More Detail on Trump’s “Big, Beautiful, UGLY Bill”

On July 3rd, the House of Representatives voted in favor of the single most inhumane piece of legislation in modern American history – a budget that strips healthcare away from 17 million Americans, takes food assistance away from 3 million Americans, eliminates school meal access for more than 18 million kids, adds nearly $4 trillion to national debt, sends electricity costs surging, and substantially raises health care premiums for older adults with ACA coverage.

All for what? Just so that 84 of the wealthiest people of the world get a tax break. So Donald Trump got what he wanted. His so-called  “Big Beautiful Bill” has now become law. Say goodbye to Medicaid, and say goodbye to SNAP.

The “Big, Beautiful Bill” slashes food and health benefits for the poorest Americans, while giving tax cuts to higher earners – blowing a hole in the nation’s safety net, accourding to healthcare experts and advocates for lower-income people.

Why it matters…  Experts say the cuts could unleash a tadal wave of pain – overcrowded emergency rooms, an increase in chronic health care issues, more medical debt, and more folks going hungry.

While a handful of the wealthiest people of the world get richer, the middle class and some of the poorest people of the world will die, because they will be denied health care. So now there is “No tax on tips” which gives just a few people a break, but that provision in the bill expires in a few years. But what about “Lower taxes for the rich” because of the bill. The bill extends the 2017 tax break that Trump gave to the rich in his first term. This bill cements this tax break permanently for the rich.

What happened about “No taxes on Social Security”? That provision was pretty much cut out of the bill, even though Trump promised that he would eliminate taxes on Social Security. A tax deduction on Social Security was added, but capped at $6,000. 95% of people who collect Social Security will continue to pay taxes on their benefit.

The people still do not know what’s in a bill that the Senate and House approved of and that Donald J. Trump signed into law. The lawmakers didn’t even have time to read the whole bill. But what is known is that the rich benefit and the middle class and poor are now behind the 8-ball.

So again, let’s go through some of the highlights that will haunt the Republican party in the mid-term elections.

  • $1.1 Trillion in Health Care Cuts.
  • 17 million losing health care.
  • Medicaid will disappear.
  • Kids with disabilities and the ones needing insulin are about to loose that.
  • All government assistance, including food stamps, housing and government assistance is lost just to give a massive tax break to 84 of the richest people in the world.
  • $4 Trillion tax cut for the rich would lock in many of the 2017 tax cuts passed in Trumps first term for the richest Americans.
  • It turbocharges funding for Trumps massive deportation.
  • It begins a seismic shift in the nation’s fiscal trajectory and raises the risk of a debt crisis. The national debt rises substantially, with $3.5 Trillion to $5 Trillion added.
  • In the Quinnipiac poll, only 29% support the bill, and 55% oppose it. The lawmakers that represent their people did exactly the opposite of what the majority wanted, just so that they could please Donald J. Trump. In a Fox News poll, only 39% support the bill, and 59% oppose it.
  • This bill will damage small cities and towns, many of which are Republican strongholds. Why? Because it stops money from being destined to local hospitals, approximately 1,000 hospitals across the country. Many of these hospitals will close because of the lack of funding. These hospitals are in rural areas, where the hospital itself is one of the largest employers in the area, and people will lose jobs. Towns will file for bankruptcy. They can no longer stay solvent.

Medicaid will no longer be approved for people that do not qualify for Medicare.

The so-called fiscal conservatives fell in line with the bill. The Republican party caved in. No longer can they ever own the moniker of being a fiscal conservative. The Republican party is a joke, and they do not represent their constituents, but instead they represent Donald J. Trump, a convicted felon, a tax cheat, a fraudster and a convicted rapist.

Donald Trump 2024 Campaign Tax Plan

March 14, 2025

Actually, Donald Trump has a 2024 Campaign Tax plan, but the benefits from it along with the fallout does not make any sense. He floated around several tax policy ideas, but he wanted to extend the expiring 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) changes. The tax cuts he gave the rich in 2017 ballooned the Federal Deficit by billions. Now he wants to do it again. But how he plans to do it will be nearly impossible and to say he will balance the budget in his second term, he surely must have another plan to accomplish his goals. At least I hope so, because he’s not going to get anywhere on this in short order and especially not with just tariffs and his campaign tax plan.

But the impact of his proposals will be very different if implemented, depending on which policies he puts forward and how he structures them.

I believe that some of his proposals are designed in a way that would promote long-run economic growth. But what is it going to be for Americans in the short term. PURE HELL! There is no other way to say it. People have to survive the short term in order to benefit from future economic growth. By then, we will all be living under a bridge somewhere.

He’s mentioned there should be permanent expensing for equipment, machinery and research and development (R&D). That’s reasonable, but does he have the smarts to get that done in his second term? I can’t see him accomplishing anything that would help the middle class.

Case in point, some of his tax proposals would worsen the structure of the tax code and are poorly designed. They wouldn’t contribute as much to long-run economic growth.

