OPINION: Trump’s ‘big, beautiful bill’ and the big ugly of a new America

In this image from video from Senate Television, Vice President JD Vance, seated center, breaks a 50-50 tie to push President Donald Trump’s big tax breaks and spending cuts bill over the top, on the Senate floor at the U.S. Capitol, Tuesday, July 1, 2025, in Washington. (Senate Television via AP)

5150? That’s the term for someone deemed a danger to themselves or others due to a mental health crisis.

In this case it’s an act of Congress that is a danger to us all.

5150 was the vote count in the US Senate that passed the Big Ugly this week. VP JD. Vance, the top Trump sycophant, broke the tie and maybe the country.

Make no mistake, the bill is a danger to America.

Trump calls it his “One Big Beautiful Bill,” but it is the Big Ugly.

It’s the legislative form of MAGA and if it next passes the House and gets signed into law by the end of this week, it will be the dark sparkler of our Fourth of July.

The Big Ugly will cut Medicaid in America – health care to the poorest Americans – which means 11.8 million people uninsured by 2034, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

The number of people rises because the cuts worsen over time – $930 billion in 10 years.

The poor were targeted because they are powerless. They don’t contribute to campaigns, and have no real voice in the money politics of America.

What are they going to do? Call their member of Congress who is too afraid to stand up to the MAGA bullly?

This week, Alaska’s Sen. Lisa Murkowski, a Republican, was too afraid to do the right thing. She could have been the 51st vote for the good, to protect the American people from the Big Ugly. She could have voted no and put a halt to this nonsense.

Instead, she negotiated and “carved out” Alaska from much of the Medicaid impacts by insisting that non-contiguous states be exempted. That meant Alaska, but also Hawaii and its large Filipino population.

But by going to bat for her own state, what was she saying about the rest of us in the contiguous states? Screw you?

Why aren’t the rest of us given the carve-out privilege? MAGA wanted Murkowski’s vote for a victory and she looked out for No. 1—herself and her state.

No one cares about America and the public good.

Murkowski tried to make excuses afterwards in stunning interviews that exposed her venal ways.

But this is the way it is in Trump times. When he is the amoral leader of the nation, nothing Murkowski  can do is unseemly. It’s business as usual to make a deal for yourself and your constituents. Nevermind, she sold out the rest of us to the evils of the Big Ugly.

Murkowski got what she wanted and let Trump get what he wanted: the extension of massive tax cuts to the wealthy. Rich households could get a tax cut estimated at $400,000.

The rest of us could see a 7.5 percent tax increase.

And then as the rich cheer on the Big Ugly, the rest of us are on the path to doom.

When revenues are cut, there’s no money for services to the people, let alone to service the interest on the ballooning national debt

The bill adds $3.3 trillion to a national debt climbing to beyond $36 trillion.

Republicans are aware of that.

They just lost the right to call themselves “conservatives.”

Trump tells the doubters to rely on “growth” to offset it all.

This is the Trumpian version of “trickle down theory.”

That’s where the rich believe other rich will take their tax savings and pour it into the economy as job creators.

But more likely, they don’t.

And the country spirals into generational doomworthy mega-debt.

That’s why the Big Ugly comes with the ugly reality for those not in the billionaire class.

We don’t need to pay for a Venetian wedding.

We just want to afford the basic costs of life.

Food. Rent. Transit.

What are we going to do when it’s no longer affordable to live in America?

Where do we go? We’re already in the land of the dream.

Medicaid (Medi-Cal in California) and the debt are the big items. But there are little things that are in there too.

The tax on remittances that was proposed at 3.5 percent is cut to about one percent.

That might spare some who send money back to the Philippines. But it’s such a small thing in a massive package like the Big Ugly. Besides, people were already figuring out ways to avoid any tax on remittances.

The big problems in the Big Ugly are vast differences between the benefits the wealthy receive versus what happens to the working class.

How’d we get here?

Better stop thinking of America in terms of race and start thinking in terms of what defines us in this Trump world – money and class.

The Trump world which ended affirmative action, DEI, and is committed to rolling back civil rights, doesn’t want to see race.

It’s colorblind to all – except money.

Flash it and you’re in the club. Buy a meme coin. Emoluments be damned. Trump and America are for sale.

Don’t have the money? You’re outside looking in.

Twenty-five years ago, I wrote about a New America, where the population growth would mean the minority would be the majority.

In 2025, the majority are those who are loyal to the 1 percent, the ultra-wealthy.

It makes for a cruel, mean, bottom line world – that  Trump continues to lie about.

“We’re cutting $1.7 trillion in this bill, and you’re not going to feel any of it,” he told Fox News on Sunday.

That’s true only if you’re wealthy.

But he insists on this other big lie. “And your Medicaid is left alone, it’s left the same,” he told Fox.

As I’ve explained, that’s a lie.

If the Big Ugly passes, the federal budget will be impoverished, creating massive deficits that paid for tax cuts to the rich.

For the rest of us? We may not be houseless, but we will be marginalized and without a safety net.

And to think, some people of color wanted it that way.

Trump only won by 1.5 percent of the vote last November, according to a voter analysis of 2024 released by Pew last week.

Black men nearly doubled their Trump support in 2024 from 12 percent to 21 percent.

Black women doubled their Trump support from 5 percent to 10 percent.

Hispanic men went from 39 percent Trump to 50 percent Trump.

Hispanic women went from 33 percent to 46 percent Trump.

Asian men and women were both 40 percent for Trump in 2024.

That’s the new negative diversity of MAGA.

Cheer? No cry, on the Fourth of July.

On  the day we celebrate the signing of the Declaration of Independence, Trump wants to sign one of the most unpopular legislative packages in American history.

It represents the largest transfer of wealth from the poor (the bottom 40 percent) to the rich in the history of this country.

Signing the Big Ugly on July 4th will signify our enslavement to a historical debt that will impact the financial well-being of normal income people in our country.

America will be transformed, just not into the country of our hopes and dreams.

Emil Guillermo is an award-winning journalist, news analyst and comic stage performer. He writes for the Inquirer.net’s US Channel. He has written a weekly “Amok” column on Asian American issues since 1995. Find him on YouTube, patreon and substack. See him perform live on the Canadian Fringe circuit at the Winnipeg Fringe Festival, July 16-27. Get your tickets here.