Halls of Shame
“Have you no shame?” came to mind as I watched the Senate “Vote-a-rama” on President Trump’s so-called Big Beautiful Bill (aka the Big Betrayal Bill). Time and again Republicans voted to protect the extension of large tax cuts primarily benefitting the wealthiest in the country and big corporations at the direct expense of millions of working and middle-class Americans. And when cuts like these weren’t enough to fund the tax cuts, Republicans just added over $3 Trillion to the deficit and then changed the methodology for assessing the likely impact of the bill on the country to hide what they’d done.
Senator Thom Tillis (R NC) predicted that a whopping 663,000 North Carolinians will lose their health insurance with the passage of this bill. Nationally about 16 million will lose their coverage. For those who aren’t on Medicaid, including Medicare and Obamacare beneficiaries, their health insurance premiums are about to go up. When enacted, the overall impact on working and middle-income North Carolinians will also be harsh. A recent UNC study, shows that 338 rural hospitals will be at risk of closure, 5 of which are in NC.
Meanwhile, Senate Democrats, who are in the minority in both the US Senate and House, offered amendment after amendment to give Republicans a chance to vote to improve the bill. With few exceptions, Republicans voted to show their callous disregard for the welfare of their constituents. Indifferent to the health of children, they even refused to preserve access to Medicaid for families with a child under 12 and to prevent nursing homes from closing. Of note here is that sixty percent of North Carolina nursing home residents rely on Medicaid.
Republicans know that this bill is highly unpopular (opposed by 21 points). Hoping to avoid political pain for the harm they are inflicting, they scheduled most of the cuts to our social safety net not to go into effect until after the 2026 Congressional election. They have also hidden in the bill sweet deals for their favorite billionaires. Elizabeth Warren (D MA) noted on MSNBC that the day the bill is signed into law, a $15 billion check from the Feds will be making its way to META for doing absolutely nothing. And then there is the extension of an accelerated tax break that includes purchases of private jets!
In the passage of this bill we see no purer example of Republican disregard of the constituents who need them the most. There was, of course, much ringing of hands on the millions who would lose health coverage and jobs, the rural hospitals that would close, and the colossal debt that tax cuts for the superrich will leave for ordinary citizens and their children to pay down. But only two Republicans in the House and three in the Senate had the courage to vote NO with the Democrats. Adding insult to injury were images of Republicans, of whom NC’s Virginia Fox was front-and-center, celebrating their defeat of the most vulnerable and their victory on behalf of the wealthiest. Simply put, a win for greed over need.