By Frank F Islam & Ed Crego, October 2, 2025 (Image credits: Tom de Boor, JNCGPT50)

On July 4, President Donald J Trump signed his signature piece of domestic legislation, the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill (OBBB).

There’s no doubt Trump thought the bill was beautiful at the time. Polling indicates, however, that the majority of Americans didn’t see it that way. CNN and KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation) polls conducted in July, after the OBBB became law, showed more than six in 10 of those surveyed disapproved of it.

The underlying reason for this disapproval is that the OBBB was constructed primarily to address the President’s needs and priorities, rather than the needs and priorities of the American people. For those near the top economically, the bill’s impact will be bountiful. For middle and lower-income earners the impact will be beastly.

On October 1, the federal government was shut down, due to the inability of Republicans and Democrats to agree on continued funding. But the fact of the matter is that due to the OBBB, much of the government was already being shut down for those individuals and organizations. We examine the disparities in the bill responsible for this reality below.

The Bountiful Beneficiaries

The OBBB provides a windfall for the wealthy and big business.

Big Business Benefits

In a piece published by CNN on July 4, Matt Egan and Tarni Lubby observe that “Corporate America” would be among those who would be “better off” because of the bill.

In their piece, they note that the package was supported “by big business groups, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Business Roundtable.” They point out that the bill would:

• make permanent the tax breaks in the 2017 Tax Breaks and Jobs Act.
• restore a tax break that allowed businesses to fully write off the cost of equipment in the first year it was purchased.
• once again allow businesses to write off the cost of research and development in the year it was incurred.
• allow businesses to fully and immediately deduct the cost of building new manufacturing facilities.
• enhance tax credits for semiconductor firms building manufacturing facilities in the United States.

On August 6, just a little over a month after the OBBB was signed, the White House released an article with the headline, “The One Big Beautiful Bill is Igniting an American Business Boom.” The article highlights large corporations that say they have benefitted from the OBBB, and states:

• AT&T says it could see as much as $8 billion in cash savings over the next two years, allowing it to invest in its network and pension plan.
• Johnson & Johnson says the company finally has “certainty” for its planned U.S.-based manufacturing investments.
• Northrop Grumman Corporation says it will see “a cash tax benefit of $200 million to $250 million for the year.”

And the Chamber of Commerce not only supported passing the bill, it’s taking the lead in promoting the bill’s benefits to businesses around the country. In August, Alexander Bolto of The Hill reported:

The U.S. Chamber, one of the nation’s preeminent business groups, plans to hold 100 roundtable discussions about the trillions of dollars in assorted tax cuts and tax incentives in the law, which Republicans hope will spur economic growth for years to come.

Benefits for the Wealthy

Egan and Libby also cite “high income Americans” as major beneficiaries of the OBBB. Their points validating this include:

• The net income for the top 20% of earners would increase by nearly $13,000 per year, after taxes and transfers. This would amount to a 3% average increase for those households.
• For the top 0.1% of earners, the average annual income increase would amount to more than $290,000 per year.
• Americans living in high-tax states should also benefit, because the bill temporarily increases limits on deductions for state and local taxes — for households making up to $500,000 annually — to $40,000 per year for five years.

James Myall of the Maine Economic Policy Center highlights that the bill:

• Includes permanent corporate tax breaks that allow large companies to avoid paying taxes and give their wealthy shareholders bigger dividends instead.
• Lowers the top rate of federal income tax, and increases the amount of money wealthy people can pass on to their children tax-free. (This amount beginning in 2026 will be $15 million per person — or $30 million for married couples — with future increases indexed for annual inflation).

The Beastly Burden

While the OBBB puts more money into big business operations and the pockets of the well-to-do, it takes money out of the pockets of the working class, those in need, and organizations that help them.

Low and Lower-Middle Income Losses

The OBBB hurts or provides minimal benefits to many of those in lower and lower middle-income households. The major areas affected include, but are not limited to: taxes; Medicaid, Affordable Care Act coverage, and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP):

• CNN reports that due to the extension of the tax cuts in the TJTCA that those in the lowest-income group (earning less than $18,000) will experience a $165 reduction in their income — a 1.1% decrease. The next level, who earn between $18,000 and $53,000, would get a $30 bump in income, or 0.1%.
• Because of the new work requirements in the OBBB and other reasons, drawing upon estimates from the Congressional Budget Office and other sources, KFF projected that the cuts in Medicaid, the Affordable Care Act, and other policy changes, “… the number of people without health insurance is expected to increase by about 17 million.”
• In terms of SNAP, an Urban Institute analysis found that “22.3 million families would lose all or some of their SNAP benefits.”

Health Care Providers and Non-Profit Agencies

It’s not just the millions of people who will be harmed by the OBBB, it’s also those organizations who ensure those individuals and families receive or have access to assistance that they need.

The OBBB includes $50 billion in funding over five years (starting in fiscal year 2026) for state grants through a Rural Health Transformation Program.

