Editorial: Trump's bill, set to be signed on July 4th, shows democracy in decay
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., left, speaks in the House chamber as House Democrats stand to applaud him, prior to the final vote for President Donald Trump's signature bill of tax breaks and spending cuts, at the Capitol, July 3, 2025, in Washington. (AP/Rod Lamkey Jr.)
In a last-ditch effort to delay Donald Trump's sweeping and coercive domestic policy bill, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) broke a House record for the longest floor speech, eight and three-quarter hours, denouncing the bill as cruel, immoral and profoundly un-American. He called the House chamber a "crime scene."
We agree.
Trump prevailed. The House vote was 218-214. And in doing so, he didn't just pass a bill — he marked a turning point in the nation's moral trajectory. The legislation is now headed to the Oval Office, set to be signed, with cruel irony, on Independence Day. It will systematically strip millions of the most vulnerable of food, health care, life-saving medication, and even their hospitals. This is not reform. It is retribution.
House Resolution 1 confirms what many have feared: We are no longer governed by an endangered representative democracy. We are governed by a system engineered to protect wealth and punish need. The bill slashes more than $930 billion from Medicaid, Medicare and the Affordable Care Act. It guts food assistance and student aid. It expands immigrant detention and increases nuclear weapons spending — all while lavishing tax cuts on the rich.
These outcomes are not side effects. They are the point.
This bill is the signature of a democracy in decay. A government that no longer reflects the will or welfare of its people. A political system where a party can seize the presidency with less than half the popular vote and still impose an agenda that serves only the wealthiest.
Trump's one big bill caters to the ultra-rich — the donors and dynasties who bankroll campaigns and expect returns. Those it punishes — the sick, poor, elderly, undocumented, young — constitute the true majority. But majorities no longer matter. Our democracy no longer operates on the principle of representation. It runs on wealth.
This trend began when the Reagan Revolution launched a 40-year trajectory of tax cuts, deregulation, labor union-busting, and privatization — each policy tightening the grip of oligarchy.
Now, we've reached the breaking point. This bill doesn't just take from the poor — it punishes the poor. It weaponizes red tape: work requirements, asset tests, bureaucratic barriers designed not to manage aid but to deny it.
Meanwhile, it lifts the wealthy higher still — through estate tax breaks, corporate giveaways, and fossil fuel subsidies — all packaged as "growth." But whose growth? Whose freedom?
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Not the single mother whose food lifeline, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits, is cut. Not the student who loses a Pell Grant over a scholarship. Not the asylum-seeker facing a $275 fee, with no waiver and no mercy.
This isn't governance. It's a slow-motion purge of compassion from public life.
And it's only possible because we've let democracy corrode: gerrymandering, voter suppression, dark money, and a disengaged public disillusioned by a system that no longer sees them.
The bill passed not because the people support it, but because they no longer have a say.
Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill Act is immoral. More than that, it is democratically illegitimate. Not because of its process, but because of its purpose. It does not reflect the nation's needs or values. It reflects the consolidation of power, naked and unapologetic.
Trump is a charlatan showman promising to protect the safety net while shredding it. He is a traveling salesman populist whose snake-oil policies poison the working class.
This one, big, shameful bill reveals the truth: We are ruled by the wealthy few. This is the slow funeral of the moral foundations of the republic — compassion, justice, decency — sacrificed at the altar of plutocracy. The angels have been driven out.
We are left to ask: What kind of nation do we want to be? What kind have we already become?
The answer lies buried in the fine print of this 940-page bill. It reads like an obituary for a republic that once dared to care for its own.
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