Poor People Giving Money to Billionaires: The Great Beauty of Trump's America

Trump – perhaps influenced by Paolo Sorrentino – wanted to call it the Big Beautiful Bill (BBB). With a bit of approximation we can call it “the law of great beauty” . What is it? A package of new rules that transfer to the rich and the very rich a considerable part of the economic resources that the poor currently have. In particular, Trump has arranged a fair reduction in taxes for millionaires, a strong reduction in taxes for billionaires, and a very strong reduction in welfare and healthcare for the “lower” classes.

What is the idea that inspires it? It is the basic concept of the ideology of the right, which however a significant part of the right, the well-educated ones, never dare to declare. And that is the idea that the growth and strength of a society - and of a State - are essentially determined by the solidity and wealth of the social strata at the top of the pyramid. Because it is from there, from the top, that development and wealth arise. While the poorest strata, in terms of the market and finance, count for little. And even if they become poorer, get sick, or see their life expectancy shortened, it is not a great damage to the community. Or rather: it is damage, but it is typical collateral damage, therefore very bearable, which in any case helps the affirmation of the top class. As a result, Trump has prepared a law that provides for a cut of one thousand billion (half of the Italian GDP) to Medicaid (which is that part of welfare that provides free health insurance for about 75 million poor Americans, that is, a little more than 20 percent of the population of the United States). Then there are many other less quantifiable cuts. For example, those to food stamps , that is, the system of food support for the poorest, for which rules have been established that exclude from the benefit almost half of those who currently enjoy it.

Despite these blows, Trump will hardly be able to make the numbers add up. Because the tax cuts are very expensive. Some of them had already been launched by his previous presidency, in 2017. But they were temporary cuts. They were supposed to last 8 years and end at the end of 2025. The Great Beauty law makes them permanent and increases their consistency, and therefore presents itself as a measure that will have a very strong impact in the coming years or decades. In fact, Trump has also included in the law a provision that increases the debt ceiling by 5,000 billion, because he fears that otherwise the next budget law will trigger a “default”, that is, bankruptcy. Trump struggled to get this law passed in the House. The other night, until the last moment, there was hope that it would fall. There are 220 Republicans in the House and 213 Democrats.

Many Republicans did not want to vote. It seemed an abomination to them too. It was the Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, who convinced many of them. In the end, there were only two dissidents who voted with the Democrats and the law passed 218 to 215. Johnson spoke of a great victory. He is a staunch supporter of the “king”. An ultra-conservative super-Christian who in the name of that poor wretch Jesus Christ shouts: “ the last will always be the last, you have misread the Gospel…” . Medicaid was established in 1965 by a namesake of Mike Johnson. The Democratic President Lyndon B. Johnson. With a law called the “Social Security Act”. Social Security Act. They are all called Johnson but the differences between right and left, in America, are not so subtle.

FROM

Piero Sansonetti