For an international perspective, I picked the Guardian’s story to frame our discussion. Late yesterday, the UK paper ran an article headlined, “Trump’s big bill achieved what conservatives have been trying to do for decades.” The crestfallen faces of liberal MSNBC anchors on hearing about the bill’s passage tell you everything you need to know:
They did it! Right on schedule, too. Oh, frabjous day! My authorial pen waxes poetic:
’Twas grundle-time, and Swampy beasts
Did whimper-wail in fetid bogs;
All jabberjawed were bureaucrats,
And MSM loosed spin-fog.
“Beware the OBBBA, my child!
The claws that slash! The cuts that snatch!
Beware the grift-bird’s golden hoard,
And shun the debt-born patch!”
He took his fiscal blade in hand:
Long time the libsome foe he sought—
So rested he by CBO tree,
And stood awhile, in thought.
And as in budget-thoughts he stood,
The OBBBA came, with grinding teeth,
All paper-bound and rider-crowned,
It howled: “You’ll pay beneath!”
One-two! One-two! And through and through
The trenchant pen went snicker-snack!
He left them stunned, and with their funds
He marched the budget back.
“Hast slain the porksome beast, my Prez?
Come to my arms, you MAGA boy!
O frabjous day! Great tariffs, yay!”
He chortled in his joy.
’Twas grundle-time, and liberals wept
As spending shrank like salted slugs.
Their DEI’s de-authorized,
And busted were their debt plugs.
So.
Thank you, dear reader, for that brief indulgence. Now, on to the substance. Mind you, I have not (yet) fully read the text of the final bill. What follows are partial summaries of information assembled from credible sources. I was forced under hellish deadline pressure to rewrite this section twice, because I couldn’t locate various claims from the articles in the bill itself.
Since we’re in the fog of political war, minor points may be subject to change.
It is perhaps no better gauge of Trump 2.0’s irresistible political power than that Congressional Republicans heartily embraced the classic Trumpian name: the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA). Or, as I prefer, the “Omnibus Bill for Budgetary Brutalism and Accountability.”
The OBBBA is many things, and the hot takes are blooming this morning like mushrooms in the dewy grass, making it all but impossible to understand exactly what just happened. Scrolling social media about the OBBBA gives one the same alarmed sensation as having just come to rest after a massive interstate multi-car pileup.
We know one thing for sure: The OBBBA checked-off a massive wish list of conservative goodness. Tax relief (tips, social security, overtime), newborn investment accounts, really defunding Planned Parenthood (finally!), ending Biden’s green subsidies, imposing welfare work requirements, and much more.
And, emerging like a hypersonic missile from the maelstrom of statutory incoming fire, I detected a larger theme: a presidential sledgehammer.
Immigration got the biggest boost. A $30 billion allocation supercharged ICE’s operational footprint, including for expedited removals, detention expansion, and interjurisdictional deputization under the INA, allowing local law enforcement officers to be deputized as federal immigration agents.
A $10 billion “State Border Security Reinforcement Fund” allows states to apply for substantial grants to fund their own enforcement activities—provided they cooperate with federal priorities. This embeds a federalism-based enforcement surge within DHS control, allowing the Executive to co-opt state forces without surrendering state supremacy.
States that don’t cooperate won’t get paid. Sorry.
Naomi Steinberg, Vice President of a large immigrant activist group, said, “The bill is essentially a slush-fund that will turbo-charge more raids, detentions, and rapid-fire deportations that defy basic due process norms. Simultaneously, it leaves refugee communities without access to support for basic needs. This is a dark day for the country, and we must bear witness to the terror this bill could bring.”
The OBBBA explicitly funds removals under the INA, encouraging mass removals without individualized hearings— a classic Trump-era policy previously halted by courts and executive discretion. This provision alone could moot many of the pending immigration lawfare cases.
The bill mandates expansion of biometric tracking for aliens at their entry, including DNA sampling, broadening the executive branch’s surveillance and identification net for both lawful and unlawful entrants.
Media is nearly at its wits’ end (which isn’t very far). NPR, yesterday:
The OBBBA also imposes a slate of mandatory fees for legal immigration challenges, significantly increasing the cost burden on noncitizens seeking to contest adverse INS rulings. For example, it sets the initial fees for challenging removal cancellations at $600, and for filing appeals at $900, but allows the Attorney General to increase the fees to any amount.
