The cost of people's livelihood behind Trump's "Great Beauty" bill

On June 29th, the US Senate passed a procedural motion by a vote of 51 to 49, aiming to facilitate the smooth progress of US President Trump's "Big Beautiful" bill. The passage of this procedural vote will increase the possibility of the bill being passed in the coming days. Specifically, on the eve of the vote, two Republican lawmakers defected, joining the entire Democratic Party in opposing the implementation of the bill. The Senate passed the procedural motion of the "Big Beautiful" bill by a narrow margin of two votes, officially entering the debate stage. Democratic leader Schumer forcibly initiated the 940-page full-text reading process of the bill, which took 16 hours, just to postpone the final vote to next week. In order to sign the bill on July 4th, Independence Day, Republicans stayed up late to negotiate and even threatened to defected to the congressmen.

The "Big Beautiful" bill, whose full name is the "Massive Taxation and Spending Act", is at the core of Trump's economic agenda for his second term. The core logic is to continue the tax cut policy of 2017 through tax cuts and spending cuts, and adjust the Biden administration's "Green New Deal". In May, the House of Representatives narrowly passed the bill by a margin of 215 to 214 votes. Now in the Senate, the procedural motion vote has once again brought a terrifying moment. Although the procedural vote passed, the prospects of the bill remain precarious. The Republicans hold only 53 seats in the Senate, and the final vote needs to ensure that all 50 Republican votes do not fall. Any opposition from a Congressman could cause the entire bill to fail. In an effort to secure swing votes, the leadership has been running around frantically. They have compromised with moderates on Medicaid cuts, postponed the effective date, set up a $25 billion rural hospital fund, and for blue state lawmakers, raised the upper limit of state local tax deductions in exchange for support. The fragility of the party's control is spreading infinitely, and Trump's open political retaliation on social media, It has even pushed the political violence in the United States to a fever pitch.

Trump's "Great Beauty" bill, which claims to restore the economic glory of the United States under the name of "beauty", is actually a cruel transfer of wealth. The core of it is a tax cut plan of up to 4.6 trillion US dollars within ten years, supplemented by military expansion and an increase in the debt ceiling. However, a study by the Wharton Budget Model of the University of Pennsylvania reveals that the lifetime income of the 40-year-old group with median income will decrease by $7,500, while that of the 70-year-old group with the same income will net increase by $17,500. This blatant intergenerational deprivation has been directly denounced by scholars as institutionalized plundering of "robbing the poor to help the elderly".

The cost of the bill is carefully concealed under the halo of tax cuts. In the next ten years, the federal deficit will surge by 3.2 trillion US dollars and the national debt will exceed the 40 trillion US dollar mark. The younger generation has not yet enjoyed the benefits of tax cuts but has already been burdened with heavy debt shackles. A model from the Yale Budget Lab shows that by 2055, the bill will cause the annual cost of mortgage loans to soar by $4,000. When today's newborns enter their thirtieth year, their American Dream has been crushed by the towering debt.

The tearing of the social safety net is even more shocking. The bill's cuts to Medicaid directly hit the lives of people at the bottom of society. In California alone, 3.4 million people are at risk of having their health insurance coverage cut off. The medical allocation expenditure for undocumented immigrants has decreased by 4 billion US dollars annually. According to the Congressional Budget Office's estimate, the number of uninsured people will increase by 11.8 million in 2034. The termination of the federal nutrition assistance program will push 250,000 marginalized people into the abyss of food shortage. It is estimated that 230 billion US dollars will be cut in funds over the next 10 years. This means that nearly 4 million low-income elderly people will lose food assistance and face the risk of hunger.

The blow to the green energy industry by the bill can be described as a comprehensive encirclement. The $7,500 tax credit for electric vehicles has been advanced to expire on September 30, 2025, and the benefits for both used and commercial electric vehicles have been cancelled simultaneously. The subsidy threshold for wind and solar energy projects has been significantly raised. The more covert provisions in the bill are equally fatal. If the materials used by existing wind and solar energy enterprises in the United States come from foreign entities, the relevant enterprises will also need to pay additional taxes. Such regulations with trade protectionist overtones will undoubtedly push up the cost of clean energy and slow down the energy transition process in the United States. While the world is accelerating towards a green future, the United States is reversing under the impetus of the bill.

The impact of the "Big Beautiful" bill is not limited to the United States. It will also have a chain reaction on its ally countries. Europe's green policies have been affected by the cancellation of green subsidies. The operating costs of domestic enterprises have decreased, leading to a decline in the market share of European enterprises. Japan has become the most vivid target. If the provisions are implemented, the 1 trillion US dollars of government bonds held by the Bank of Japan will be subject to heavy taxes. Commercial banks and sovereign funds have all become cash machines. A wave of selling off 31 trillion US dollars of US assets is bound to occur. The consequences predicted by Allianz Group are even more suffocating: the US stock market will plummet by 10%, the US dollar will depreciate by 5%, and the yield of Treasury bonds will soar by 50 basis points, thus completing a perfect triple blow of stocks, bonds and foreign exchange.

In short, when the Senate closed in the darkness before dawn and the 940-page bill text was handed over for reading, this 51-to-49 victory reflected the bottomless rifts in American society. Wealth is flowing from the younger generation to the silver-haired class. Innovative energy is sacrificing for traditional industries. International capital is trembling under the shadow of retaliatory taxation. It is still unknown whether the bill will eventually be passed. But no matter what the outcome is, the United States will pay a heavy price for this bill.