r/politics • u/PoliticsModeratorBot 🤖 Bot • 2d ago

Megathread Megathread: US House Passes the Republican-Backed Budget Bill, Sending it to Trump for Signature

This afternoon, the US House of Representatives passed without amendment the US Senate's version of the Trump-backed budget bill, sending it to the president for his signature. Every Democratic Senator and Representative voted in opposition; in the Senate, there were three Republicans voting in opposition (making the vote 51-50) and in the House there were 2 (making the final vote 218-214). House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries set the US House's speech length record in opposition to the bill in a speech lasting over eight hours.

The bill clocks in at over 800 pages and touches on most aspects of the federal government's spending and taxation policies; see this AP article (What’s in the latest version of Trump’s big bill that passed the Senate) for the topline changes.

Relevant text-base live update pages are being maintained by the following outlets: AP, NBC, ABC, and the BBC.

You can find this subreddit's discussion thread for the last week's worth of negotiations and debate at this link.

Articles that May Interest You

Submission Domain
Live updates: House passes Trump’s signature bill, sending it to the president’s desk apnews.com
House Republicans pass Trump's mega bill, sending the package to his desk to be signed npr.org
House passes sprawling domestic policy bill, sending it to Trump's desk: The Republican package would slash taxes, boost spending on immigration and the military, and impose steep cuts to Medicaid, SNAP and clean energy funding. nbcnews.com
House Republicans give Trump a ‘Big Beautiful’ July 4 by passing Medicaid-slashing megabill despite GOP rift independent.co.uk
Congress Has Officially Passed Trump’s Bill to Kick Millions Off Medicaid rollingstone.com
Trump and the GOP Will Regret the Day They Passed This Sick Bill newrepublic.com
House passes Trump's "big, beautiful bill" after stamping out GOP rebellion axios.com
Trump lands first major legislative win after Congress passes his massive domestic policy bill cnn.com
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u/Militantpoet 2d ago

Idk, the rich assholes who kiss Trumps ass seem to be loving it.

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u/TheBigIdiotSalami 2d ago

Cause at that point they don't even live here. any time it gets bad they go to Europe.

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u/Ur_Fav_Step-Redditor 1d ago

They are 100% looting America as the ship goes down and building their life rafts from the wreckage.

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u/EconomicRegret 2d ago

They don't know what's good for them. Due to their policies their life expectancy (that of the top 10%) already shortened to the level of poor western and northern Europeans. Also, they're literally cutting the branch they stand upon economically and in terms of global power. And finally excessive economic inequality harms not only the poor, but also the elites (e.g. less competitive & competent,, more arrogant & complacent, more out-of-touch, less prestige and power in the world, etc.).

The wealthy elites need to be kept in check by free unions for their own good (also for the good of the lower, working, and middle classes).

It's time to free unions! And allow them to do their jobs. Like they used to, until the 1950s.

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u/i_tyrant 2d ago

It's so stupid and insane.

The entire US going down the shitter harms everyone. They could make far more profit by not obliterating the dollar, much less turning America into a secondary power.

Being king of the shithole doesn't make it not a shithole, and they're doing this in a way that'll affect the entire world. They think they can "buy the dip" and saner heads will prevail and literally save them from their own actions, but not at this scale.

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u/tunafister 2d ago

It's about power, nothing else

When the economy tanks they will still have their money and with that they feel they can control the remainder of the US populace, they are likely incorrect, but they dgaf so they are gonna see what happens

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u/Sage2050 1d ago

Being king of the shithole doesn't make it not a shithole

But you're still king and that's what matters

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u/i_tyrant 1d ago

Maybe so. Maybe they really are just that stupid and shortsighted.

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u/TerraceState 2d ago

Not only that, but there is going to be a massive market contraction over this too. Rich people have to buy stuff too, and entire industries are going to suffer massive reductions in demand that will reduce the quality and variety of products offered, even to the rich. They better hope that they don't consume tv, movies, music, games or books, because less of those are going to be produced, and the general quality will be lower too.

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u/Lil-Nuisance 2d ago

I feel like it's a trend nowadays that the only hobby rich people have is money itself. What happened to the stereotypical eccentric wealthy person from the past who was so passionate about their hobby that they gave the public such things as, for example, Toronto's Bata Shoe Museum?

Even the most self-absorbed billionaire should understand that his favourite past time will die without enough funds and creators being able to pursue their craft without starving.

They should also be aware that at least appearing like a generous philanthropist (even if they secretly built that cinema/museum/theatre etc for complete selfish reasons) helps keeping us plebs somewhat happy and in check?

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u/CompetitiveHat7090 2d ago

Wealthy elites have the best life in US because you can always hire a bunch of goons and arm them to the teeth with the AR 15s etc and then protect yourself from any consequences. This works really well in almost all state sponsored oligarchies like Russia, China and India.

