The "big, beautiful bill" House Republicans just sent to the Senate is a total dud for the people who actually voted for President Donald Trump, warned GOP populist guru Oren Cass in an interview with Politico published on Thursday.
The bill cobbles together a hodgepodge of tax cuts alongside hundreds of billions in cuts to Medicaid, food assistance, environmental programs, and could ultimately trigger cuts to Medicare. It's still a long way from becoming law; Senate Republicans have signaled they intend to make changes to the bill, and Democrats are likely to make the process as painful as possible and raise as many points of order as they can to strip provisions out of it, giving the bill a rocky path that will require at least a revote in the House or more likely a conference.
What's missing from it right now, though, is any real relief for the lower-income non-college voters Trump has sought to bring into the GOP, said Cass, the lead economist for the right-wing American Compass think tank — it's still largely the same old laundry list of tax cuts for the rich.
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“I liken it to a death march through a series of choices that nobody really wanted to be making,” said Cass. There are a handful of minor populist wins in the bill, he said, but "overall, the reality is that we are not going to solve our economic problems if we do not get serious about the fiscal picture and actually reduce the deficit. That’s going to require both reducing spending and raising revenue. If you’re not willing to do that, then I don’t think you can credibly say you’re addressing our economic problems."
Nonetheless, Cass pushed back on the idea that the bill's harsh cuts to safety net programs constituted a real betrayal of the base.
"I think the trajectory is the important thing," he said. "Remember what the discussion looked like last time Donald Trump was elected president and came into office with majorities in Congress, and contrast that to what this discussion looks like. Things have obviously changed a great deal. There’s much less confidence in the 1980-style, supply-side tax cutting, much more concern about cutting safety-net programs and more enthusiasm for family policy and directing resources toward families."
"All of those things are moving in the right direction," Cass insisted.