The One, Big Horrible Bill

In the dead of night on May 22, 2025, the House passed Donald Trump’s so-called “One Big Beautiful Bill”—a sweeping assault on healthcare, food assistance, and climate investment, wrapped in performative populism. In this episode of America’s Fractured Politics, host Mark Mansour breaks down what the bill actually does, how it threatens communities all over America, and why this moment could define the future of the American safety net. This is a story of betrayal, policy cruelty, and the urgent need for civic resistance. If you care about democracy, equity, and human dignity—don’t miss this.

Transcript

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Welcome to America's Fractured Politics, the podcast for people who still believe that facts matter. For people who believe that policy has consequences, and for people who understand deep down that democracy, even when imperfect, even when battered and bruised, is still worth fighting for. I'm your host, mark Mansour. I'm an attorney based in Washington DC and I've spent my career at the intersection of law policy and politics. I've worked in government, I've worked in private practice, I've worked in advocacy, and what I've seen over and over again is that what happens in the back rooms of Congress the fine print of legislation shapes lives in ways that most people will never see coming. This podcast isn't about the noise. It's not about the horse race. It's not about the latest outrage cycle on cable news. It's about substance. It's about what's happening beneath the surface. The bills that pass in the shadows, the ideologies that drive them, and the human beings they affect. And today we're gonna dive into something seismic. Something that didn't just pass quietly. It passed deliberately in the dead of night. They're calling it the one big beautiful bill. I call it the one big, horrible bill. It passed the House of Representatives on May 22nd to 3:47 AM with almost no public debate. No hearings, no expert witnesses, no substantive amendments. Just a party line portion of final vote margin of 215 to 214. Every Democrat voted against it. Four Republicans crossed the aisle and voted against it as well, and yet it passed by one vote. Donald Trump called it a glorious night for the American taxpayer. Republicans declared it a rebirth of limited government. Steve Bannon, proclaimed it the opening shot in the great war against the administrative state. But here's the truth, this bill is not about rebirth. It's not about liberty. It's not about fiscal responsibility. It's about cruelty. It's about abandonment. It's about remaking the American government into a vehicle that serves only the wealthy and punishes the rest. It is a declaration of war, not against the administrative state, but against the American people to understand just how radical this bill is we need to go back because this didn't happen in a vacuum. It is a culmination of a decades long campaign. One that began as a whisper and has grown into a political roar. Let's talk about the American social contract. Let's talk about what it was, what it became, and what this bill is trying to destroy. In the late 19th, and early 20th centuries, the United States was a brutal place for anyone without money. Children worked in coal mines, factory workers toiled 12 hour shifts. If you got sick, you went bankrupt. If you lost your job, you went hungry. If your husband died, your children might not survive the winter. There was no unemployment insurance, no Medicare, no Medicaid, no social security, no disability coverage, no food assistance, no legal protections for the vulnerable. This was the Gilded Age and it was gilded only for the wealthy, but a movement grew. The progressive era brought antitrust laws, child labor restrictions, and the early stirrings of reform. But it wasn't until the Great Depression that the country truly reckoned with the idea that maybe a government should take care of its people. The stock market crash of 1929 set millions into poverty, breadlines stretched for blocks, banks collapsed. People lost everything. Franklin Delano Roosevelt's response was the new deal, a seismic shift in American government The New Deal gave us social security. unemployment insurance. It created public works projects through the WPA, it supported unions through the Wagner Act. It brought rural electrification, it stabilized banks, it regulated Wall Street and conservatives. Hated it. The American Liberty League, a coalition of business elites, labeled its socialism. The Supreme Court initially struck down key programs. But Roosevelt persisted. He redefined the role of government from passive observer to active guarantor of basic security. Then came World War ii and when the war ended, another wave of reform began. The GI Bill gave returning veterans access to college education and home loans. It helped build the post-war middle class, but also exposed deep racial inequalities in implementation. Black veterans were often denied benefits or steered into