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Elliot Benjamin is a philosopher, mathematician, musician, counselor, writer, with Ph.Ds in mathematics and psychology and the author of over 230 published articles in the fields of humanistic and transpersonal psychology, pure mathematics, mathematics education, spirituality & the awareness of cult dangers, art & mental disturbance, and progressive politics. He has also written a number of self-published books, such as: The Creative Artist, Mental Disturbance, and Mental Health. See also: www.benjamin-philosopher.com.

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The Budget Reconciliation Bill

Big and Beautiful or Big and Ugly?

Elliot Benjamin

For over a year I have been facilitating a monthly in-person political discussion group at my local Maine library with the opening title The Preservation of Democracy/Republic [1]. For the first 6 months the rest of my title was "and the 2024 U.S. Presidential Election." Then the election happened, I took a break for 4 months, and subsequently decided to resume my group, changing the rest of my title to "After the 2024 U.S. Presidential Election." My subsequent group has taken place for the past 4 months.

Most of the people who have attended my groups have been Progressive Democrats like myself, but there have also been a number of people of different political persuasions, including some Trump supporters. One Trump supporter in particular has been a dedicated member of my group, having attended a number of my original before-the-election groups and each one of my thus far four after-the-election groups. For anonymity purposes I will refer to him as TS (for Trump supporter) in this essay. TS is a young adult, well spoken, articulate, and respectful, and completely supportive of Trump.

But what I want to focus on in this essay is what TS sent to all the members of the group about what I will refer to as the Budget Reconciliation bill. For TS this bill is indeed “big and beautiful” and for me and my fellow Progressive Democrats in the group, the bill is “big and ugly.” Here is a quick summary of the bill that was sent out as an Indivisible action [2], of the basic toxic features of the bill. Since the courts bond issue was in the original House version and I had a lot of concerns about it being in the bill, I am including the part about restraining the courts from taking actions against Trump's illegal acts even though the Senate Parliamentarian has recently conveyed that this cannot be included in a reconciliation budget bill [3].

• Drastically cuts SNAP, Medicaid, education, research, public broadcasting, clean energy, and much more, while at the same time providing hefty tax benefits to the very rich.
• Deprives millions of people of medical insurance funded by the affordable care act.
• Adds trillions to the national debt (5) and billions to our already bloated military budget. Adding to the deficit automatically requires cuts to Medicare.
• Requires anyone suing the government to pay a bond before the court can enforce injunctions or restraining orders against illegal actions by the Trump government.
• Prevents states from regulating artificial intelligence (AI), including its use in political campaigns and elections. If a state does not comply, they would lose federal funding for internet expansion.
• Repeals most federal clean energy and climate programs, ensuring higher levels of climate pollution and higher energy bills for millions.

TS sent to us by e-mail the White House portrayal of the bill in a number of details, after trying to read it to the group and not getting very far due to all the disagreements that were voiced in the group. I have not wanted to get into all the nitty gritty aspects of the bill that the White House is glorifying, as it all so repulsive to me, cutting programs like Medicare and Snap for people in need, likely cutting even Medicare, strengthening ICE for their deportations, destructiveness to the environment and further climate pollution, and giving massive tax cuts to millionaires and billionaires (see the Indivisible action summary above). But given that TS took the time to convey the White House perspective, I feel called upon to think about what he conveyed in more detail than I have thus far done. And I think that doing this in the form of an Integral World essay may be an appropriate way to do so, given that the Republicans in Congress are trying hard to soon pass some version of the bill [4].