The provisions effectively erect a new financial barrier to ‘due process’ in immigration proceedings, favoring expedited enforcement by reducing the pool of illegals able or willing to appeal adverse decisions. It greatly increases the cost to activist groups for mass appeals. Best of all, part of the money goes back to DOJ for immigration enforcement cases.
There was a lot more. And, perhaps not directly related to the OBBBA, but still fun, see this AP headline (published yesterday):
That was fast! They had a chance, and funding, to self-deport. They should have taken the deal.
It will take a few days for the dust to settle and the boundaries of what just passed to become clearly known. So far, there are two main complaints about the OBBBA from the left and from ‘moderates,’ and one minor quibble, all of which are easily rebutted.
First, conservative critics complain that OBBBA blows the budget. The truth is, the bill contains a historically high level of cuts— nearly $1.5 trillion. The larger, offsetting ‘increases’ everyone is complaining about are estimates provided by the CBO, which is restricted by various rules that preclude it from accounting for things like increased tax revenues from economic growth or tariff earnings.
In other words, the CBO’s estimate is a bad guess, and the Administration adheres to its claim of a budget surplus.
Even more to the point, the American public is not yet ready for a real austerity budget. The budget hawks (I won’t name names) are, in a most cowardly fashion, actually advocating for things like trimming Social Security. There is zero political appetite for touching those kinds of electrified rails, and the so-called ‘budget hawks’ are not even volunteering to take the incoming fire.
Second, liberal critics hysterically cry that it cuts Medicare for the neediest citizens! But all anyone has to do is read the bill, and that lie is easily exposed. All the bill includes are commonsense tweaks to eligibility for welfare, like minimal work requirements for able-bodied recipients. The reason you’ll never see any actual bill language quoted by critics is because it’s simply not there.
Finally, and less meaningfully, some never-satisfied conservative critics complain that the bill didn’t go farther. But these critics misunderstand the basic process. To circumvent the Senate filibuster, the bill could only include items related to the budget. There were loads of great things in the House version, like tackling the courts once and for all, which had to be stripped out for passage in the Senate since they weren’t related to spending.
Expect other quibbles. For instance, the provision to defund Planned Parenthood (and every other group providing abortions) was great, but it only lasts one year. That sounds very temporary, especially the way time flies these days, but it leaves political room for a later extension, and you’d better bet the sides are already lining up for that fight next year.
Meanwhile, Boston Globe, last night:
Assuming the GOP can stick the landing next year, hold the House and expand the Senate majority, expect to see OBBBA II in 2027.
I’ll update you as more reliable information emerges from the cloud of psyops and I get a chance to look more closely at the text.
They’ll have to overcome the Ministry of Propaganda. The left wanted a recession and, as a consolation, they’ll try to make this bill a monster that kills children. There’ll be no disguising the tax breaks for the working people, but a lot of the left aren’t exactly “working people”. They won’t get it.
A man making $100,00 an hr. is not “working people”. i you dont watch CNN, I refer to Jake!
Who BTW was born “with a silver spoon in his mouth”! Dad a MD!
J. Longfellow rest easy.
Poem still my “cup o tea”!
” …conservative critics …”. MY ASS. ‘BUSH REPUBLICANS. GWB made government more intrusive and bigger every year 8 STRAIGHT YEARS!
If you study planned parenthood, they really concentrated on abortions, and nothing else. Making able bodied people work? Oh my what a shame. kicking illegals off medicaid that hard working taxpayers were funding? Yea! It is about time American citizens are placed first.
No More Taxes to the UN make them sell pencils just to pay for their Food Bills
Had Dole not been, “THE MOST LIBERAL MAN IN CONGRESS FOR 50 YEARS!” *. ! American taxpayer funding would’ve ended 44 years ago! Lefty Dole – for whom I didn’t vote – stopped Rony 8 straight years.
As well as many other conservtive goals..Listing my most inportant:
Kill Ed Dept, Clean house on CIA, defund NPR/PBS..Lefty Bob prevented many otherconserhtive things Ronny sent to Congress!
Dole was not a “BUSH REPUBLICAN”; HE WAS FAR LEFT but he never worked to defeat a conservative Republican as bush republicans have done over 1,000 times the last 63years. In the last 10 years Bush backed: Clinton, Biden, Harris.
He “won” with Jo.