At more than 1,000 pages long, the legislation definitely qualifies as “big.” But what the Republican House of Representatives passed as the “One Big, Beautiful Bill Act” just before Memorial Day led this author to a one-word reaction: “Meh.”
The bill has some positive provisions inside it, to be sure. But those beneficial traits ended up watered down or canceled out by other sections that seem to have little purpose other than to buy off votes in the House and/or key constituencies outside Congress.
Just as important, what The Wall Street Journal dubbed “a mishmash of Republican priorities” appears to have little coherence. That fact could create bigger policy messaging concerns heading into next year’s midterm elections.
Three Steps Forward, Two Steps Back
On almost every issue, the legislation amounts to a Rorschach test for conservatives, one in which the positive provisions and negative provisions nearly balance themselves out:
Deficits: On the one hand, the bill contains the largest spending reductions that Congress has passed in decades. But on net, the bill will increase the deficit and also includes a massive increase in the debt limit, effectively killing Congress’s motivation to go back a second time and cut spending again next year. It also does absolutely nothing to reform a Medicare system that is already functionally insolvent and a Social Security program rapidly approaching the same status.
Medicaid: The bill does slow the growth of Medicaid spending (don’t call it a “cut”) by a significant amount. It does so by incorporating several policies I previously suggested, from freezing the provider tax “scam” to ensuring budget neutrality for Medicaid waivers.
On the other hand, some might argue the bill represents the worst of both worlds for Republicans: It subjects them to political attacks for reducing Medicaid spending growth, but it does not make enough reductions to change the program’s explosive growth in fundamental ways. And a last-minute insertion allowing non-expansion states to increase their Medicaid spending — rather than changing the dynamic whereby states receive a higher federal match for enrolling able-bodied adults under Obamacare than the most vulnerable patients — attempted to “solve” a disparity between expansion and non-expansion states by throwing more money at it.
Taxes: The bill maintains the current rate structure passed as part of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) in 2017, ensuring that most Americans will not see a massive tax increase come next Jan. 1. (Full disclosure: The bill also marginally increases a small business tax deduction that I have utilized in recent years.) And the revised bill thankfully phases out many of Joe Biden’s green energy subsidies that pick winners and losers in the marketplace.
On the other hand, by expanding the deduction for state and local taxes, it gives a bailout to poorly run blue states. And the bill’s provisions regarding no taxes on Social Security and allowing people to deduct car loan interest (Do we really want to encourage Americans to take on more debt?) amount to expensive vote-buying giveaways that will not increase economic growth.
Defense: The legislation will provide needed resources to secure our southern border. But one could also argue that Republicans should use this legislation to fund an even larger military buildup to protect our nation from growing threats overseas, from China, Iran, and foreign terrorist groups to Russia and North Korea.
Widespread Ambivalence
I honestly don’t know if I would have voted to pass the bill in the House. But in its current form, I wouldn’t have much genuine enthusiasm for it — and I’m not the only one. In a recent interview, Oren Cass, dubbed “the MAGA movement’s top economic guru,” also showed ambivalence over the legislation and the process leading to its passage:
I liken it to a death march through a series of choices that nobody really wanted to be making. Nobody really has a case for it, and it’s not clear why it’s happening. I guess that might be the best that can be said for it. …
It’s striking the extent to which we’re not actually hearing a coherent case for why this is something the economy needs, or what relationship it actually has to some important priority or to boosting growth or anything else. …
I don’t even see anybody out there attempting to make a coherent cast for anything positive that the bill is going to achieve. It would be great to hear what they think that is, and I’d be happy to respond to it, but I don’t even see somebody telling a coherent story of what they think they’ve accomplished here, besides moving on past this thing [i.e., the expiration of TCJA provisions on Dec. 31] that they didn’t want to have to deal with.
Reading through Cass’s comments, the phrase “high degree of low enthusiasm” comes to mind.
Win the War, Lose the Peace
The Cass interview hits at a larger point: Who is making the case for the legislation? For that matter, what is the case for the legislation? How is it going to change the country, and what theme(s) will its policies advance?
Say what you will about Obamacare — at least Democrats knew what they wanted to accomplish via the legislation, even if I disagreed with practically all of it. But Cass suggests, rightly, that even if the bill passes and gets signed into law (not a certain outcome), the policy muddle inside it will prove difficult to explain and difficult to defend, particularly due to a general indifference in conservative circles about the messy compromises made to ensure its enactment.
All this suggests a potential problem ahead for Republicans in the midterm elections, trying to explain a “mishmash” agenda that lacks coherence and consistency. The bill may be big, but if lawmakers cannot sell it to the public, the outcome next November may be anything but beautiful.
