If You Thought It Was Such An Awful Bill, Why The #$%& Did You Vote For It?

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​If You Thought It Was Such An Awful Bill, Why The #$%& Did You Vote For It?

​        Yesterday the Republican-majority U.S. Senate passed Donald Trump's gargantuan domestic agenda bill - which Trump not too vainly named his "Big Beautiful Bill" - by the narrowest of margins. 50 Republicans voted for the bill and all 47 Democrats plus 3 Republicans voted against it. Vice-President JD Vance was called in to break the tie and pass the bill, 51-50.

        This big stinker of a bill will, among its other iniquities, further enrich the rich, further impoverish the poor, cancel climate, clean energy and environmental initiatives, ban  AI regulation, raise consumer energy costs by billions, cut back food assistance for those who need it, and cause 17 million Americans to lose their healthcare, all the while raising the national debt by a dangerous $3 trillion. 
​            But in truth I'm less outraged that Trump's despicable "Big Beautiful Bill" passed, than that it was passed by Republicans who knew that the bill was bad, who even spoke out about what a bad bill it was and how it would harm their constituents as well as the whole country...then voted for it anyway!  And then - and here's the real punchline - they spoke out against the bill again after they voted for it!      
            There was Missouri Senator Josh Hawley who wrote an Op-Ed piece for the New York Times condemning the bill's proposed Medicaid cuts. 

      He made his point with a heart-wrenching story about a mother of five with an 8-year-old daughter who needed a feeding tube and other expensive treatments to survive. "“Without Medicaid," the mother informed Senator Hawley, "we would lose everything — our home, our vehicles and, eventually, our daughter.”
       And then Hawley voted for the very bill that he railed against in his Op-ed, the bill that will cut that child's Medicaid and send her family into destitution. When asked to comment on his vote Hawley said that going forward he was going to do everything he could to stop health care being taken away from working             people - even though he voted to take health care away from working people!
         There was Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski who opposed the bill for its new work requirements for Medicaid recipients and its cuts to SNAP, the Federal food assistance program.

     But then Senate Republican leaders offered Murkowski to write into the bill  an exemption for her state from the Medicaid work requirement and SNAP cuts, and also threw in a goodie bag of other benefits and exceptions that would apply only to Alaskans. Ms.  Murkowski accepted the bribe, voted for the bill, and then afterwards had the gall to say that she didn't like the bill, struggled with the impact its Medicaid and SNAP provisions would have on the most vulnerable people in the rest of the country, but that she had to look out for the interests of Alaskans. She even added that she hoped the  bill - that she herself voted for! -  wouldn't make it through the House vote. 
        There was West Virginia Senator Jim Justice who warned that Medicaid cuts in Donald Trump's bill could cause the loss of many rural hospitals and boomerang politically for Republicans.

           Then he voted for the bill.
​           There was Wyoming Senator Ron Johnson who proclaimed that he couldn't accept a bill that left the our national debt in excess of $1.9 trillion. 

     Trump's Big Beautiful Bill will bring on a national debt in excess of $3 trillion. Ron Johnson voted for it anyway.
       Afterwards Johnson said of the bill he voted to pass,  "I don't like it...But at some point in time you have to recognize reality."
      Right. And the reality that's there for anyone to recognize is that  any one of those four Senators who were so publicly vocal about the evils of Trump's Big Beautiful Bill could have sunk the bill with their vote. It would have taken only one more vote, only one more Republican following their conscience, doing what they knew was the right thing, to deliver the American people from the suffering that Trump's bill will bring down on so many of us. And that they know will bring down on so many of us.
          But not one of them could bring themselves to join the three lone Republicans who dared to cross Donald Trump and vote their conscience:  Susan Collins of Maine, Rand Paul of Kentucky,

...and Tom Tillis of North Carolina, who announced that after his term was up he wouldn't run again,

...obviously recognizing the reality that crossing Donald Trump would be the end of his political career, a reality that other Republicans have unfortunately had to recognize.

      Which answers the question of why the Republican Senators who knew that Donald Trump's Big Beautiful Bill was garbage and had the power to dispose of it voted for it anyway, and why the Republican members of the House of Representatives who've spoken out against the bill because they, too, know it's garbage, will also likely vote for it: Because those Republicans are less worried about the welfare of their constituents and our nation than they are terrified of Donald Trump's wrath and vengeance.    

     And of those hypocritical, cowardly Republican Senators who publicly condemned  Donald Trump's Big Beautiful Bill but then took one for his power-hungry appetite I ask: So what do you expect now? A purple heart?

​References
https://www.cnn.com/politics/live-news/trump-big-beautiful-bill-vote-07-01-25

https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/gops-josh-hawley-condemns-medicaid-cuts-says-ll-vote-anyway-rcna215987

https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/5378970-medicaid-cuts-senate-republicans/

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/01/us/politics/murkowski-republican-bill.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/5378124-jim-justice-medicaid-trump-bill/

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/senate-races-final-vote-trumps-megabill-after-weekend/story?id=123336634