This July 4th the Big Ugly Bill Devastates Our Freedoms

A breakdown of what to expect in this new America run by a police state and billionaire oligarchs

It is a painful irony that today is Independence Day. On a day we should be celebrating our freedoms, Americans will soon be suffering under the most draconian and oppressive pieces of legislation in generations. Back in 2017, Trump pushed a tax scam that transferred billions from the working class to the ultra-wealthy. It failed to grow the economy, made the rich even wealthier, and the poor even poorer. Now, his new budget—passed by both the House and the Senate—is set to become law, and it makes his 2017 monstrosity look tame.

Trump’s new budget bill isn’t just bad policy, it will fundamentally transform the United States into a police state and push wealth and income inequality to the extreme. This is cruelty codified into law. This bill isn’t about fiscal responsibility. It’s about fascism. Let’s Address This.

Americans protest the SCOTUS Dobbs decision to overturn Roe. [Photo Credit : Ty O'Neil/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty]

Healthcare Gutted for 17 Million Americans

The reconciliation bill slashes Medicaid with surgical precision. At least 17 million Americans are expected to lose coverage—and the impact is already being felt. In Nebraska, Community Hospital in McCook has announced it will shut down its Curtis Medical Center. The reason? As CEO Troy Bruntz explains, "the current financial environment, driven by anticipated federal budget cuts to Medicaid, has made it impossible for us to continue operating."¹ This is just the beginning. Rural hospitals across America are collapsing—leaving millions with no alternatives.

ICE Gets a Bigger Budget Than Every Law Enforcement Agency in America—Combined

The bill pours $8 billion into ICE, giving it a larger budget than all state and local police departments combined. This would make ICE the 10th-largest military force in the world. With that money, ICE plans to detain and deport at least 3,000 people a day—or at least 1 million people per year. That means thousands of immigrants—many of them citizens—will be kidnapped from their homes, workplaces, and communities. This is a high-tech police state, unlike anything we’ve seen before in American history.

A $59 Billion Injection to Build Concentration Camps

This legislation allocates $59 billion to build new prisons—not to reduce crime, not to increase safety, but to expand a for-profit concentration camp system. This isn’t hyperbole. It’s reality. These camps will operate under a white nationalist lens of cruelty, with names like “Alligator” and “Alcatraz”—symbols historically used to dehumanize Black, Brown, and immigrant communities. Imagine if they named a detention facility “Alligator Auschwitz”—it would rightly spark outrage. But when the targets are Black or immigrant Americans, the media barely blinks. Moreover, white supremacists have long fetishized feed Black babies to alligators, and acted upon this barbaric practice. As The Jim Crow Museum reports, “It isn't really a question of whether African American babies were used as alligator bait, but the question is how frequent was the practice?”

A Border Wall Nobody Asked For

Trump’s bill includes $50 billion for a pointless southern border wall. Not because it improves national security (it doesn’t), but because it feeds his white supremacist base. Meanwhile, more than 600,000 undocumented white immigrants from Canada and Europe remain untouched. This wall isn’t about security—it’s about segregation.

Tax Cuts for Millionaires & Billionaires, Tax Hikes for Working People

If you make over $4.3 million a year, congratulations—you just got a $389,000 tax cut. But if you make under $51,000 a year, expect your taxes to go up. This is class warfare—plain and simple. This economic injustice is how societies collapse.

SNAP and Food Access Slashed

The bill guts food assistance programs that serve the working class, veterans, and children. SNAP funding is being slashed, meaning families will go hungry so billionaires can afford another yacht. This is especially egregious when experts estimate that currently at least 1 in 6 Americans are food insecure. Meanwhile, this bill allocates $150 billion to endless wars abroad, while cutting food access at home.

Growing the Military Industrial Complex

And if all that weren’t horrifying enough, the Trump budget includes a staggering $150 billion increase to an already bloated military budget. This will escalate endless war, fuel the global arms trade, and directly subsidizes the genocide in Palestine, as American-made bombs continue to fall on innocent civilians. This is the antithesis of national security—it’s a death sentence for the vulnerable and a blank check for defense contractors.

Disinformation from the Trump regime

Finally, if you’re like me and many other Americans, you got this email from the Social Security Administration yesterday, claiming, “The bill ensures that nearly 90% of Social Security beneficiaries will no longer pay federal income taxes on their benefits, providing meaningful and immediate relief to seniors who have spent a lifetime contributing to our nation's economy.” It even quotes Social Security Commissioner Frank Bisignano to say,

For nearly 90 years, Social Security has been a cornerstone of economic security for older Americans. By significantly reducing the tax burden on benefits, this legislation reaffirms President Trump’s promise to protect Social Security and helps ensure that seniors can better enjoy the retirement they’ve earned.

Here’s the problem—it’s a complete lie. Trump’s new budget bill does not exempt SSA income from taxation. This email makes a complete fabrication, from the Federal Government, to trick those reliant on SSA into believing that Trump has somehow helped them. He has not, and his malicious lie will succeed only in hurting more people, particularly our most vulnerable senior citizens.

Conclusion

All of the above, as devastating as it is, is still but a snapshot of the carnage this bill creates. It furthermore guts climate protections, guts public education, further melds religion and state with tax funded voucher programs for private Christian schools, and the list goes on and on.

Dr. King warned us of this very path when he condemned the triple evils of racism, poverty, and militarism. This budget doesn’t fight those evils—it supercharges all three. This bill will kill more than 50,000 Americans annually from calculated cruelty. It will devastate rural communities, target immigrant, Latino, and Black communities, and accelerate wealth and income inequality to levels that have collapsed past societies. This is what fascism looks like in budget form. And if we don’t act, it will become the norm.

As we navigate this new America, you have my commitment to continue to keep you informed, engaged, and activated on calls to action we can take to mitigate and prevent harm. We are all in this together, and it is critical we continue to lift each other up. If you are not already a paid subscriber, I welcome your support at $6/month or $50/year. None of my writing will ever be restricted behind a paywall, so those who are able to support this advocacy as paid subscribers help ensure that accessibility for everyone.

We cannot afford to look away. We cannot normalize what is happening. If we want a nation built by and for the people, then we need to stand together now—loud, unapologetic, and relentless.

Happy Fourth of July.