What's in the "Big Beautiful Bill"? (Page 2/2) blackrams JUL 02, 07:58 AM quote While Nancy Pelosi is absolutely a crook and thief who does more damage to her party by existing as the symbol of graft that she is, We can agree on that. But, she hasn't just done damage to her party, let's not forget the damage she's caused and supported to this nation. Rams 82-T/A [At Work] JUL 02, 08:46 AM quote Originally posted by NewDustin: And again, you are doing so in bad faith to hand wave away clearly crooked behavior from a politician you happen to agree with. This bill was dropped 7 days before the initial vote, not months like the ACA. Trump threatened all of the Republicans who balked at it to gain compliance before they were able to gain knowledge of what they were passing. To be fair... this is how almost every controversial bill goes through the process today. It's almost always at the behest of the President... and there's a mad rush to get it done by a certain deadline. I think it's unreasonable to say that the ACA was somehow debated for months, unlike the "Big Beautiful Bill." The "Big Beautiful Bill Act" was actually formally introduced in the house on May 21st, as a bill: https://www.congress.gov/ev...s/house-event/118300 This means that it had already been worked by Congress. You know as well as I know that this doesn't happen overnight. Congress had been working on it since January... matter of fact, the first draft passed the House Ways & Means Committee in late February: https://waysandmeans.house....to-working-families/ ... with the formal outcome of all of that being formally announced by Trump at White House . ORG with what was actually being presented formally as a completed bill: https://www.whitehouse.gov/...a-generation-chance/ So it's been at least 6 months that this bill has been worked on... and Democrats were invited to all the meetings, throughout the entire process. During the ACA, Republicans were blocked entirely from being able to participate in the process. For Gen-Zs, they may not remember because they were kids, or not even born yet... but you and I were still adults. In the House: Republicans Critical Of Democrats' Closed Door Meetings On Healthcare Reform https://www.rttnews.com/110...althcare-reform.aspx In the Senate: Senate Republicans say Dems ignoring meeting requests https://thehill.com/blogs/b...ng-meeting-requests/ So, respectfully, you're completely wrong in your assertion that this bill was dropped 7 days ago. It's been in progress since almost the day that Trump was inaugurated (early February). There was full transparency with all the other Democrats in the House and Senate, and everyone has had access to it from day one. Anyone with access to WestLaw has had the ability to see and read the updates every time the House posts them. This is in stark contrast to what they did with the ACA, where the Democrats knew they didn't need Republicans, and literally shut them out. President Obama posted an excerpt of what he wanted... 11 pages online, to which Democrats said they were being fully transparent. This is absolutely not true... because the bill was actually 2,400 pages. They also blocked Republicans from accessing it throughout the entire process... which is actually totally against House parliamentary and Senate rules... but the Democrats didn't care. The bill was so messed up, and so rushed through, that it actually included thousands of spelling mistakes. Worse even, it actually included an exclusion that allowed insurance companies to deny coverage to children with pre-existing conditions (the very thing it was supposed to end). That was later fixed via bipartisan legislation to literally no fanfare by the media. So... just saying. There has been way more access to, and public availability to this law, than there was the ACA. You should not be defending how the ACA was passed, and certainly not comparing it to the BBB... even though I take a lot of issue with many of the things in it. NewDustin JUL 02, 12:20 PM quote Originally posted by 82-T/A [At Work]: So... just saying. There has been way more access to, and public availability to this law, than there was the ACA. You should not be defending how the ACA was passed, and certainly not comparing it to the BBB... even though I take a lot of issue with many of the things in it. You make some very good points...and some of this I'm just wrong in the way I've spoken about it. The version that dropped last-minute to the Senate was fundamentally different than what the house passed...this isn't 153 pages of reconciliation changes...it is a completely different version of the law. The fact that even supporters were surprised by what is in it is telling of that. I will say that procedurally, it followed much the same route as the ACA, though I think you're portrayal of Republicans being frozen out of the ACA is a little overly zealous, given the fundamental roles Senators Olympia Snowe, Chuck Grassley, Mike Enzi, and Representative Charles Boustany played in negotiating it. I am not defending the way the ACA was passed, btw. I hate all of the last-minute, hiding, bullying nonsense. It's a stupid way to pass any law or make any decision. What I'm saying is whatis happening here is at least as bad as the ACA, and under any actual scrutiny much worse. Misquoting Nancy Pelosi out of context in a way that doesn't make sense to excuse it is wrong. The ACA being a cluster when it passed doesn't excuse doing things worse. It's still bad faith whataboutism. 82-T/A [At Work] JUL 02, 12:59 PM quote Originally posted by NewDustin: You make some very good points...and some of this I'm just wrong in the way I've spoken about it. The version that dropped last-minute to the Senate was fundamentally different than what the house passed...this isn't 153 pages of reconciliation changes...it is a completely different version of the law. The fact that even supporters were surprised by what is in it is telling of that. I will say that procedurally, it followed much the same route as the ACA, though I think you're portrayal of Republicans being frozen out of the ACA is a little overly zealous, given the fundamental roles Senators Olympia Snowe, Chuck Grassley, Mike Enzi, and Representative Charles Boustany played in negotiating it. I am not defending the way the ACA was passed, btw. I hate all of the last-minute, hiding, bullying nonsense. It's a stupid way to pass any law or make any decision. What I'm saying is whatis happening here is at least as bad as the ACA, and under any actual scrutiny much worse. Misquoting Nancy Pelosi out of context in a way that doesn't make sense to excuse it is wrong. The ACA being a cluster when it passed doesn't excuse doing things worse. It's still bad faith whataboutism. "What I'm saying is what is happening here is at least as bad as the ACA, and under any actual scrutiny much worse." I can't agree with this at all. The ACA shut out Republicans