And yet we get banned for talking about the solution.
And it’s behind a paywall. Chef’s kiss.
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The Largest Upward Transfer of Wealth in American History
House Republicans voted to advance a bill that would offer lavish tax cuts for the rich while slashing benefits for the poor. By Jonathan Chait House Speaker Mike Johnson Kevin Dietsch / Getty May 22, 2025, 9:21 AM ET
House Republicans worked through the night to advance a massive piece of legislation that might, if enacted, carry out the largest upward transfer of wealth in American history.
That is not a side effect of the legislation, but its central purpose. The “big, beautiful bill” would pair huge cuts to food assistance and health insurance for low-income Americans with even larger tax cuts for affluent ones.
Hakeem Jeffries, the House minority leader, warned that the bill’s passage, by a 215–214 margin, would mark the moment the Republicans ensured the loss of their majority in the midterm elections. That may be so. But the Republicans have not pursued this bill for political reasons. They are employing a majority that they suspect is temporary to enact deep changes to the social compact.
The minority party always complains that the majority is “jamming through” major legislation, however deliberate the process may be. (During the year-long debate over the Affordable Care Act, Republicans farcically bemoaned the “rushed” process that consumed months of public hearings.) In this case, however, the indictment is undeniable. The House cemented the bill’s majority support with a series of last-minute changes whose effects have not been digested. The Congressional Budget Office has not even had time to calculate how many millions of Americans would lose health insurance, nor by how many trillions of dollars the deficit would increase.
The heedlessness of the process is an indication of its underlying fanaticism. The members of the Republican majority are behaving not like traditional conservatives but like revolutionaries who, having seized power, believe they must smash up the old order as quickly as possible before the country recognizes what is happening.
House Republicans are fully aware of the political and economic risks of this endeavor. Cutting taxes for the affluent is unpopular, and cutting Medicaid is even more so. That is why, instead of proudly proclaiming what the bill will accomplish, they are pretending it will do neither. House Republicans spent months warning of the political dangers of cutting Medicaid, a program that many of their own constituents rely on. The party’s response is to fall back on wordplay, pretending that their scheme of imposing complex work requirements, which are designed to cull eligible recipients who cannot navigate the paperwork burden, will not throw people off the program—when that is precisely the effect they are counting on to produce the necessary savings.
The less predictable dangers of their plan are macroeconomic. The bill spikes the deficit, largely because it devotes more money to lining the pockets of lawyers and CEOs than it saves by immiserating fast-food employees and ride-share drivers. Massive deficit spending is not always bad, and in some circumstances (emergencies, or recessions) it can be smart and responsible. In the middle of an economic expansion, with a large structural deficit already built into the budget, it is deeply irresponsible.
In recent years, deficit spending has been a political free ride. With interest rates high and rising, the situation has changed. Higher deficits oblige Washington to borrow more money, which can force it to pay investors higher interest rates to take on its debt, which in turn increases the deficit even more, as interest payments (now approaching $1 trillion a year) swell. The market could absorb a new equilibrium with a higher deficit, but that resolution is hardly assured. The compounding effect of higher debt leading to higher interest rates leading to higher debt can spin out of control.
House Republicans have made clear they are aware of both the political and the economic dangers of their plan, because in the recent past, they have repeatedly warned about both. Their willingness to take them on is a measure of their profound commitment.
And while the content of their beliefs can be questioned, the seriousness of their purpose cannot. Congressional Republicans are willing to endanger their hold on power to enact policy changes they believe in. And what they believe—what has been the party’s core moral foundation for decades—is that the government takes too much from the rich, and gives too much to the poor.
Wow. Fuck these republicans and fuck the people that voted for them
passionate french chef’s kiss
It also has a bit where judges cant hold people in contempt anymore.
By reading this, i had two thoughts:
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Someday soon, America will burn.
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The rest of the world should make a Blacklist of all those criminals who are robbing the working class so they cannot go anywhere exept from burning in the hell they created.
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Hakeem Jeffries and anyone else thinking we are ever going to have fair elections again are Fing morons.
