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Small-Minded Ugly Bill
I think Republicans will pass something eerily similar to the House bill
mister mix
May 22, 2025
BooMan has had a couple of good posts on the details of the reconciliation bill. His theory is that reluctant Republicans voted for the bill with the assurance that it would be changed to remove some poison (or add more poison, if you’re in the freedom caucus).
As I predicted was likely, the U.S. House of Representatives succeeded in passing the fascist regime’s “one big, beautiful” budget reconciliation bill before recessing for Memorial Day. This is a very bad thing, and it removes one of the thornier obstacles to making the bill into law. But, it’s not the end of the game.
The way I described this in my last analysis was as the equivalent of a punt. It’s true that the legislation passed by the narrowest of margins (215-214), but that doesn’t mean that there is a true majority in the House for final passage. House Republicans know that the bill will now go to the Senate where changes will be made. Speaker Mike Johnson was never able to convince the skeptics in his caucus that he’d produced an acceptable compromise, but he was able to convince them that the House didn’t want to go on recess having failed to move the bill to the Senate.
This is probably as good a theory as any, but I don’t agree. I think we’ve got a suicide pact going on in the Republican caucus. Predictions about Johnson not having the votes, and having to compromise with Democrats, have been proven wrong multiple times. There were three Republicans who didn’t vote for the bill (one voted present, two didn’t vote). Is it ageist to point out that Johnson’s job would have been harder if three Democrats who had serious cancer hadn’t died so far in 2025? (The data on age in the Democratic caucus is terrible.) Still, I think that Johnson could have gotten those votes with threats about disloyalty to Trump, he just didn’t have to.
If I’m right that they’re all going to drink Trump’s Kool-Aid, the political task will be to hang the resulting immiseration on the Republicans. I hope we can do it.
Open thread.
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