The US has never been short of hideous or harebrained legislation from both liberals and conservatives. But President Donald Trump's "big beautiful budget bill,” passed on Thursday by Congress, outdoes anything in living memory.
In one gigantic sweep, it enacts at least four major national initiatives, each of which would alone qualify as among the most appalling legislative acts in modern American history.
It will constitute one of the largest transfers of wealth from poor and working Americans to the rich, involving major tax cuts targeted squarely at the wealthiest segment of society. It eliminates health care for anywhere between 12-17 million Americans currently reliant on the Medicaid programme. It massively increases funding for the military and, more importantly, the apparatus of apprehending and detaining in giant prison camps undocumented migrants and asylum seekers. And, in this process of slashing taxation while splurging on spending, it will supercharge an already alarming national debt.
Perhaps the best summary of this legislation, likely to be the signature legislative accomplishment of Mr Trump’s second term, came from independent Senator Angus King of Maine: “This bill isn't just irresponsible, it's cruel. It is literally taking food and health care away from lower income and middle income people to give a tax break to millionaires.” That qualifies as an objective fact.
Even many, if not most, of the bill's supporters are well aware that it's the height of irresponsibility. Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski confessed, “Let’s not kid ourselves”, it’s “not good enough”, resulting from “an awful process – a frantic rush to meet an artificial deadline”. That was her assessment mere minutes after she cast the decisive vote allowing its passage in the Senate.
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The creation of a hard-core immigration police state will be another major step towards American authoritarianism and the bolstering of a "power ministry" closely aligned with the President. The administration hopes to arrest and detain thousands of migrants, most of whom will not have been convicted of crimes, every day in the coming years. Even if that is unlikely to happen, the swarming of masked and armed immigration officials swooping down on everything from school pick up zones, shopping centres, bus stops and houses of worship will certainly metastasise.
Republicans are ignoring all other aspects of the legislation, particularly the dire healthcare impact, and emphasising the new anti-immigrant police state apparatus. This is so central to the Trumpian agenda that it virtually defines what it means to "make America great again".
Mr Trump has expressed the need for scores of new prison camps for migrants, hoping that they will "morph into a system where you’re going to keep it for a long time”. He has also floated the idea of deporting some naturalised US citizens.
A similar logic applies to health care. North Carolina Senator Tom Tillis said he couldn't support the bill and won’t stay in the Senate (knowing he can't, without Mr Trump's backing) because Republicans are lying to Americans that there will not be massive healthcare loss. He asked what he’s supposed to say to the 600,000 North Carolinians likely to suddenly find themselves without any health care after repeated promises that no such thing would ever take place, and warns of a political disaster.
In effect, Republicans are performing a partial repeal of Obamacare, which they always hated but had been unable to find a workable alternative to and therefore have not been able to repeal. Gutting Medicaid gets them as close as they can under current circumstances.
The main beneficiaries are the richest 1 per cent of Americans, who have seen their wealth steadily rise in recent decades as the rest of the country stagnates or declines. The national debt is so huge that servicing it is a greater expense than the vast US military. But making that problem worse – adding up to a staggering $3.4 trillion over the next decade – is apparently a small price to pay to secure additional benefits to those who need it the least. When it’s defended at all, this largess is cast as economic stimulus.
When the real pain – particularly the cuts to Medicaid – hits Main Street, the Democrats will receive an enormous opening for attacking Mr Trump, his agenda and his Republican allies. But it's unclear they'll be able to seize the opportunity.
The immigration measures are likely to be relatively popular, and most Americans cannot be galvanised, at least at this stage, by appeals to preserve democracy and the rule of law. Rather, they are more concerned with their own daily struggles.
To strike back at the Republicans effectively, Democrats will have to unite around kitchen-table issues, including health, taxation and the grotesque inequality of wealth that is being gratuitously exacerbated by a Republican party that falsely claims to be labouring in the interests of blue-collar, working-class Americans.
Can they do it? I wouldn’t bet on it. Republicans are much more unified, especially with Mr Trump ruthlessly enforcing a strict party line. Democrats are going to have to get over their structural problem of essentially being a coalition of diverse interest groups that tend to insist their specific issue is overriding and instead develop a message about Republican hypocrisy and unfairness that speaks to Americans as a unified national constituency. Rather than simply calling Mr Trump a would-be tyrant, they will have to argue he has reneged on key promises or failed to fulfil them.
Going to political war on behalf of immigrants, the constitution or rule of law is likely to fail, whereas championing working Americans against a rapacious, grasping and obscenely indulged economic elite could be a tremendous political game changer.
They will also need an effective national leader. At present, there’s no sign of one. This ghastly bill ought to provide huge opportunities for a Democratic resurgence. But don't hold your breath.