To begin with, here is the e-mail (with some minor edits) that TS sent to us, describing the White House portrayal of the bill:

"Greetings All, I am sending the outline of the Big Beautiful Bill as provided by the White House Press Secretary I shared at the last meeting. I've changed some of the language slightly to my own as not to plagiarize. The provisions laid out in The One Big Beautiful Bill is not a budgetary continued resolution rather an agenda of promises kept. This bill will provide the largest tax cuts in U.S. history with Americans keeping more of their hard earned money. The bill includes no tax on tips for waiters, waitresses and service workers. No tax on overtime for law enforcement and firefighters. It will give a 100% tax deduction on interest payments for people that purchase American made vehicles. Americans earning between $30,000 and $80,000 a year will pay approximately 15% less in taxes after this bill is signed. According to the White House Council of Economic Advisors, the average family with two children's take home pay will be up to $13,000 higher because of the increase in wages and reductions in tax obligations. The Council of Economic Advisors also said that the average overtime worker receives a tax cut of roughly $2,000. This is good news for the hard working nurses and first responders that work overtime to make ends meet.
The big beautiful bill will increase the child tax credit to $2,500 per child and funds paid family leave. The bill also provides tax relief to seniors by allowing middle and low income Social Security recipients to deduct an additional $4,000 in payments to their taxable income. If this bill doesn't pass and Trump's tax cuts are not extended Americans will face the largest tax hike in history to the tune of 4 trillion dollars. The one big beautiful Bill also provides critical protections of Medicaid which will strengthen and preserve the program for decades to come through common sense efforts to eliminate waste, fraud and abuse, mostly fraud. Medicaid will no longer be used to pay for barbaric gender mutilation procedures on minor children and the 1.4 million illegal immigrants who are currently and improperly receiving Medicaid benefits will be kicked off of the program to preserve it for hard working American citizens who need it.
President Trump is protecting women, children, disabled individuals, low-income seniors and the most vulnerable people in our society. Democrat Representatives and Senators that oppose this bill are angry about basic Medicaid protections that will stop the funding of transgender insanity and illegal immigrants from ripping off American taxpayers. Without delay, Congress needs to act on the most significant investment in our border patrol and law enforcement agents in our nation's history. The bill insures that President Trump's popular and successful border security measures are made permanent. This bill gives border security officials more resources to do their jobs including a $10,000 bonus to ICE agents and border patrol personnel over the next 4 years. To provide these brave agents for desperately needed reinforcements on the ground, this bill allows for the hiring of thousands of new ICE personnel, Custom Officers and Border Patrol agents. These significant hirings will empower President Trump to continue delivering on his promise to carry out the largest mass deportation in the history of our country. That is a promise that got President Trump elected this past November.
The One Big Beautiful Bill advances American national defense interest ensuring the United States military has the necessary resources for the construction of President Trump's Golden Dome to safeguard Americans from potential attacks, give the Coast Guard resources to build more modernized ships and the Air Force to acquire better planes. This bill also finally modernizes Air traffic control in America, a bipartisan issue. It will allow President Trump to deliver on his promise to overhaul and update our air traffic control systems to keep Americans flying as safe and efficiently as possible. The previous Biden administration failed to act and do this themselves despite repeated warnings from the GAO which has resulted in unexpected delays at major airports like Newark that the Trump administration is working hard to address. When the One Big Beautiful Bill passes we will replace the current antiquated system as the FAA enhances safety in our skies, reduce delays and power the future of air travel in airports across the United States. That is just some of what this historic legislation will accomplish. It is absolutely essential that Republicans and Democrats unite behind the One Big Beautiful Bill and deliver on President Trump's agenda. This is a once in a generation opportunity to course correct our country on many wrongs over the past four years. There is no time to waste. Send this legislation to the resolute desk as soon as possible for President Trump's signature."

