Profiles in Cowardice

GOP Senators Pass Awful Bill, Then Flee the Capitol

Yesterday, on virtually the eve of our nation’s 249^th Independence Day, the U.S. Congress descended to a level of travesty and tragedy I’ve rarely, if ever, witnessed.

Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski cast the deciding vote for a bill that will cripple health care, devastate the poor, pour tens of billions into rapidly increasing, draconian immigration enforcement and balloon the national debt to dangerous levels.

She then announced she hopes the House will change the bill she voted for.

“My sincere hope is that this is not the final product,” she told Axios. “The bill needs more work across chambers and is not ready for the President’s desk. We need to work together to get this right.”

Only The New York Times noted that after the chaotic noon vote “most senators have quickly fled the Capitol. Their cars were idling on the plaza to ferry them to the airport.” That left it to House members to stand up to Donald Trump – something Republican members of Congress in both chambers repeatedly have failed to do. So much for “working together.”

And why did Murkowski vote for the bill, which passed on a tie-breaker vote cast by the vice-president? Politico reports she cut deals for her state, some to lessen the impact of cuts on food stamp distribution and on rural hospitals, leaving many million more – including Republican voters – in 49 other states hanging out to dry.

It was a profile of cowardice. But then, there have been other Republican ccowards, like Josh Hawley, who decried the Medicaid cuts, which he acknowledged would shut community hospitals and hurt his constituents, and then voted yes, too.

It is not hard to gauge much of the damage this bill will cause when it becomes law. It will strip the neediest Americans of health care, college loans and grants, and food stamps. And at the same time, it will massively drive up the national debt, meaning more will be spent on paying interest and less on programs. It will further destabilize the dollar, which has rapidly lost value.

For what?

To provide a win for Donald Trump, who seems hellbent on systematically dismantling this country, from its health care to its scientific research, from its National Parks to its elite universities that have contributed enormously to this country’s inventions and contributions in the world. And to put even more money in the pockets of the nation’s billionaires and multimillionaires who support Republicans’ campaigns.

But the law’s damage likely also will be considerably worse than most people already are aware of. For example, while the media have given substantial coverage to the Congressional Budget Office’s estimate that nearly 12 million Americans will lose their health insurance through Medicaid, much less attention has been paid to potentially devastating cuts in the Affordable Care Act that will end health insurance for millions more.

The Washington Post on Tuesday wrote that “at least 17 million Americans would lose insurance under [the] Trump plan,” adding that the “GOP legislation would set back years of progress in expanding health care coverage, unwinding key parts of the Affordable Care Act,” also known as Obama Care.

These health insurance losses, coupled with sharp reductions in funds for SNAP, or food stamps, in a country in which roughly 18 million Americans suffered from “food insecurity” in 2023, will do more damage than merely funding tax breaks for the richest Americans. They also will pour tens of billions of dollars into a massive build-up of ICE (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement) and ways to hold and deport growing numbers of law-abiding and tax-paying immigrant families to countries around the world.

So, for example, The Los Angeles Times reported Tuesday that the bill infuses roughly $150 billion to hiring thousands of ICE agents and building more detention facilities. But little noticed in the run-up to the vote was an article by the libertarian Cato Institute suggesting that this sum actually is a small fraction of the real impact of the bill on immigration. Cato, which last week reported that ICE currently is arresting 11 times more “noncriminal” immigrants on the streets than it did during the first year of Trump’s first term, calculated in an article headline that, “Deportations to Add Almost $1 Trillion in Costs to the ‘Big Beautiful Bill.’”

The article noted that the Congressional Budget Office [CBO} estimate neglected the “significant cost of removing immigrants who would have paid more in taxes than they were receiving in benefits. Properly considered, the actual cost of [the bill’s] immigration enforcement spending is nearly $1 trillion more than the CBO estimates. When seen in the context of the overall costs of the bill, mass deportation would amount to almost a quarter of the bill’s total price tag.”

It is worth noting that this $1 trillion price tag is roughly the equivalent of the total Medicaid cuts over the next decade. It is a mindbogglingly huge number. Nor is the Cato Institute, founded in 1974, some left-wing organization. It is a libertarian public policy research organization that advocates for limited government and free markets, among other things.

Undoubtedly there will be more horrors in store if the House, as expected, gives its final rubber stamp to the bill so that it becomes law. Writing in Wednesday’s New York Times former Treasury Secretaries Robert Rubin and Lawrence Summers warn that the bill could push the country’s debt to 135 percent of its entire economic output within a decade – more than a third higher than it is now.

“An unsustainable fiscal trajectory has real consequences,” they write. “It means higher interest rates and capital costs, reduced business confidence and crowding out of private investment. It risks financial turmoil as immense Treasury debts prove difficult for the market to absorb, and … it reduces flexibility to respond to economic or geopolitical threats. And … it raises inflation risks.”

None other than Elon Musk, until very recently Trump’s biggest fan and cheerleader, warned a few days ago of a bigger risk: “abuses of power” by Trump. “Removal of funding for enforcement of federal contempt of court orders is the actual crux of this spending bill,” he suggested on X, according to the political hub, politicalwire.com.

As infrequently as I agree with Elon Musk, I don’t doubt him on this one.