In an event that consummates the reversal of national fortune that began when voters narrowly chose to return Donald Trump to the White House, Congress has passed his massive and deeply reactionary One Big Beautiful Bill budget measure. Thanks to this bill, Trump could resign tomorrow and still point to an enduring legacy. Quite a few of his executive orders may ultimately be reversed or curtailed by the courts; his key appointees may fall by the wayside out of incompetence and corruption; and some of his policies, like his protectionist tariff regime, may collapse from sheer incoherence. But the 940-page bill he will sign on July 4th will change the country in ways that will be difficult to reverse, even if his party loses Congress and the White House.

It is, in fact, the single most sweeping piece of legislation in American history. Other presidents have used the mega-packaging device, known as budget reconciliation, to get around Senate filibusters obstructing their initiatives. But none before Trump have packed a year’s worth of legislation, much of it designed to make major changes in federal policies and personnel, into a single bill, a One-and-Done agenda with no Plan B if it failed. It was arguably this high-risk but even higher-reward strategy that in the end enabled Republican leaders to convince nearly all their troops to go along with a bill they knew would prove unpopular once the public finally understands its Reverse Robin Hood nature. Nobody wants to campaign on shredding the social safety net to cut taxes for corporations and the wealthy. But nobody wanted to cross the 47th president either.

That proved true in the House even though the Senate changed the megabill in ways that made nearly everyone unhappy, with deeper Medicaid cuts, wildly expensive........

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