I sent TS's e-mail to my knowledgeable high school buddy, who sent back to me the following informative response, which I am conveying the essential parts of (again with some minor edits):

"First, the bulk of the tax cuts are the same ones he passed in 2017 (Tax Cuts and Jobs Act), when he was in office. The legislation and tax breaks were set to expire at the end of 2025. The reason was twofold: First - the Senate had to approve the package under its rules, which state essentially that you need 60 votes to pass without allowing a filibuster. To get away from that requirement, they used a provision that allows a vote of only a majority under budget reconciliation process as long as there is a neutral impact on revenues after 10 years. To do that, they had to sunset the tax breaks before the 10 years are up so that the taxes would revert to what they were before the legislation was passed. If they extended the cuts past that, they'd have to get at least 60 votes which would include democrats, and that wasn't going to happen. So now they have to pass a bill to extend the cuts.
Second - Trump assumed he'd win a second term in 2020 (forget that he says he did win) and that the tax breaks would end in 2025, when another president was in office and it would be that person's problem. He didn't expect that he'd have his second term when they end and he'd have to deal with it. Some of what he says is true, although the impacts are not correct. You can google something like 'impact of big beautiful bill' from the NY Times or Wash Post. They have fact checkers that address many of the impacts of the bill that the administration doesn't like. And you can look at what the congressional budget office says in their analysis. That's a non-partisan group reporting to congress (and both houses are controlled by republicans). The first big deal is that, contrary to what the administration says, the bill will increase the nation's debt by 2.7 trillion dollars over the next decade. Add the interest on the additional debt and that rises to more than $3 trillion. The changes to Medicaid will result in 7 million people dropping off the rolls - not because they don't meet the qualifications but because the new paperwork requirements are so onerous that many, who are generally poor and not well educated, will be unable to keep up with them. If you add in the results of the cuts proposed to the funds in Obamacare that bring down the insurance costs for those who qualify, will cause another 3 million to go without insurance - a total of 10 million people who otherwise qualify to drop out of the insured population.
Similarly, the reduction of something like $267 billion in SNAP funding will be generated by requiring eligible individuals to work 80 hours per month, or go to school, or have to care for underage children or be elderly and unable to work. Currently, more than 90% of those on Medicaid work - just don't earn enough to qualify for Obamacare or to pay for their own insurance (or work somewhere that provides insurance - most are hourly workers and get no benefits). They would now have to show on an ongoing basis that they're earnings are too low, or that they're taking care of kids or disabled parents or the like. Getting paperwork every month or even quarter might not be bad for you or me, but a lot of these folks won't be able to keep up and so will be dropped. That's where the savings come from. And since the feds would also reduce what the states get to reimburse doctors and hospitals for care, they'd have to generate state dollars to make up some of the federal dollar cuts.
The SNAP saving is simply a reduction so that eligible people will get less money for food. If states want these folks to still be able to feed their families, they'd have to raise state taxes to come with the money the feds cut. One of the reasons that red state (with their rural populations - generally poor) senators are likely to want to change this is that when you have no insurance, to get medical care you have to go to the emergency room of a hospital, which by law has to provide services. Small hospitals in rural areas cannot eat the costs and exist without medicaid reimbursement and will have to close their doors, leaving constituents with much longer commutes to get care, even for minor injuries and illnesses. And some will die without faster access to medical care once those hospitals close. Or the states will have to come up with their own dollars to make up the difference, which may require they raise their own taxes. Some of the cuts proposed, like dropping taxes on tips and overtime, are what's in the bill. But it reduces revenues without reducing spending and just increases the deficit and adds to the national debt. The administration says there will be more budget reductions by cutting fraud and abuse, but as DOGE found, that aint gonna happen enough to make up the shortfall. They also say the tariffs will raise a shit load of money to make up the difference. But the CBO, as well as many conservative economists say that won't happen either. Any dollars gained through tariffs will be paid by either businesses or consumers here (the foreign businesses don't pay it - the companies receiving the goods have to pay up, there will be an increase in inflation, and there aren't enough American companies to make up the difference in goods. And, as the bottom of the workforce is reduced because they're arresting all the immigrants without papers who do that work, there aren't enough Americans to take those jobs. And if American businesses want to pick up the slack, they'd have to invest and build new factories which take years to complete."

