Big, beautiful bill' would take from our climate, too
By The Herald Editorial Board
President Trump, in celebrating last week’s narrow passage of his “big, beautiful bill” by the House, called it “arguably the most significant piece of Legislation that will ever be signed in the History of our Country.”
Trump’s social media post was on-brand in terms of its hyperbole, yet — if not significantly altered by the Senate — Trump’s exaggeration could prove accurate; just not in the sense of outcomes most Americans will want to live with.
Much of the concern regarding the 1,100-page bill — meant to extend the tax-cut package adopted in 2017, the last time Republicans had unified control of the legislative and executive branches — has focused correctly on how the continuation and expansion of those tax cuts will be “paid for” in terms of the elimination of benefits for millions enrolled in Medicaid and Supplementary Nutrition Assistance Program (food stamps), the expiration of Obamacare subsidies and the saddling of future generations with the addition of between $3 trillion to $5 trillion over the next 10 years to the national debt, which now stands at $36.9 trillion.
As significant as those looming outcomes are, the legislation also has taken aim at work accomplished by the Biden administration and Congress in 2022’s Inflation Reduction Act to address the climate crisis and begin the transition to a clean energy economy, which was already delivering benefits; in the form of new jobs, lower energy costs and hopes for reduction of climate-warming greenhouse gases and pollution, especially in communities and states that had voted for President Trump in 2017 and 2024.
https://www.heraldnet.com/opinion/editorial-big-beautiful-bill-would-take-from-our-climate-too/