The Big Lie Behind the ‘Big Beautiful Bill

The 2017 tax cuts made corporate breaks permanent—locking in massive gains for the wealthy. Cuts for everyday Americans? They’re expiring this year.

According to the Tax Policy Center, the top 1% of earners got nearly 60% of the total benefits from the 2017 tax law. And now, the GOP wants to extend those benefits—deepening the inequity that law already set in motion.

Trump’s new tax push—referred to lovingly as the “One Big Beautiful Bill” (OBBB)—isn’t subtle about its priorities. It locks in permanent breaks for the wealthy and corporations, while offering a handful of short-term sweeteners for everyone else. Sure, there’s some relief on tips, overtime, child tax credits, even a new deduction for seniors—but all of it comes with caps, income limits, and an expiration date in 2028. Blink and it’s gone.

And while the top keeps cashing in, the rest of the bill quietly guts programs like Medicaid, SNAP, and housing assistance according to an analysis from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. That’s not reform—it’s redistribution. Just not the kind that helps people struggling to get by.

Republicans assert that slashing corporate taxes sparks investment, job growth, and higher wages. But we’ve heard that one before, many times.

In reality, the 2017 tax cuts led to record stock buybacks and executive bonuses—not booming hiring or better pay for everyday workers. The so-called “job creators” used their windfall to reward shareholders, not expand opportunity.

If tax breaks for the wealthy actually trickled down, we’d all be swimming in prosperity by now. Instead, what we got was more inequality, stagnant wages, and a bigger hole in the federal budget. Real growth—the kind that lifts people up—comes from investing in workers, not just padding balance sheets.

In 2017, no Democrats or independents voted for the tax reforms driven by Donald Trump’s agenda. The OBBB is also garnering no support from Democrats or independents. It is, surprisingly, facing resistance from Republicans. However, they are fractured between Fiscal/Deficit Hawks on one side who want deeper spending cuts and more Moderate “Blue State” Republicans who oppose the offsets that will profoundly impact constituents and potentially harm their chances of reelection. Unfortunately, in today’s political climate and with Trump’s control of his party, it still stands a significant chance of becoming law.

So ask yourself, if this plan is really about helping everyday Americans…

• Why are tax breaks for multi-millionaires and billionaires destined for permanence?
• Why are the benefits for the largest segment of the population packaged with limitations and hurdles with an expiration date stamped on the label?
• Why do the people writing these laws keep making sure they come out ahead?

Consider that over half of Congress are millionaires, and the House Ways and Means Committee—the group shaping our tax code—is packed with members who stand to benefit from the very cuts they’re proposing.

Add to this that every attempt by Democrats to amend the bill—in both its original form and during reconciliation—to preserve protections for low- and middle-income earners was rejected outright by their Republican counterparts.

Here’s the paradox: the Republican Party claims to stand for limited government, fiscal responsibility, and free markets.

But slashing tax revenue while demanding spending cuts is just government spending by another name—the kind that shrinks opportunity for most and protects advantage at the top.

Groups like the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB) and CBPP say it plainly:

“By slashing revenue while demanding austerity, the GOP’s approach amounts to reverse engineering the deficit—starving the government and then pointing to the emptiness as justification for further cuts to public programs.”

And then there’s the trade piece. The same lawmakers championing tax cuts in the name of economic freedom are also mostly supportive of Trump’s tariffs—government-imposed taxes on imports. If you're pro-free-market, backing tariffs doesn’t make sense. It’s a contradiction of Republican values—and not a small one.

In the end, the OBBB doesn’t fix the problems it claims to address. It delivers a permanent windfall to the wealthy, offers short-lived relief to most Americans, and undermines the very programs people need when times get hard.

Passing this bill? It’s like putting a Band-Aid on a bullet wound. Maybe it looks like help at first glance—but it ignores the damage underneath. And the longer we pretend this is a solution, the worse the wound becomes.