segregated institutions. In the 1960s, Lyndon b Johnson declared a war on poverty. Medicare was created in 1965. Medicaid followed the same year. Head Start launched food stamps, expanded civil rights. Legislation made systemic discrimination illegal, at least on paper. The result was that for a brief moment in American history, we made massive strides in public health. Education, economic mobility and poverty reduction. But the backlash was Swift. Richard Nixon began dismantling the office of economic opportunity. He embraced the southern strategy using coded racial appeals to rule white voters alienated by integration and civil rights. Then came Ronald Reagan. Reagan didn't just oppose big government. He vilified it. The nine most terrifying words in the English language are I'm from the government and I'm here to help. He painted welfare recipients as lazy and undeserving. He invented the welfare queen, a racist caricature. He slashed social programs, cut taxes for the wealthy, and began a wave of deregulation that would accelerate inequality for decades. By the 1990s, even Democrats were retreating. Bill Clinton promised to end welfare as we know it. in 1996, he signed a law that imposed work requirements, time limits, and block grants. The safety net became more punitive, more fragmented, more conditional. Then came the 2008 financial crisis and the response. Barack Obama passed the Affordable Care Act. It wasn't perfect, but it was the largest expansion of the safety net. tens of millions gained health insurance, preexisting conditions could no longer be denied. Young adults stayed on their parents' plans. Medicaid was expanded, and again, conservatives fought it relentlessly lawsuits, filibusters repeal votes. By the time Donald Trump took office in 2017, Republicans had made dismantling the modern welfare state their core mission. They failed to repeal the A CA, but they passed a$1.9 trillion tax cut overwhelmingly favoring the wealthy. They guttered environmental re regulations. They stacked the courts, and now with one big, horrible bill, they've decided to go for broke. This bill doesn't tinker. It takes a sledgehammer to the entire structure of public support that has been built over 90 years. This is not a fiscal responsibility bill. It is not a limited government bill. It is not a freedom bill. It's a blueprint for abandonment. It's a master work of cruelty. It is designed to punish the poor, to gut healthcare, to collapse safety nets. To end the federal government's role in protecting the vulnerable and replace it with the false promises of charity, market forces, and billionaire benefactors. It is what happens when ideology overtakes humanity, when grievance overtakes governance, when cruelty becomes the point. And the worst part, most Americans haven't even heard about it. The headlines were buried. The vote happened at 3:47 AM There was no State of the Union rollout, no primetime interviews, no push for consensus. It was passed in the shadows just as it was designed to be. And unless we stop it in the Senate, unless we shine a flood light on every line of this monstrosity, it will become law. we're gonna examine what's in this bill. We're gonna look at the lives that will devastate. We are going to talk about where it came from and where it is going, and we're gonna end with something even more important, what you can do about it, because I promise you this fight isn't over and neither are we. Let's break this down section by section first. Taxes. The bill makes the Trump tax cuts of 2017 permanent. That means more than$1.9 trillion in lost federal revenue over 10 years. Overwhelmingly benefiting the top 1%. The corporate tax rate stays slashed at 21%. The estate tax remains gutted. Loopholes continue to be exploited. Billionaires, go untouched, and then it gets worse. The bill eliminates all federal taxes on overtime pay and tips. on paper, this sounds like a win for workers, but in practice it's a dream for employers and a nightmare for the treasury. Large employers are already exploring how to reclassify wages as incentive-based compensation to avoid paying their share of social security and Medicare taxes. This doesn't empower workers. It drains the very systems workers depend on as they age, leaving a generation exposed when they need help most. And then there's the so-called MAGA baby bonds. Each American newborn gets the$1,500 freedom account, a government seated trust fund. It sounds bold, it sounds progressive. But there's no funding source, no investment strategy, no protections against fraud. No guarantees it will even keep up with inflation. It's not a real policy. It's a talking point, a distraction. Now let's talk about the cuts. The biggest and cruelest target is Medicaid. The bill transforms Medicaid into a block grant program giving states fixed federal dollars that don't adjust for inflation, economic crises, or public health emergencies. If the economy tanks a pandemic strikes or demand for care spikes the money won't be there The Congressional Budget office