The good news is that the GOP’s budget bill is a political suicide pact. And more power to them. Oblivion could not happen to a more odious bunch of people.
The tragically bad news, however, is that it is not just a suicide pact. It is a murder-suicide pact. It may end Republican careers, but it will also end tens of thousands of American lives. Many more will suffer.
The bill is, in fact, proof that we no longer live in a functioning democracy. Because if we did, Republican office holders would be concerned about the well-being and reaction of their constituents when proposing or passing legislation. But they don’t care about voters. Instead, they care far more about the dark money donors and power players who fund their campaigns—people who, thanks to the Supreme Court (also purchased with dark money), hold hugely disproportionate power in our elections.
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Trump and Musk and Thiel and Zuckerberg and Bezos have proved that with the right amount of money—and they have all the money in the world—a terrible candidate can be sold to enough voters to win. With enough money lies can be spun into truth on the networks and social media outlets they control.
With its calamitous Citizens United decision, the Supreme Court ruled that money is speech and that therefore those with the most money would have the most say in our society. But long before that, the GOP had been putting together a coalition of America’s wealthiest and most powerful to fund a systematic take-over of our democratic institutions.
Why? To help the rich get richer by cutting taxes and regulations—and by limiting the tools the government has to rein them in.
Am I saying that democracy in America has fallen victim to something as base as greed? Yes. Yes, I am. In fact, I will go further and say that American capitalism destroyed American democracy.
American capitalism is a perversion of capitalism, a system which favors the rules of the jungle over the rule of law, and suggests the one metric that matters for a successful society is how rich its richest members are. The Gordon Gekko “greed is good” creed of the Reagan era has led directly to Trump’s cabinet of billionaires and the gilded bordello redecoration of the Oval Office.
Our system today clearly favors oligarchy over democracy.
There are, of course, healthier and wiser forms of capitalism that recognize that the role of business and the creation of wealth is to serve society at large. These societies actually respond to the needs of their citizens. And is a harsh reality that today, in 2025, every single developed democracy in the world does a better job of serving their citizens than does the United States.
That’s why in none of these societies would you ever see bills like the one passed this week by the Congress—bills that deny millions of Americans health care and ravage social programs so that the billionaire friends of the billionaire president and his billionaire cabinet can have one more estate, one more yacht, one more offshore trust fund for their heirs and mistresses.
In the next year, thanks to the Republican commitment to serving the richest among us, not only will millions lose their health care resulting in bankruptcy, poverty and suffering, but many without health care will die. More will die because of cuts at the Department of Health and Human Services, and an end to medical research compounded by anti-science policies. Others will literally waste away as food and other vital assistance programs are cut.
This is not hyperbole. There will be real casualties in this war being waged against average Americans by the MAGA-aided superrich for whom too much is never enough. I hope the media take their responsibilities seriously enough to report it.
I remember sitting in a meeting in the Roosevelt Room of the White House when I was in the Clinton Administration. A very prominent member of the president’s economic team was deriding Europe. He called it “a museum, living in the past.” And we all laughed smugly. After all, we had just won the Cold War.
Now, here we are 30 years later and it is clear, Europe is racing ahead of us in forming effective, functioning, decent democracies and economies. Yes, yes, their societies are imperfect—and many face Trump-like threats from within. But none of their citizens go to bed at night worrying about how they will pay the doctor. None go bankrupt from medical costs. None worry about the cost of education. None worry about how they will feed themselves when they retire.
If we were wise—certainly, if we were really a democracy—we would study them and learn from them rather than rejecting their wisdom and lessons as we so often do. Rather than focusing on how we should preserve a broken system, we should devote our energies to restoring the America we deserve.
Perhaps we can start with this: The Big Beautiful Bill is the worst example of American exceptionalism. It is a low point in our history.
I do understand that 40 years of apathy, inertia and the accumulation of ever more power in the hands of the point .001 percent might lead one to fear it is too late. But this bill is so egregious, and its consequences will hurt so many so deeply, regardless of party, that it will, I believe, serve as a turning point.
Despite MAGA efforts to put a thumb on the scale, the GOP are now poised to lose control of the House of Representatives and possibly the Senate in 2026. If they do, Trump’s agenda will be stopped. The demands of Americans to restore basic services will be immense. The openness to reconsidering our path and embracing the kind of 21st century social contract will be there. A new pact can be forged that places the well-being of citizens first, promoting real opportunity and innovation rather than monopolies and billionaire-rule. And we can regain our footing.
All that can and I predict will happen thanks to the “Big, Beautiful Bill” which is actually, obviously and egregiously the ugliest piece of legislation produced by the U.S. Congress in this century.
