Photo by Jakkapant Turasen, iStockphoto
Photo by Jakkapant Turasen, iStockphoto
Trump says he’s targeting “waste” by cutting health care for Americans. So why all the corporate giveaways?
Republished with permission from OtherWords, by Brett Heinz
President Trump and his allies in Congress claim their “one big beautiful bill” will cut government waste. Former White House official Elon Musk disagrees, slamming the bill as a “disgusting abomination” containing a “MOUNTAIN” (in all caps) of waste.
Musk is no expert on waste—his DOGE cuts did untold damage to the federal government while failing to actually reduce any waste. But Musk and other critics like Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) are correct that this bill is chock-full of wasteful spending.
The topline items are tax cuts for the wealthy and historically large health care cuts for everyone else. Those are bad enough. But tucked away inside of the bill, there’s also a massive amount of wasteful spending and corporate subsidies.
Lobbyists are working overtime to fill the bill with giveaways to their clients, adding hundreds of billions in waste that will significantly increase the national debt over the next 10 years. Many of the bill’s corporate subsidies are disguised as tax cuts, a common tactic Congress uses to hide how much money it spends.
For instance, hidden on page 916 of the bill is a subsidy for the indoor tanning industry that will cost $365 million. A few pages later, a new benefit gives the entertainment industry $153 million to buy recording equipment. Even deeper in the bill, a new tax break for firearm silencers will cost $1.4 billion.
Unnecessary provisions that further complicate the tax code are everywhere: a $58 billion subsidy for auto loans, a $20 billion subsidy for private schools, and a $5 billion extension for flawed “opportunity zones” that only benefit real estate investors. These are just the tip of the iceberg.
Most significantly, the proposal would shovel an additional $150 billion into the government’s single largest source of wasteful spending: the Pentagon, which recently failed its seventh audit in a row.
The proposal for a “Golden Dome” missile shield alone will squander at least $25 billion on a program that will almost certainly not work. Another $2.5 billion would go to the controversial Sentinel missile program, which is currently 81 percent over-budget. Meanwhile, the $13-16 billion meant for “expediting innovation” is filled with earmarks for Congress’ “pet projects.”
The Pentagon is already one of the most over-funded institutions on the planet. It doesn’t need a chance to waste more of our money. The plan to spend another $62 billion on “border security” schemes is similarly concerning.
Most of this funding is slated for President Trump’s border wall, which consistently fails to reduce undocumented immigration. In 2022, the wall was breached more than 11 times a day. For all of the billions of dollars spent on this boondoggle, getting over the wall requires little more than a ladder and a rope.
And while the reconciliation bill slashes clean energy policies, it increases giveaways to the already heavily subsidized fossil fuel industry. Congress’ bill would give away additional lands for drilling and set royalties even lower than they already are, which effectively hands $5 billion in taxpayer funds over to polluters. This is just one of many benefits for the industry scattered throughout the bill.
“Big Ag” corporations are yet another major winner of the “One Big Beautiful Bill,” which increases farm subsidies by $52 billion. Of these subsidies, estimates suggest that more than half will go towards a handful of cash crops dominated by big corporations.
One-third of these payments go to crop insurance companies rather than farmers, and a majority of the payments that do make it to farmers benefit only a small handful of farms. A wide coalition of groups oppose this type of government waste, from conservatives to environmentalists.
The administration wants you to believe that it’s “cutting waste” when it cuts health care for working people to fund tax cuts for the rich. But the truth is, this bill would waste massive amounts of money on unnecessary programs, corporate subsidies, and failed policies.
Members of Congress should oppose it.
OtherWords is a free editorial service published by the Institute for Policy Studies. Each week, we publish a package of op-eds and columns, plus an original cartoon, and distribute them to readers, editors, and publishers through our website and newsletter. Each year, hundreds of newspapers and websites reaching millions of readers use this work.
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