estimates more than a trillion dollars in cuts. That means millions will lose coverage. Hospitals, especially rural and non-profit will close and there will be long wait lists for critical services. Mental health, cancer treatment, addiction care will be cut The burden will shift to local governments and charities who are not equipped to carry it. Medicare, eligibility, rises from 65 to 68. That may sound minor, but it leaves millions of Americans, especially in blue collar jobs with declining health in their sixties, uninsured for longer. There are no subsidies for this gap. No accommodations for people. Aging out of employer plans. Just figure it out The bill imposes aggressive work requirements, even for a single parent caretakers of disabled family members, or those with undiagnosed mental illnesses. The result, the Urban Institute projects 6.3 million people could lose access to food assistance. Food banks already stretched thin are bracing for a humanitarian crisis, then there's the full repeal of the Inflation reduction Act. Gone are clean energy tax credits, electric vehicle production incentives. Methane emission limits funding for rural broadband, climate resilience infrastructure, Medicare drug price negotiation powers. All erased, with the stroke of a pen. This is not budget policy. This is a rollback of the future and it doesn't stop there. The bill also defund Planned Parenthood and bans all diversity, equity and inclusion programs in federal agencies. It prohibits public schools from teaching about climate change. Structural racism or gender identity if they want federal funds. This is not just fiscal cruelty, it's ideological warfare. Let's talk about what this looks like in real life. Let's go to Arkansas. Over 35% of births in Arkansas are covered by Medicaid. That's more than 15,000 babies a year. Under the new block grant structure, Arkansas will receive$220 million less in federal support. Next year pediatric units will shutter. Maternal mortality already one of the worst in the country will rise. Take a 27-year-old mom in Pine Bluff. She works part-time at a grocery store and just had her second child. The hospital is cutting their NICU staff. Her baby was premature. In rural Scott County, Indiana the opioid epidemic has ravaged entire communities. Medicaid expansion allowed the county to launch addiction programs that cut overdose deaths by 40%. Under this bill, those programs lose funding. The clinics close. The state of Mississippi has refused to expand Medicaid. over 30% of working age adults are uninsured. This bill doesn't just freeze that crisis. It deepens it. Emergency rooms will close The only access point for care costs will rise. Hospitals will collapse. Let's talk about New Mexico, where native communities rely heavily on Indian health services and Medicaid partnerships. This bill severs the federal state coordination that keeps rural clinics staffed and stocked. People already have to drive two hours for dialysis. Now they'll be crossing state lines just to see a doctor, Chicago, south and west side is already medical deserts. They'll lose federally funded maternal health grants, housing vouchers and violence prevention programs. The same communities hit hardest by COVID-19 will now be hit again by federal abandonment. The pandemic isn't over, they're still burying people. They still need help. What do all of these examples have in common? They're not abstract, they're not hypothetical. They're happening to real people. People who work, people who care, people who vote, people who believed, however, naively. That this government still had a conscience, but this bill betrays them and the betrayal is deliberate. Let's talk about who benefits private health insurers. Elated Medicaid cuts mean more desperate customers seeking coverage, often at inflated premiums. Pharmaceutical giants cheering with Medicare drug negotiations, repealed price controls vanish insulin. Cancer meds, biologics, all back to profit first. fossil fuel companies ecstatic. The rollback of climate subsidies and methane penalties. Continued expansion with no accountability for emissions or disasters. Conservative think tanks vindicated. The Heritage Foundation, the American Enterprise Institute. They've been drafting versions of this bill for decades. Trump has demanded that any Republican senator who votes against this bill be primaried into extinction. Donors are already lining up to fund challengers. MAGA media is running loyalty tests. Fox News Breitbart and Truth Social are pushing talking points at full volume. swing votes are reportedly wavering. The pressure is immense. The noise is deafening. The money is bottomless, but the resistance, it's rising. In Nevada Nurses in Reno Regional Medical Center stage candlelight vigils outside the state capitol. a coalition of black churches and student groups are holding teach-ins on how the bill will affect HBCUs and minority health programs in Montana. Rural farmers, many of them lifelong Republicans are meeting in Grange halls and VFWs. To