Why the one big beautiful bill is the single ugliest you can imagine
Robert Reich - May 22
Friends,
The old professor in me thinks the best way to convey to you how utterly awful the so-called “one big beautiful bill” passed by the House last night actually is would be to give you this short ten-question exam. (Answers are in parenthesis but first try to answer without looking at them.)
1. Does the House’s “one big beautiful bill” cut Medicare? (Answer: Yes, by an estimated $500 billion.)
2. Because the bill cuts Medicaid, how many Americans are expected to lose Medicaid coverage? (At least 8.6 million.)
3. Will the tax cut in the bill benefit the rich or the poor or everyone?(Overwhelmingly, the rich.)
4. How much will the top 0.1 percent of earners stand to gain from it? (Nearly $390,000 per year).
5. If you figure in the benefit cuts and the tax cuts, will Americans making between about $17,000 and $51,000 gain or lose? (They’ll lose about $700 a year).
6. How about Americans with incomes less than $17,000? (They’ll lose more than $1,000 per year on average).
7. How much will the bill add to the federal debt? ($3.8 trillion over 10 years.)
8. Who will pay the interest on this extra debt? (All of us, in both our tax payments and higher interest rates for mortgages, car loans, and all other longer-term borrowing.)
9. Who collects this interest? (People who lend to the U.S. government, 70 percent of whom are American and most of whom are wealthy.)
10. Bonus question: Is the $400 million airplane from Qatar a gift to the United States for every future president to use, or a gift to Trump for his own personal use? (It’s a personal gift because he’ll get to use it after he leaves the presidency.)
Most Americans are strongly opposed to all of these things, according to polls. But if you knew the answers to these ten questions, you’re likely to be in a very tiny minority. That’s because of (1) distortions and cover-ups emanating from Trump and magnified by Fox News and other rightwing outlets. (2) A public that’s overwhelmed with the blitzkrieg of everything Trump is doing, and can’t focus on this. (3) Outright silencing of many in the media who fear retaliation from the Trump regime if they reveal things that Trump doesn’t want revealed.
Please do your part: Share this as widely as possible.
Elon Musk silencing at X.
Insidious nature of silencing, don’t know how far it goes. Only tips of icebergs.
CBS News the apex of independent trusted journalism, Edward R. Murrow, Walter Cronkite. Its newmagazine “60 Minutes” reputation for telling it like it is.
ne hint about it on-air, last month, after “60 Minutes” executive producer Bill Owens resigned, citing a loss of independence. “No one here is happy about it,” correspondent Scott Pelley said of the interference Owens had sensed.
Over weekend, CBS News chief Wendy McMahon, was sent packing.
clashing with her bosses over upcoming stories on the newsmagazine. multiple disputes over “60 Minutes” reports about Trump’s return to office and the impact of his administration’s policy changes. “Wendy was standing up for us,” a veteran CBS journalist said. “There’s a lot of fear about what happens with her gone now.”
Ahead of the newsmagazine’s traditional mid-May season finale, a scheduled report about Trump’s planned cutbacks to the IRS was held back. The network asserts for sound journalistic reasons, according to the network.
Why?
Trump lawsuit over last October’s “60 Minutes” interview with Kamala Harris, which Trump claimed was deliberately mis-edited at the behest of the Democratic campaign.
Legal experts have derided the lawsuit as frivolous and laughable, and CBS defended the newsmagazine and its editorial judgment on First Amendment grounds. A full transcript of the Harris interview only further confirmed that “60 Minutes” engaged in normal editing processes.
However, the suit posed a very serious problem for Shari Redstone, largest shareholder of Paramount, which owns CBS. Redstone has pushed to settle the lawsuit, despite the widely held assessment that CBS lawyers would prevail against Trump in court, fearing that litigating it would jeopardize a merger deal that needs Trump’s FCC’s approval and would net Redstone a large sum of money.
At “60 Minutes,” “everyone thinks this lawsuit is an act of extortion, everyone,” a network correspondent told CNN.
The New York Times reported Monday that Trump’s team threatened to file another lawsuit over a “60 Minutes” segment on Trump targeting big law firms.
When corporations have many other investments, easy for Trump regime to intimidate.
Why isn’t Paramount in danger of violating bribery laws?
on May 22, 2025, 2:26 pm
