There’s a great deal of ink spilled through the years about the friendship between Ronald Reagan and Tip O’Neill.
The two-term Republican president and the Democratic speaker-of-the-house might have disagreed on some policy matters, but were great friends, who, reportedly, enjoyed a drink together at the end of the day.
The reason why this particular across-the-aisles close friendship is cited so frequently whenever folks think back to a more civil, decent time in our political history is because the very notion of the two warring street gangs, who sport red and blue, getting along now seems ludicrous.
In the day and age of party servants, instead of public servants, if one Democrat or Republican voices dissent with a plank, or piece of legislation, trumpeted by their respective party, pettiness and punitive measures accompany such actions.
Take f’rinstance Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), who did not voice support for President Donald Trump’s absurdly named “Big, Beautiful Bill.” Paul claimed that due to this blasphemous dissent, he had been barred from the annual White House picnic, and event that is typically attended by members of Congress and their families, and a measure of everyone fellowshipping across the aisle.
Paul voiced his disgust on the immature, petty and silly move that this was. “But petty vindictiveness like this…makes you wonder about the quality of people you’re dealing with,” Paul told reporters.
In response, Trump claimed that Paul had been invited, and that his attendance would give the President “more time to get [Paul’s] vote on the Big, Beautiful Bill, one of the greatest and most important pieces of legislation ever put before our Senators & Congressmen/women.”
So, someone is lying about the ordeal, or there may have been a miscommunication. Either way, there’s a few things to unpack here.
Trump is on-brand with the hyperbolic pitch about the megabill, referring to it in such a sacrosanct way, and even the name “Big, Beautiful Bill” is uniquely Trumpian. What fiscal conservatives like Paul have pointed out is that the bill, which passed through the House of Representatives, would come at a steep cost to the lowest-income Americans, roughly $1,600 per year, while awarding tax cuts to the top earners; increasing their incomes by an average of $12,000, annually, according to projections released by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office.
The cuts to social safety net programs like Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition and Assistance Program (SNAP) have also been cited as particularly disastrous ramifications of the bill. Those cuts were factored in to justify the tax cuts to the billionaires, by the way.
Behind the flashy sloganeering of this bill, meaningful relief for struggling, working-class Americans is given the old once-over so that benefits can flow upward. While Trump has claimed the bill will boost our economy, it will do anything but.
By prioritizing tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans and large corporations over the struggle of We the People, that grocery bill will continue to climb. It’s not a trickle-down situation. Instead, it’s trickle-dry.
The bill’s proposed series of rollbacks on worker protections and environmental regulations under the guise of cutting red tape also opens the door for companies to exploit labor, ignore safety standards and pollute working-class communities without consequences. These are the very communities that rely on strong oversight to keep their families safe and their jobs fair.
Another factor, and for brevity’s sake, I’ll end this screed after a couple more points, is that many of the bill’s infrastructure promises are based on private-public partnerships, which sound good on paper but often shift costs onto local taxpayers and result in tolls or fees that hit low-income earners the hardest. It’s a shell game: public money lines private pockets, and working people pay more for less.
The Big, Beautiful Bill has been presented to We the People in a manner reflecting the typical Trumpian tone and structure strategy — branding and spectacle over substance. It’s sold as a populist win, but its true beneficiaries are the elite. Working-class Americans deserve policies that lift them up — not more empty promises wrapped in gold lettering.
As Joseph Welch famously asked Senator Joseph McCarthy, “have you no sense of decency?”. The same can be asked of the Trump White House and those members of Congress who voted to approve this bill. Decency by We the People would involve the President and Congress admitting that they’ve erred; 86’ing this bill and working together to provide actual meaningful legislation in a reconciliation bill that actually helps working-class people, something that would actually mean good news for the people doing the real work in this country.
It's a far cry from when Tip O’Neill would tell President Reagan “I’ll cut a deal on Social Security if you let me focus on taxing the wealthier people.”
Common ground can still be found, and deals can be made to benefit We the People, or at least I think it’s still in the realm of possibilities.
