US President Donald Trump at the bill signing for his signature legislation. Photo / Tom Brenner, for the Washington Post
Republicans waged a mighty, messy and ultimately successful campaign to push their One Big Beautiful Bill Act to United States President Donald Trump’s desk for a Fourth of July signing ceremony.
The next campaign - the political battle to define and defend it - will challenge Republicans just as much.
By any measure, passage of the bill represents a major victory for a president whose influence and dominance continue to expand.
In a matter of weeks, he has brought a ceasefire between Iran and Israel after a massive bombing attack on Iran’s nuclear sites, got a pledge from Nato nations to increase their spending on defence, has seen the financial markets hit record highs, and now can boast of legislation that fulfils many of his campaign promises.
Next year’s Midterm elections will be fought out on terrain that will include voter impressions of Trump’s performance and his overall second-term record.
That will include voters’ sentiments over his immigration and deportation policy, the impact of his tariffs on the national economy, his warfare with universities and cultural institutions, and how well he has managed conflicts abroad.
Republican lawmakers are along for the ride on much of that agenda, which was dispensed by the President through executive orders without their input, rather than legislative actions.
But they will be asked to take responsibility for the effects of the enormous legislative package they shouldered through the House and Senate and then the House again.
This is their baby as much as Trump’s, and lawmakers in swing districts and tough Senate races know it.
Senator Thom Tillis (Republican-North Carolina), who voted against the bill and also said that he would not seek re-election, pointedly warned the President that the Medicaid cuts alone could haunt the Republicans in the Midterms.
For all the drama that occurred ahead of the final passage, there wasn’t any real doubt about the outcome. Because of slender GOP majorities in both chambers, individual members were able to obstruct, delay and demand consideration for pet projects.
Some like Senator Lisa Murkowski (Republican-Alaska) made the most of her power to extract benefits for her home state in exchange for her vote.
Fiscal hawks in the House tormented Speaker Mike Johnson (Republican-Louisiana) because the measure will cause the national debt to balloon even more. Yet, eventually, enough fell in line to assure passage.
Everyone knew failure was never an option.
If the entirety of the President’s second-term legislative agenda, from tax cuts to spending cuts to a huge increase in funding for immigration enforcement, is packed into one enormous bill, as it was in this case, Republicans were going to make sure it passed.
They also knew that opposing the measure could bring political retribution from the President.
That doesn’t detract from the job that Johnson did in corralling his conference time and again, but it does suggest that some of what took place in the last days and hours was performative.
Republicans are enjoying a moment of euphoria - an expression of sheer relief over passage of the legislative behemoth after months of wrangling, all-night sessions in the Capitol and arm-twisting by the President and his advisers.
But they also begin with the knowledge that the measure is more disliked than liked. By about two to one, Americans say they oppose the measure, according to a recent Washington Post-Ipsos poll, though many Americans say they don’t really know much about what’s in it.
That’s the conundrum.
Trump’s legislation begins with a presumption of doubt among a plurality of Americans, but the fact that nearly as many say they don’t know all that much about it points to the importance of what comes next, which will be a massive effort to define the bill by both parties. This will test Democrats as much as Republicans.
History is always an uncertain guide in these cases, but there are two past moments that could be useful reference points.
One is President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare. As with the Big Beautiful Bill, the Affordable Care Act was approved on a party-line vote: Democrats united in favour, Republicans united in opposition.
The lengthy national debate ahead of passage of the measure had helped spark the rise of the Tea Party movement, resulting in angry town hall meetings that put Democratic legislators on the defensive. The debate included misinformation about the measure - remember talk of “death panels” - and disinformation.
The mood among Democrats heading into the 2010 Midterm elections was grim. Obama’s approval rating on healthcare issues was underwater. Ultimately, Republicans took control of the House, picking up 63 seats.
In that case, the definitional lines of the political debate were sharp and well understood.
For opponents, Obamacare was a massive governmental takeover of healthcare (which it was not) and that was an easy message to sell at a time when the overall debate about the size and scope of government was favourable to Republicans.
Another point of reference is what happened to President Joe Biden after he and Democrats won several legislative victories early in his presidency.
Congress passed the American Rescue Plan on a largely party-line vote. It was a massive stimulus bill costing nearly US$2 trillion designed to jump-start a pandemic-ridden economy.
Congress also passed a bipartisan infrastructure bill costing more than US$1t. Later, again with the parties sharply divided, Congress approved the ill-named Inflation Reduction Act, another huge expenditure of federal funds aimed at, among other things, climate-change issues.
Biden and his team worked repeatedly over many months to gain credit for what they had done.
The problem was twofold. Most Americans did not know much about what was in the measures and the spending stream was not fast enough or visible enough for people to see results.
Beyond that, Biden proved a poor salesman for his own record. Surrogates weren’t much better.
What Americans felt were higher prices at the service station and the grocery store, inflation triggered in part by the fiscal stimulus of all that spending.
Biden and his advisers were slow to recognise that the rise in prices was not transitory and slower also in trying to counter the inflation. No amount of talking helped.
Democrats might say that none of that mattered much in the 2022 Midterm elections. Republicans had hoped for a red tsunami that never materialised.
Biden and the Democrats did better than expected, though that likely had more to do with the mobilisation of voters angry that the Supreme Court had overturned Roe vs Wade in the summer of 2022.
Trump and congressional Republicans have made many promises about what the Big Beautiful Bill will and will not do.
It will, they say, produce significant growth in the economy, though the bulk of the tax cuts are an extension of current law, not a new and dramatic reduction.
It will not, they say, throw millions of people in need off Medicaid or deny them food assistance, though the Congressional Budget Office and other analyses say otherwise.
It will not really balloon the debt, they say, returning to the argument that growth will produce significantly more revenue. But that runs counter to the analyses that say it could add as much as US$4t to the debt over the next decade.
The overall architecture of the bill favours the wealthiest and hurts most people at the lower ends of the income scale - many of them the very people who have been attracted to Trump and who helped him win re-election last year.
There are some provisions that are potentially politically attractive - from the increased deductions for seniors to the child tax credit to the reduction of taxes on tips - populist promises from Trump’s 2024 campaign.
The Medicaid cuts are the most politically risky move the Republicans have taken with this legislation.
If the pain of those cuts becomes visible, if rural hospitals that serve those who are part of the GOP’s new constituency are forced to close, if stories of hardship among people dependent on Medicaid who are no longer able to get healthcare become widespread, then the warnings that Trump and GOP leaders have been hearing from some of their own could cost the Republicans their House majority.
That’s the coming chapter in this drama as both parties try to shape the debate in their favour.