Whether he actually said it or not, what Otto von Bismarck is sometimes credited with saying is true: “Laws are like sausages. It’s better not to see them being made.”

That’s certainly true of the so-called “big, beautiful bill,” passed by the House and Senate last week and signed into law by President Trump on July 4. Its enactment required breaking almost every rule governing the legislative process. And in its final form, it betrays everything the Republican Party used to stand for, to say nothing of the promises President Trump made to middle-class voters in 2024.

Both houses of Congress have rules to prevent this kind of legislation. In the normal order of business, bills must deal with one subject only; bills can be voted on only after being considered and approved by the appropriate committees; time must be allowed for members to read and study a bill before voting on it; and, in the Senate, major spending bills require 60 votes to move to the floor. Every one of those rules was broken or sidestepped to force passage of the “big, beautiful bill.”

The end result is a mammoth new law that’s a political triumph for Trump, but can only be described as a “big, beautiful betrayal” of the middle class — as even Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), who ended up voting for the bill, admitted. “We cannot be a working-class party if you are taking away health care for working-class people,” Hawley warned.

And that’s exactly what the bill does. According to the Congressional Budget Office, because of cuts to Medicaid contained........

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