Our country is being robbed, our futures stolen
The floodwaters can only be dammed so long before breaking free. Whether that happens via controlled release of pressure or a disastrous blow out is up to the people with the regulatory power. Their failure to address the tide can only end in their painful ruin. For their sake, they better have fast legs if they don’t grow some hearts.
It’s less that the regulators are failing to do their jobs and more that regulators are being given toddlers’ first toolset to do the job that requires some high end tools.
Sorry, my intent was to apply the label of “regulator” to the publicly elected officials and ghouls controlling the course of this legislation (i.e. regulating society). I are engineer, so sometimes I mix my lingo and analogies.
The largest upward transfer of wealth in history… so far.
Not counting the ones during Covid or 2008.
This bill also fully bans Medicaid Gender Affirming Care, adults and all.
So far
Guess I’ll give up on everything, not have any kids and shoot myself at age 60,… unironically. I have the gun already.
This is not end of the world, history is full of bad moments and we got out of them.
We need people to join protests to help change things, not kill themselves. If we accept that we have no power, we will have no power.
That is such a funny fucking joke you made there old buddy old pal. “We got out of them” no we didn’t you fool do you see where we are now?? This has been a build up of events that have happened before. Ignoring that is just plain ignorant and dangerous to the situation at hand, we got here because we never truly “got out of them”.
By all means fight the good fight and keep your friends, families, and neighbors safe. However, we need to stop placating people with this rhetoric.
Are we beyond the point of protests yet? Our politicians are actively taking affirmative steps to avoid listening to them.
Are we beyond the point of protests yet?
Very close to it, in some places tragically far past it already.
We have been far past that point for a long while but nobody cares.
Peaceful weekend protests might make people feel like they’re doing something but are not successful. You have to disrupt the economy for people to notice general strikes massive protests.
Oh I will, all the way up to age 60. I’m not going to wait quietly for old age. I have lots of time to flick off conservatives.
But do I actually have any hope at all?
nope!
Our problem is apathy. It is much more of us than them.
If we succeed and still have democracy the laws can be reverted, but as I mentioned the apathy is the biggest problem and the reason how we got where we are.
Our problem is apathy
No, that doesn’t ring true to me even though I hear everyone say it including myself sometimes when I get frustrated.
I think our problem is much more unsettling, our problem is believing being as busy and productive as possible is a sufficient placeholder for boredom, for apathy, for space to understand and let others exploit resources we could have raced to first but left as a gift and that the genocide of indigenous peoples and cultures all over the world is a desperate attempt to make us forget the wisdom and power of letting things be.
That’s most millenial Americans’ retirement plans.
You could do so much more good with that gun.
I have given up on the idea of retirement or security/safety in my lifetime a loooong time back. We live in the worst possible type of dystopia, a world where “evil” won long ago, and has had ample time and opportunity to sink its claws into every aspect of our lives, forever.
And the worst part is that most people won’t even believe it. In fact, almost a majority seem to relish it somehow. Like they want the world to be as terrible as it can possibly be, even for themselves.
If your mental health is in that kind of state, please get rid of the gun. The world is better with you here, and we need each other the fight that’s coming.
And if we need guns later, I’m a hobbyist that’s been collecting them for years and I’ve got a TON of them.
Yes, please, no matter how you feel right now if you are super depressed and you buy a gun anyways, keep it at a friend’s or family member’s place who has guns that you trust, there is no shame in that hell everyone understands, let them have it and go to the range and stuff to target shoot and have fun together as a way of connecting.
Don’t keep it in your house, with ammunition.
Life is really fucking hard right now and brutal permanent choices are almost always a bad idea.
The world is better with you here
I can’t imagine any 100lb bag of rice being worse off because one grain is missing.
Grains of rice don’t live, don’t love, don’t build relationships and societies with each other. People do.
Take your ice cream koan elsewhere.
They weren’t overly specific in who the bill was beautiful for.
This is the kind of thing that could lead to the chop chops. But, don’t worry guys. I’m sure it’ll trickle down any day now.
Could? Should