My friend also suggested that I check all of this further through the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) website, and I have tried doing so [5]. But I am motivationally challenged to seriously delve into this kind of economic detail, so to supplement my friend's response to TS's e-mail, I will simply reproduce the following CBO summary of the distribution effects of what I am referring to as the Budget Reconciliation bill, which I think is a no-brainer that effectively puts TS's and the White House's portrayals in the important light that it needs: it may temporarily help middle class and upper class families at the expense of lower class families:

” This letter responds to a request for an analysis of the distributional effects of H.R. 1, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, and updates the preliminary analysis the Congressional Budget Office provided in the letter dated May 20, 2025. CBO and the staff of the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) recently estimated the budgetary and distributional effects of H.R. 1 as passed on May 22, 2025. On the basis of those estimates, CBO allocated the effects on revenues and spending to households. The agency also allocated to households the effects of states' estimated responses to changes to health programs—primarily Medicaid—and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).
CBO estimates that if the legislation was enacted, U.S. households, on average, would see an increase in the resources available to them over the 2026-2034 period. The changes would not be evenly distributed among households. The agency estimates that in general, resources would decrease for households toward the bottom of the income distribution, whereas resources would increase for households in the middle and top of the income distribution.
This analysis includes most, but not all, provisions of H.R. 1. The distributional analysis of changes to taxes and tax-related outlays is based on analysis done by JCT. Therefore, the analysis in this letter excludes any tax provisions not allocated in JCT's distributional analysis of H.R. 1. Also, CBO's analysis does not reflect the effects of the additional debt-service costs or the macroeconomic effects of the bill.

CBO estimates that the budgetary effects of the legislation would affect household resources through four channels over the 2026-2034 period:

• Federal taxes and cash transfers would increase household resources by $3.1 trillion, on net (in 2025 dollars). In particular, changes to federal tax provisions, especially extensions of provisions of the 2017 tax act and reductions in subsidies for health insurance under the Affordable Care Act, would affect household resources. Changes to student loan programs would also affect those resources.
  
• Federal and state in-kind benefits would decrease household resources by $1.0 trillion, primarily because federal spending on benefits provided through Medicaid and SNAP would be lower. Changes to program benefits that states made in response to changes in federal policy would also reduce household resources.
  
• States' fiscal responses would increase household resources by $10 billion, on net. Those responses consist of the tax and spending changes implemented by states in response to changes to their fiscal position. In CBO's assessment, Medicaid eligibility changes under the legislation would reduce states' spending on Medicaid benefits. Those decreases would be largely offset by the new matching requirements for SNAP, which would increase state spending. In CBO's analysis, states, in the aggregate, would use the resulting overall reduction in benefit spending to increase spending in other areas and to reduce taxes, both of which would increase household resources.
  
• Other spending and revenues would increase household resources by $129 billion, on net. The spending and revenues in this category were allocated as if they were public goods. This category includes federal spending on defense, border security, and infrastructure. Those outlays are partially offset by reductions in federal pensions, receipts from spectrum auctions, and changes in receipts and outlays associated with changes to emissions regulations.”

Putting everything together: my friend's informative response, the Indivisible action toxic basic features summary, and the CBO description of the distribution effects, I feel very strongly that this is a “big and ugly” bill and I fervently hope that it is not passed. I also welcome more informative responses from interested Integral World readers.

Notes and References

1) See Elliot Benjamin (December, 2024), Facilitating U.S. 2024 Presidential Election Discussion/Support Groups to Ease Political Strife and Polarity: My Experience. Society of Humanistic Psychology Newsletter, December 2024, pp. 10-13.

2) See the progressive grass roots Indivisible organization website.

3) See "Senate GOP 'frustrated' by parliamentarian's Medicaid ruling in Trump's bill -- but won't overrule her",

4) See "GOP leader sets Saturday vote on Trump 'big, beautiful bill' despite Republican pushback", thehill.com

5) See "Distributional Effects of H.R. 1, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act", www.cbo.gov