organize against the Medicaid cuts that will decimate their towns. This is what democracy looks like, not the performative chaos on the house floor, but the slow stubborn refusal of everyday people to give up. Let's talk about the Senate. Republicans hold a 51 49 majority, and because this bill was crafted to qualify for budget reconciliation, it can bypass the filibuster. That means they need just 51 votes to send it to Donald Trump's desk for signature. It is close, very close. A few Republican senators are feeling the heat. Shelly Moore Capito from West Virginia is under intense pressure. Hospitals in her state are begging for relief. Veterans groups are rallying against the Medicaid cuts. Small town mayors are pleading for federal dollars to stay in place. Capito is wavering, but Trump is attacking. He's called her weak, disloyal, and a disgrace. Primary threats are already being organized. Susan Collins is also on the fence, She's hearing from constituents in Maine who rely on snap elder care and rural clinics, but the pressure campaign from conservative donors is relentless. Lisa Murkowski in Alaska, where federal spending plays an outsized role. This Bill would gut everything from healthcare to education to energy grants. She's held out before. Remember her no vote on repealing Obamacare in 2017, but this is a new political environment. Trump isn't just wielding influence, he's wielding fear. In 2017, when the ACA repeal bill was sailing through Congress, it looked unstoppable. The house passed it, Trump celebrated in the Rose Garden. The media declared Obamacare doomed, but then people rose up, protestors flooded the Capitol. Cancer survivors sat in wheelchairs outside Senators' offices. People with A-L-S-M-S-H-I-V, they told their stories. They refused to be erased. And then late at night, John McCain walked out onto the Senate floor, raised his hands and gave a thumbs down. The bill died by one vote. It can happen again, but only if we act. This moment isn't just about a single piece of legislation. It's a test of our democracy, of our values. whether the idea of America an imperfect, unfinished, struggling idea, still has a beating heart. The big, beautiful bill is a culmination of a long war, a war against the social safety net, against public responsibility, against the notion that governments serve more than the rich. It's the ideological child of Barry Goldwater, of Ronald Reagan, of Newt Gingrich, of Grover Norquist, the man who once said, I wanna shrink government to the size where I can drown it in a bathtub. here we are. The bathtub is full. The water is rising. They don't wanna fix government. They wanna break it and tell you it's your fault. They want you to believe that your neighbor on food stamps is the problem, not the billionaire dodging taxes. The guy on Medicaid is lazy, not the insurance company's CEO making 45 million a year. It's a lie, because the truth is this government, when done right, can be a force for good. It can lift people. Heal people, educate people, empower people. We've seen it. Social security cut senior poverty in half. Medicare saved millions of lives. Medicaid funds 42% of all births in America. Snap reduces childhood hunger by over 25%. Pell Grants created a generation of college educated citizens. This is not abstract. It's real, it's measurable, it's personal, and if we lose it, we may never get it back. So what do we do? We fight-not just in anger, but in strategy. Here's your call to action. Number one, call your senator right now. Doesn't matter if they're a Republican or Democrat, flood their phone lines. Leave voicemails. Say, I oppose the one big, beautiful bill. It will hurt people in my community and I will remember how you vote. Share this episode not passively. Actively send it to your family, your friends, your coworkers. Text it to that cousin who always says politics doesn't matter. Make them listen. Make them care. Organize locally. Find out if there's a protest. A town hall, a rally. If there isn't one, start one. Partner with food banks, clinics, unions, schools, mutual aid groups. Show up with signs. Show up with stories. Show up with solidarity. If this bill will affect you, say so. Record a video. Write a letter, talk to your local paper. Speak at your city council. Stories. Move hearts. They change votes. Register and mobilize voters every seat in the house. A third of the Senate, dozens of governors, hundreds of state legislators are all on the ballot in 2026. Start preparing now. Make this bill the reason you vote. Make it unforgettable. We're at a crossroads. We can choose a future where healthcare, education, housing, and dignity are rights, not privileges, or we can choose a future where billionaires buy elections. Corporations write laws and suffering is treated as a moral failing. They've made their choice. Now we make ours. This is America's Fractured Politics. I'm Mark Mansour. Thank you for listening if this episode moved you don't just feel something, do something because the fight isn't over and neither are we.