible plan to follow and do so, to unravel the Act and improve the lot of the average citizen.
It won’t be just US citizens who bear the brunt. The Bill includes a provision to impose a 5% tax on remittances — money sent by individuals in the U.S. to recipients in other countries. That would have major implications for a number of countries and their people, especially India, and also Mexico, Philippines, Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Nigeria.
I missed that.
The fundamental problem is the right – and the extreme right in particular – have been, and currently remain, exceptionally good at making poor, “working class”, people believe that they’re on their side. That the policies that they want to pursue when in government will benefit the working person, the “blue collar” workers. Just look at who makes up the mass of the MAGA movement.
And in the US throw into that mix the anti Federal government movement that’s been encouraged and nurtured by the Republican party for decades. Then supplement that with culture war stuff (woke) to paint any Democrat and/or person who can be classed as liberal as an “other” – a threat – which the blogsphere in the US – aided on TV by Fox “News” and what a mix you have. It becomes far more important to the MAGA crowd that liberals/Democrats are being punished by the things they support being destroyed, such as diversity, inclusion and equality projects, or the arts, or universities, or museums, or national parks, etc, than it actually does MAGA supporters becoming poorer.
In short, the pain you’ll face is worth it as long as you see those liberal/democrat “others” being punished. And I’m not making that up: I watched an interview with a person from US Media Watch last week, and he said that’s exactly the feedback they’re getting from Trump supporters. Result: Trump is still their hero.
And it’s not just the US. Reform (and it’s previous incarnations) are exactly the same. As is/was the Romanian, pro Russian, party of the fascist who lost the presidential election on Sunday. As is/was Orban’s nationalist party in Hungary, ad infinitum. It’s the go to playbook and the far right/fascist that numerous academics and others have written about for years.
The other day I read a piece in The Guardian on Thurrock in Essex – a place that voted overwhelmingly for Brexit. And the major takeaway was that people were complaining that nothing much changed after Brexit. And I sat and thought, what the fuck did they think would change. Seriously?! Oh yes, they were told there would be investment in the town from the money that was apparently going to be “saved” through Brexit. And less “foreigners”, of course (speaking as someone from Essex, whose family goes back centuries in Essex/Suffolk, all I can say is that most people who now live in Essex appear to be “foreigners” as they’ve emigrated from London). All lies. But, as in the US, consistently hammered home by the right leaning mass media, now joined by social media entities and individuals.
And whose fault is it that Brexit failed to deliver? Ah yes, the liberal elite that control the “deep state”, hence why they now have to be rooted out in the local councils that Reform took control of recently. So, had they changed their opinion on Brexit? No, of course not. Why? Because nobody – no political party or anyone else – and certainly not the likes of The Sun, Express, Mail, Telegraph, and even the Times, which spend so much time and energy lambasting anything that might be even slightly “progressive”, and directing their readers back to an endless diet of resentment and victim-hood “politics”.
And so here we are: Trapped in a doom loop, which the right and it’s supporters in the media and across the world of wealth and privilege must now maintain (by whatever means, be it Trump, corruption, or whatever), to keep those who don’t have much pitted against those who have a bit more, but are in no way and threat to those who have it all.
“The meek shall inherit the Earth”. No they won’t. They never were going to and they never will. They simply get shat on by sociopaths like Trump and his enablers.
A very great deal to agree with.
Thank you.
Ivan
well said
I think the wealthy Americans who will benefit from this, and so allow it to happen, fall into two camps. One are those who are just greedy. Their unimaginable wealth is not enough, and they want more, forever. The other camp is those who are social engineering America into their image, or at least think they are. They want the state to be powerless and all wealth to sit with them. The only route to wealth and power will be through their patronage. America will become cities surrounded by slums, with empty rural areas, like many South American countries. If the nougties were the decade the rich won, this is the decade they consolidate their power. My only consolation is that no society survives this level of inequality. The likes of Trump, Musk, Thiel, and the Heritage Foundation think they are cleverly manipulating the world in their image. They need to read a history book or two, because this is how you engineer a revolution. If the same thing has happened repeatedly throughout history, it is hubris to think it won’t happen again. But hubris is the one thing these people have more of than money.
Richard
This and your video on children are just so briliant, your analysis is getting so much broader and deeper, and really starting to point towards just how radical our solutions will need to be. I am 61, economically inactive, working class, childless, from South London, living in Yorkshire, Millwall supporter living in the shadow of Crystal Palace’s success, good sense of humour, poor health, not on benefits -fit for work according to authoritarian and inhuman bureacracy, intellectual, highly educated, opera lover, ex-finance professional, and I feel like the entire system in the UK is attempting to extract my modest wealth (at least enough to make my own decision about no longer being fit for work) from me every day to impoverish me and make me homeless, turning me into a worse problem rather than giving me the fairly modest support that was once available to someone no longer able to work, and there are so many much worse off than me, and so many struggling in miserable, soul destroying (especially soul destroying in banking and finance) and poorly paid work. Radical solutions required, well if you see equality, a genuine democracy and government in the interests of all the people as the radical things they truly are. Obviously I didn’t vote for this terrible Labour government, possibly even worse than I expected. Quite like to see you run against Rachel Reeves in her Leeds constituency, just for the debate, although she surely can’t survive much longer, so against whoever the next chancellor is at the time. Keep up the good work, all the best.
That would be a fun idea – but it would have to be as an independent, and would waste a lot of money.
She would also duck the debates.