The Big, Beautiful Bill
The Big, Beautiful Bill is now the law, so it’s no longer a theoretical discussion about what the bill might do. We’re about to find out what it will do.
The Democrats’ Big Mistake
By Congressman Tom McClintock
The Big, Beautiful Bill is now the law, so it’s no longer a theoretical discussion about what the bill might do. We’re about to find out what it will do.
The Democrats have succeeded in frightening Americans into lopsided opposition. On the day it passed the House, a Quinnipiac poll registered just 29 percent public support compared to 55 percent opposition. This has encouraged Democrats to double down on their hysterical warnings of societal collapse -- warnings they hope will continue to resonate with the public.
What they don’t seem to grasp is that you can’t spin the economy. Everybody knows in their own lives exactly how the economy is doing and any politician who tries to tell them otherwise just looks foolish. (Remember Democrats telling us for years that Bidenomics was working?) The only economic indicator that matters is the answer Americans give to this question: “Are you better off today than you were two years ago?”
Americans may never realize this bill protected them from a 22 percent income tax increase set to take effect January 1st. A family making $75,000 a year, won’t feel its taxes rise $1,500 a year – so it won’t feel relief from this provision. We don’t feel what doesn’t happen, and Democrats are counting on this fact while stoking class resentments over “tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires.”
But millionaires and billionaires don’t work for tips. They don’t get paid overtime. And they don’t rely on social security. Working families do, and for the first time, the Big Beautiful Bill shields these earnings from being taxed. In addition, residents of high tax states will feel a big reduction in their federal income tax bill.
Yes, businesses get relief too – those awful millionaires and billionaires – mainly in their ability to deduct 100 percent of their expenses for equipment purchases. That means that manufacturers of every variety will add equipment to their plants, increasing the productivity -- and pay – of their workers while adding new jobs to make the equipment. By opening America’s vast energy resources, domestic production is about to rev up, a declaration of American energy independence that will reverberate throughout the entire economy.
Then add the completion of the border wall and the removal of millions of illegal aliens the Democrats allowed into our country. Under Biden, most of the new jobs were snapped up by foreigners and real wages fell. Under Trump, most are going to Americans and real wages are rising again as employers are required to pay a market rate for labor.
The Democrats’ mantra that millions of destitute Americans will lose their Medicaid coverage and die is about to be contradicted by reality. The only groups losing coverage are able-bodied grown-ups who refuse to get up off the couch and look for work, illegal aliens who refuse to go home and fraudsters. So, what happens when millions of legitimate Medicaid recipients who have been frightened by the Democrats realize their benefits are safe and untouched? We’re about to find out.
Will the national debt balloon? Only if you accept the assumption that the economy will grow an anemic 1.8 percent next year. The average 20th century growth rate, including the depression, was 3.3 percent. A mere three percent growth rate will generate $4 trillion of new revenues. And that doesn’t include hundreds of billions of dollars collected from imports or saved by eliminating waste identified by DOGE. In June, we ran the biggest budget surplus in many years.
So how will average Americans fare? They’ll be paying significantly lower taxes than they are today, particularly if they work for tips or overtime or are over 65 or have children, or live in high tax states. Wages long undercut by cheap illegal labor are already rising. Factories that make or buy equipment will be making and buying a lot more of it. No one unable to work will lose their Medicaid benefits. Their neighborhoods will be safer as criminal illegals are deported and not allowed to return. Their energy bills will be lower. And if all this relief creates just average economic growth, the deficit will begin to shrink.
Which brings us back to the simple question that will be put to people next year: “are you better off today than you were two years ago?” Obnoxious protests, hysterical rhetoric and doomsday trolling won’t change that simple and self-evident answer. One party will have been proven undeniably right and the other mendaciously wrong.
That’s what the Democrats fear most.
Congressman Tom McClintock represents California’s 5th Congressional District