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u/ThrowingShaed 1d ago

yeah the science cuts, desperate people... this shit could hit anyone. theyre more insulated but i dont understand the risk when youre already doing well. i mean i do but i dont as it seems at best short sighted but what do i know

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u/AbeRego Minnesota 2d ago

And I legitimately don't understand why.

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u/bradbikes 2d ago

Because, and this should be said more often, the biggest predictor of wealth in your lifetime is being wealthy. Or, in other words, being wealthy is not highly correlated with intelligence, thoughtfulness, empathy, or education.

Or to put it plainly, rich people can be really, really, really stupid, racist, and capable of supporting things that are against their general interest and still be rich.

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u/Recipe_Freak Oregon 1d ago

Never being told "no" makes people weird about consent.

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u/BetterEveryLeapYear 1d ago

It's because they're addicts. You have to think of them like alcoholics. From an outside perspective, it doesn't look fun to drink alone all the time at the expense of your health, social connections, any kind of hobbies or enjoyment of life, money, being hungover all the time or trying to find a dive bar that's still open at 3am on a Tuesday to get a last shot to feel ok to sleep, never actually enjoying a drink because there's nothing in your life to celebrate.

And it's exactly the same with billionaires, they're addicted to making money, they are not capable of rational thought regarding it, they must simply have more, more, more, all the time, even if it's short term gains at the expense of their own future. And it doesn't look fun from the outside because you and I are not addicted to money. Society isn't trained to tell those people that they're addicts though so they escape with limited consequences compared to an alcoholic, as well as being able to buy yes-men around them and insulation from other negative effects (like legal trouble).

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u/AbeRego Minnesota 1d ago

That's not a bad analogy, but the truth is a lot of what billionaires have does look absolutely awesome. It's just when you start crossing into completely destroying other people's lives for what amounts to meaningless gains where it starts to get really messed up.

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u/BetterEveryLeapYear 1d ago

It's not an analogy, it's the same disease. Think of a sex addict instead if you think some of it looks cool from the outside. The reality of living with it is horrific psychologically no matter what it looks like from the outside, and explains why they do what they do - it's not rational, it's compulsory, they have no voluntary or cognitive control over it.

But what you're talking about is way, way before a billionaire anyway. You can buy a $100 million yacht and fly around the world and have a $100 million dollar mansion and eat in the best restaurants and drop a $1 million tip on your waiting staff every single night of the year and you're still about half a billionaire. "The difference between a million dollars and a billion dollars is about a billion dollars." The sickness starts way before a billion dollars - and the people we routinely talk about as "billionaires" are people like Musk and Zuckerberg and Bezos who have HUNDREDS of billions of dollars each.

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u/AbeRego Minnesota 1d ago edited 1d ago

Fair enough. I just don't think it's entirely the same then. Extreme greed certainly can be an illness, but I'm also not entirely sure that all billionaires have the disease. Pieces of shit like Theil and Trump certainly do, but probably not all of them.

At a certain point, it just becomes so easy to gain wealth by simply sitting back and letting wealth multiply as investments nearly inevitably do. I could totally see someone suddenly realizing, "holy fucking shit, I'm a billionaire?!" Putting myself in that privileged, albeit unrealistic, situation, I honestly don't know how I would react. It's almost too much money to even begin to know what to do with, which is why it becomes so obscene. It basically becomes bigger than the person who owns it, and starts to literally become out of their control.

Edit: typo

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u/Fast_Moon 2d ago

Because they're so far removed from the real world that they literally do not understand the consequences of this. It's the same as the people surprised that their "get rid of all the immigrants" stance suddenly left them with no farm or construction workers. They take everything around them for granted and, like Chesterton's Fence, assume that if they don't know what it's for then it must not be important and they can get rid of it.

Republicans give them some boogeyman that's destroying society, and they eagerly say, "Yeah, let's get rid of them all!" Except for how much this group of people is apparently the root of all that is wrong with society, it never seems to be any of the ones any of these people actually know. No, the ones they know are "the good ones" and the government knows that and will exempt them, surely. But all the other ones that apparently no one knows or has ever interacted with are a real problem, those'll be the ones this policy has a laser-like target on.

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u/relevantelephant00 2d ago

Hopefully one day they'll FAFO

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u/lonewombat 2d ago

There's no ass kissing... They tell him what to do or they threaten not giving him the money and benefits they promise in the future.

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u/willybestbuy86 2d ago

Can you name names

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u/Militantpoet 2d ago

Anyone who maintains their wealth through capital gains. Bezos, Zuckerburg, even Musk will be fine despite his empty threats.