TRUMP'S “BIG BEAUTIFUL BILL” IS A NEW SPIN ON AN OLD SCAM

The president has made a lot of questionable claims about the virtues of his legislation. But it's the same voodoo economic theory Republicans have pushed for decades—only worse.

- BY CHARLES P. PIERCE

President Trump signing the One Big Beautiful Bill Act into law in a ceremony at the White House on July 4. The tax-and-spending package is projected to add trillions to the U. S. deficit.

IT WAS FEBRUARY 1980, AND George H. W. Bush needed a win. The year had begun so promisingly. He had won the Iowa caucuses, and for a brief time it seemed as though he were poised to save the Republican party from nominating Ronald Reagan, the superannuated former actor and onetime governor of California who, the party's eastern establishment believed, was a conservative fanatic married to some bizarre ideas. The Bush campaign left Iowa with the candidate proclaiming that he had “the Big Mo,” which is how you say “momentum” in his native Kennebunkish. Bush went on to New Hampshire as a narrow front-runner, despite being one of the most maladroit public politicians in American history.

And then the roof caved in.

Bush had committed to a one-on-one debate with Reagan, sponsored by the Nashua Telegraph. Upon some very crafty advice, however, the Reagan campaign arranged to fund the debate itself and invited all the other candidates. Outmaneuvered, Bush grudgingly agreed to participate, but now it was Reagan's show. And when the moderator, a Telegraph editor named Jon Breen, attempted to cut Reagan's mic, Reagan exploded, “I paid for this microphone, Mr. Green!” (You never stopped the Gipper when he was on a roll, even if he got a man's name wrong.)