entirely through most of the process, and they only courted a few of those individuals in hopes that they could get to or above the 60 vote threshold. None of the Republicans voted for it, and the last holdout was Senator Bill Nelson, whom I'd voted for two times previously, and that was the day I stopped voting for any Democrats at the Federal level. I had a big issue with the individual mandate. Anyway... this is a reconciliation bill. It was almost assured to pass, and there's barely any controversy over it. I barely even hear about it in the news. There is absolutely no way you can compare what happened with the ACA to the passage of this budget bill. There has been absolute transparency through the entire process. The only reason why things are rushed is because they're trying to make a July 4th deadline... probably because Trump wants to grandstand and make a speech or something about it. But to suggest that there's conspiracy here and people don't know what's happening is really not legitimate. What I meant to add, and got on a tangent in my first response... House members rarely read these bills anyway. At this point, it's not even their job to do so. Their only concern is to address some of the issues from their constituents, and work with their staffers to make sure what they don't want in there, isn't in there, and what they want in there, is in there. They absolutely don't read the rest of it. How long does it take for you to get through a 500 page novel? Maybe a week with a few hours each day? A 2,500 page bill like the ACA, you can be sure that out of ~430+ House members, maybe 1 person has actually read it. blackrams JUL 03, 09:35 AM Based on this mornings news, it appears that the BBB is about to be passed by the House (again) and go to the President's desk for his signature (not the auto-pen). I've been thinking about this some and have come to the conclusion we may never actually see a balanced budget. But I've come up with a plan. May I suggest that elected officials reduce their pay to only peridium (the cost of actually being in DC with DOGE oversight) until they reach a balanced budget........... That might take a while but, I'm thinking doing so would provide some incentive. Yeah, that's not going to happen (ever) but, something needs to be done to get their attention. Rams NewDustin JUL 03, 10:12 AM quote Originally posted by 82-T/A [At Work]: Anyway... this is a reconciliation bill. It was almost assured to pass, and there's barely any controversy over it. I barely even hear about it in the news. Are you seriously claiming there isn't any controversy in the news about the BBB? Do me a favor...go to Google then go to the news tab and type in 'BBB' in the search bar. blackrams JUL 03, 10:24 AM quote Originally posted by NewDustin: Are you seriously claiming there isn't any controversy in the news about the BBB? Do me a favor...go to Google then go to the news tab and type in 'BBB' in the search bar. I have noticed a lot of whining by Dems due to cuts to their favorite vote buying programs and of course, a left-leaning biased media is happy to spread such news. Is that what you're talking about? Rams 82-T/A [At Work] JUL 03, 10:38 AM quote Originally posted by NewDustin: Are you seriously claiming there isn't any controversy in the news about the BBB? Do me a favor...go to Google then go to the news tab and type in 'BBB' in the search bar. To be clear, there's controversy over what it supposedly offers, though nothing at all about how it's being passed. You've presented the idea that Republicans are being shifty and shady in how they're passing it, which is not at all the case. They've been completely transparent, and this bill has been public through the entire process since February. What I am seeing (a lot of this morning) is people being really, really upset about some of the things in it. Here are some of the comments I've seen: - 10s of millions of people will lose health care - Millions of people will lose access to food - It will eliminate millions of middle-class jobs - It kills grandmas and starves children This is a tweet one of my friends sent me: https://x.com/briantylercoh.../1940673373237137804 He seems to only follow politics on Twitter, and they all seem to be left-leaning. So clearly, the responses in here are outrageous... calling for Republicans to die in some cases. The only complaint I'm seeing from Republicans is the re-inclusion of SALT deductions, and that it will add to the budget deficit. So if I address only the left-leaning complaints (since I basically agree with the right-leaning complaints)... here's what I see... The idea that this eliminates health care for illegals is not true... because as already addressed, the Parliamentarian has already stated that this policy cannot be included since it's policy, and this is a reconcilliation bill. So that's propaganda that the left is being fed it seems. With that, illegals have already been banned from getting Medicaid since Trump signed that executive order doing so three months ago. So, the point is moot, regardless. The next issue is on food... I see nothing in the bill about it eliminating food... unless we're talking about illegals again, which are no longer getting benefits. But on both Medicaid and SNAP, the changes made are only as it applies to able-bodied people who are currently on welfare and not working. The new requirement is that they must work 20 hours a week (or more specifically, 80 hours in a month). So they must have part-time work to be eligible for benefits. This is actually what the requirements used to be since the 1990s. Matter of fact, the only reason this changed was because of COVID, and oddly enough, if I'm not mistaken, it was actually Trump who waived those requirements in 2020 (which makes it kind of ironic). I'm not exactly sure how they come to the conclusion that this will eliminate middle-class jobs... but maybe someone else can answer that. It seems like a lot of the negative comments about the bill are mostly based on misinformation. The big question I have is... how can they change some policy, but then not change other policy... by what metric does the senate parliamentarian use to determine what can and cannot be included? Like, why can they set a 20 hour work week requirement, but can't ban illegals outright from benefits? Anyway, thoughts? I'm not too thrilled with it, but I am happy that it permanently enshrines the middle class tax cuts. From one day to the next, I remember that being a massive, I mean massive tax cut for me back in... what... 2018 or something? I can't remember. ray b JUL 09, 11:27 AM ^ BS no truth cliffw JUL 09, 02:45 PM quote Originally posted by ray b: ^ BS no truth #1 When a leftist tells you something is true, or false, it is always the opposite of what is being said. #2 When a leftist accuses you of doing something, that is exactly what they are doing behind closed doors.