I refuse to call it “One Big Beautiful Bill.” There is nothing beautiful about it.
The budget bill that Donald Trump is trying, with bullying and threats, to push through the Senate is truly an abomination, as it has been called by at least one famous person I also refuse to name.
The reason we in Bandera should care about the defeat of thisbillisbecausewerepresent two of the demographics most likely to be harmed by it: rural communitiesandlowerincome households. You can be a diehard Trump supporter and still hope that this budget plan is sent back to the drawing board for some major revisions.
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office released a damning summary of the potential impact of this budget bill should it pass the Senate: it would add $2.4 trillion to the federal deficit over the next 10 years while nearly 11 million Americans would lose their health insurance coverage. People in rural areas would be disproportionately represented in that group, including the 16%ofourfamilieswhorelyon SNAP(foodstamp)benefitsand the 50% of our children under 19 who are enrolled in Medicaid. Boththesefiguresarehigher inruralthanurbanareas;didyou realize that? I didn’t.
As we know too well, rural hospitalsoftenprovidetheonly health care available in our small towns and communities, and they are pressed to stretch every dollar of federal funding they receive, so reductions in that funding will lead to more uncompensated care. In fact, over 200 rural hospitals have already been forced either to reduce services or to shut down altogether.
You might be asking why, with all these drastic cuts in spending, will the bill still raise the deficit, and the answer is that it includes some additions to federal spending that the Republicans don’t want you to think about. They refer to “tax cuts” that were passed in 2017 but carried an expiration date of 2025. They want to make it sound like you and I will benefit fromtheextensionofthese tax cuts, but nothing could be further from the truth.
Have you heard of “reverse RobinHood”?By2027itisestimated that 83% of the benefits of these tax cuts will reach only the top 1% of taxpayers, while the cuts will decrease federal revenue by $3.7 trillion. So the GOP version of Robin Hood cuts your healthcare, guts federal programs that support the vulnerable among us, like children, messes with Medicare and Social Security despite RobinHoodhavingtoldushe’d neverdothat,andallsothatthe wealthy and corporations can paylessintaxesandmakemore profits. Oh, hell no!
Inthelatestnewscycle,one of the billionaires who shall be namelesscalledoutDJTforthe egregious spending increases included in the bill despite the GOP mantra that “fraud, waste and abuse” were being eliminated. This defection of a formerloyalistmayhaveblown some tiny cracks in the Koolaid pitcher,becauseafewRepublicans, especiallythoserepresenting rural areas, began to make little noises that their constituents were complaining. Even Marjorie Taylor Greene admitted that she mighthavemissedthe“twopages” ofthethousand-pagebillthat hadsomebadthingsinthem.
The crucial point here is that the outcome here is still very much in our hands. Marjorie didn’t speak up because she suddenly developed concern for the rest of us, she spoke up because enough folks called her office and said she should not support the bill. We can do this too.
Even though John Cornyn has become such a disappointment in his sucking up to Trump,itispresumablyTrump’s powertodefeathiminaprimary thatmotivateshim,sowecan showhimthathe’llhaveoursupport ifhesupportsus.AsforTed Cruz, if he gets a sense that the votersareswaying,he’lljumpon our bandwagon in a heartbeat. He’s just that kind of guy.
Please believe me that your friends and neighbors, even the most MAGA of the bunch, will not be helped by this budget bill. Don’t get me started about what it will do to our children, from their health to their education to the economy they will inherit. Hey, lots of fraud, waste and abuse in the free school lunch programs! Why do we even consider supporting a plan that will hurt our children?
Let’s insist that our Senators put more effort into these decisions thansimplyrubber-stamping a reverse Robin Hood bill that continues the flow of money uphill, to the folks that are plenty rich already. It not only robs from us, it knocks us to the ground and treats us like we don’t matter at all. It gets us indebtforthingswedidn’teven get. Well, guess what?
That’s not how Americans roll. Tell them yourself, preferably every day. They will listen if enough of us tell them.
Senator John Cornyn: 202-224-2934 Senator Ted Cruz: 202-224-5922 Susan Hull is a retired clinical psychologist, a horse trainer andanIndependentvoter.She appreciates that little ol’ Bandera has a newspaper that lets her say what she believes, and that little ol’ Banderans believe in helping each other when times are tough.
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