Unfortunately, I’m talking about Social Security income and ‘no tax on tips’. For me, it would be wonderful not to have to pay income tax on my social security, just because my wife’s income combined with my social security is above $32,000. I pay approximately $3,500 a year in taxes on my social security. So I have to save at least 10% of my social security check to pay taxes on that money that I already earned while working and paying taxes on the money I took home. In the past, I didn’t pull money out of my monthly social security check, but now I am doing just that. I filed ‘A Voluntary Withholding Request’  tax form, known as FORM W-4V. Saving that money each year to make sure I pay enough taxes by the end of the year is a good thing, but that’s money that I could have deposited in a savings account with interest,  But then what about exemptions for tips? Sure, that would make restaurant servers happy to be able to keep all their hard earned time money, but presently since it is income that they make while working for the company that employs them, they must pay taxes. Even if they didn’t have to pay a tax on their hard earned tips, there would be very little or no long-run economic growth. That’s kind of right to say that the employee getting the tips wouldn’t even get them if the employer didn’t hire them. So maybe the employer should get part of the tip.

Worse than any of this just mentioned, Trump’s reliance on import tariffs to offset the cost of tax cuts for the rich is a particularly distortive way to raise revenue, especially when all this seems to do is raise the ire of the tariffed countries he is attacking. Does Trump tell the American people that he’s putting us through hell with his tariffs to help his rich friends get another tax cut? Of course not!

But let’s get to the nuts and bolts of the issue here. I believe that his tariffs and his retaliation from his trading partners would totally null the long-run economic benefit that he’s proposed in his tax cuts. All for what? All for the ‘PAIN’ that people have to bear because Trump wants to play God-Almighty with the world. He wants all countries to bow to him, and he’s finding out in a short period of time that they will not bow to him and have other means to trade with partners that can be fair and not charge retaliatory tariffs just because they think they are being over-taxed. When it comes to trade between countries, keeping business private and discuss trading issues between specific countries is done best by the countries in a personal setting, not open for the whole world to see. If Trump is ignorant enough to embarrass a country in front of the world regard trade practices and institutes tariffs to solve the problem, the country being attacked has that same right. Countries like Canada, Mexico and China are not afraid of Trump and they can cause Trump just as much pain if not more that Trump can. Unfortunately, we are going to have to feel that pain. Trump claims that will be for a short period of time. I believe that it will be long term.

What he is actually doing or is trying to do with his tariffs is to offset the economic benefits of the policy changes he’s pushing forward to begin with, and his tax policies will not move in a positive direction for pro-growth, and fiscally responsible tax reform.

Again, Trump has a campaign tax plan, but never fully thought out what results he could actually gain from going forward with such a tax plan.

So in the following outline is the modeling for proposed major provisions by Donald Trump.

  • Making the individual TCJA expirations permanent except for the cap on SALT (effective January 1, 2026)
    • Rates and brackets
    • Standard deduction
    • Personal exemption
    • Child tax credit
       and other dependent tax credit
    • Limitations on itemized deductions (excluding SALT) and elimination of Pease limitation
    • AMT changes
    • Section 199A pass-through deduction and noncorporate loss limitation
  • Making the TCJA estate tax
     changes permanent (effective January 1, 2026)
  • Restoring the TCJA business tax provisions (effective January 1, 2026)
  • Reinstituting the domestic production activities deduction (DPAD) at 28.5 percent to lower the effective corporate tax rate for domestic production to 15 percent
  • Exempting tips from income taxes
  • Exempting Social Security benefits from income taxes
  • Exempting overtime pay from income taxes
  • Creating an itemized deduction
     for auto loan interest
  • Eliminating the green energy subsidies in the Inflation
     Reduction Act (IRA)
  • Raising current Section 301 tariffs on China to 60 percent
  • Imposing a universal tariff on all US imports of 20 percent
  • Foreign retaliation of 10 percent on all US exports plus additional in-kind tariffs on US exports to China

So what can be the economic effects of Trump’s Tax proposals?

First and foremost it has been determined that the proposals would increase the 10-year budget deficit by some $3 trillion in a conventional manner, and $2.5 trillion dynamically. The debt to GDP radio would increase by some 20 percent to 223% conventionally and 217% dynamically. There would have to be higher interest payment on the debt that would reduce American incomes by at least .8% and on the long run of -0.1%. This would negatively attack our economy.

Trump proposes to eliminate the green energy tax credits put in place by the IRA. Since they are temporary expansions there should be no long-run economic impact from eliminating them. But anything with the words ‘green energy’ in it is just dynomite for Trump. He’s going to try and get rid of it, regardless if it helps the American people or not.

Now after all this explanation of what could have been, will it ever become policy? I highly doubt it, because Trump is so hell bent with tariffs right at the moment, he has already spend almost half of his first 100 days with no real accomplishment benefiting the American people. I can’t wait to count the lies that will leak from his 100 day accomplishment speech we will have to bear witness to. Now that will be very painful.