That sounds like good news, until it is compared to the cuts in Medicaid spending in rural areas. KFF estimates that spending in those areas over the next ten years will decrease by $137 billion — $87 billion less than the $50 appropriated in the OBBB.

In addition to cuts that impact health care providers, there are many other cuts impacting non-profit agencies that support those in their community. Brian Brehm, a reporter for the Winchester Star in Winchester, VA, wrote an excellent two-part story on the impact of federal funding cuts on nonprofit agencies in Northern Shenandoah Valley (a region comprised of five counties with approximately 250,000 people living in Northwest Virginia).

Brehm’s story focused on “approximately 30 nonprofits” in the Northern Shenandoah Valley who had formed a Non-Profit Advocacy Task Force (NATF) six months ago “to explore the ramifications of the cuts and how their agencies can continue supporting the community.”

At a NATF meeting, task force members reported the cuts had cost their agencies $2.919 million. According to the members, these cuts were due to provisions in the OBBB, and also the Trump administration’s mandate “to eliminate funding for any organization that serves undocumented immigrants, LGBTQ+ individuals, and people previously protected by now defunct diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs.”

Brehm ends his two-party story with the following quote from Rusty Holland, Executive Director of the Concern Hotline, which takes calls from “people experiencing an emotional crisis or who are contemplating suicide”: “This isn’t just a matter of nonprofit survival. This is a matter of individual survival.”

Sadly, Holland is correct. Through the years, innovative programs funded with support from the federal government have enabled individuals to make progress in many areas. Removing that support puts those people at risk, and this democracy in retrograde motion.

In addition to the impact of the tax cuts, Medicaid, Affordable Care, and SNAP cuts highlighted here, there are other OBBB actions in areas such as education, housing, student loans, and farming that will have serious negative consequences for those with lesser means.

Trying to Make the Ugly Look Beautiful

Even though the OBBB was signed into law on July 4, 2025, many of its most onerous effects on the poor and millions of citizens will not go into effect until more than a year and one-half later.

Amy B Wang explains the reason for this in her Washington Post article, writing,

Many of the more unpopular policies in the legislation will not kick in until after the 2026 midterm elections, possibly minimizing the political damage to Republicans that some in their party previously warned the bill could inflict.

Those policies Wang identifies as taking effect in 2027 include:

• New Medicaid work requirements
• Shifting some SNAP payment costs to the states
• Shortening the Affordable Care Act enrollment period

In 2028, most permanent funding changes to Medicaid will kick in, and selected low income Medicaid recipients who are insured through ACA will be required to make payments of up to $35 for health care services. It is projected this will reduce Medicaid expenditures by the states, and cause recipients not to carry health care insurance.

Finally, after the presidential election in 2028, many of the temporary tax provisions for items such as tax on tips, for seniors, and state and local tax deductions will expire. The extension of the 2017 tax cuts for corporate businesses and higher income households, however, will not.

There was concern among Republicans in Congress about the OBBB — especially its provisions on Medicaid — but few shared those concerns publicly. One who did was Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC), who spoke out against the bill from the Senate Floor and voted against it. After that, Tillis announced he would not be running for re-election.

Before the bill was passed, Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) said he would not support a bill with Medicaid cuts. The bill did, and Hawley voted for it. Two weeks later, he introduced legislation to eliminate some of its restrictions on strategies for the funding and use of Medicaid, and increase the funding for rural hospitals from $50 billion to $100 billion.

In her article on Hawley’s legislation, Megan Mineiro of the New York Times notes:

Mr. Hawley had vowed in a statement released after the Senate passed the policy bill to “continue to do everything in my power to reverse future cuts to Medicaid.” But that promise rings somewhat hollow, given that his new bill is unlikely to garner the support needed to become law.

Tillis and Hawley are definitely voices in the wilderness on the OBBB. The proclamations from the White House, Republicans in the U.S. Senate, and Republicans in the U.S. House about the beauty of the bill were, and continue to be, rapturous. If you go online and search “one big beautiful bill,” you will see that for almost negative comment about it, there will be four to five positive ones.

In closing, as noted in the quote at the beginning of our blog, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. This bill is indeed “big.” Whether it is beautiful or not depends who is looking at it, as well as where and when they are looking.

President Trump himself proved this to be true, when he proclaimed at a presidential cabinet meeting on August 26 that he was abandoning the use of the name he himself had given the bill.

As Zac Anderson reports for USA Today, Trump said, “So the bill, I’m not going to use the term great big beautiful. That was good for getting it approved, but it’s not good for explaining to people what it’s all about.”

That’s how Trump views things now, through his eyes and blurred vision. Through our eyes, though, we see clearly that you can’t explain the inexplicable.

The bill, no matter what it is called, is, at best, a mixed bag that primarily benefits those at the top of the economic pyramid, rather than those in the middle and those at the bottom.

Going forward, much work will need to be done to reverse its negative consequences, and to put in place laws, policies, and practices at the federal, local, and state levels to make this society and democracy a better and fairer place for all.