The ‘Big Beautiful Bill’ had to pass — however it could

As I write this, House Democratic Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries is talking ... and talking ... and talking, using his Cory Booker moment to stall the final passage of President Trump’s One Big Beautiful Act.

He may be helping its passage. Vice President JD Vance said one GOP Congressman just texted him, “I was undecided on the bill but then I watched Hakeem Jeffries performance and now I’m a firm yes.”

But as of my deadline, which was early last week so Gazette staff could have Friday off to celebrate (the real) No Kings Day, I can’t confirm the BBB’s passage. As I type, Jeffries is still using his “magic minute,” a customary privilege of party leaders to speak for as long as they wish.

Trump racks up wins

But as I file this column, I can confirm President Donald Trump is hours away from his scheduled rally at the Iowa State Fairgrounds. He’ll surely talk about his victories of late, and he’s got a bucketful from just the last two weeks: Bunker-busting kabooms that impaled Iran’s nuclear capabilities, high praise from the NATO secretary-general for convincing most members to up their defense spending and a fistful of favorable Supreme Court rulings.

Ope, there’s more: new trade deals, a stock market that has roared back from tariff panic, gas prices back at 2021 levels right before a big summer travel weekend, zero illegal migrants released into the country for a second month in a row and a jobs report that that beat expectations for the third month in a row.

Also, he’s kicking off a yearlong celebration to mark the 250th year of the greatest country in the history of the world.

And yes, he’ll probably boast his big, beautiful win in getting the Big Beautiful Bill passed, even if it hasn’t happened by the time he steps on that stage.

By the time you read this, the Big Beautiful Bill will likely have passed. It needed to. Without it, the income tax cuts we have all enjoyed for the last eight years — whether some admit or even realize it — would vanish. Our taxes would have gone up collectively by trillions of dollars, stifling the economy and likely triggering a recession. No one has ever raised taxes and watched an economic boom follow.

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Bill is a necessary mess

Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of things about the Big Beautiful Bill I dislike. I don’t like that only eight years after the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act capped state and local tax (SALT) deductions at $10,000, the BBB raises that cap to $40,000. That will enable high-tax states and metropolitan areas to keep their taxes high — or raise them even higher if up to $30,000 of that tax burden can once again be deducted from their residents’ federal taxes. We Iowans didn’t set fiscally sane tax rates just to see Californians’ federal obligations offset by their own tax-and-spend stupidity.

But should a SALT cap raise — or a host of similar bugaboos — be a dealbreaker for the passage of the Big Beautiful Bill? No. Even worse than all that would be if our taxes shoot up and the economy sputters, not to mention a number of other unfortunate side effects.

The $10,000 SALT cap added to the 2017 tax cut bill cost the bill 12 GOP congressional votes, all from Republicans in high-tax blue states. At the time, House Republicans had a 45-seat advantage over Democrats and could afford to lose those votes. In the current Congress, House Republicans could only lose three from their own party and still get the bill passed. (In a strategy move that surprises absolutely no one, Democrats in both chambers were united in opposition.)

So they had to negotiate. They had to compromise and give just enough members just enough of what they wanted, including a whole load of stuff that plenty of people don’t like.

Politicians wield power to serve interests

Don’t go assuming that is unusual. It’s what politicians do. They leverage their influence hoping to serve the interests of themselves and their constituents.

Rep. Nick LaLota, R-N.Y., for example, said he couldn’t get behind the Senate version of the Big Beautiful Bill, which hikes the SALT cap increase to $40,000 but drops it back to $10,000 in the year 2030.

"I need $40K for my constituents, and it has to be $40K forever,” LaLota told Axios on June 30.

I, as an Iowan, having stated my dislike for large SALT deductions, certainly don’t like that. But I understand it. If I hated myself enough to live and pay taxes in New York, I’d probably favor LaLota’s leveraging for a higher SALT deduction cap. (How LaLota voted in the end is something we’ll find out past my deadline.)

That’s the standard in all deliberative bodies — members wield their power and leaders let them to the extent that they must in order to accomplish the overall goal.

Politicians flex

Look at what happened in the Iowa Legislature not two months ago. A group of 12 state senators pledged to not vote on the required state budget unless legislation prohibiting eminent domain for private companies was brought up for a vote. Those 12 senators leveraged their collective power for the sake of the interests of constituent landowners and their environmentalist allies who were adamantly opposed to their land being seized by a carbon capture and storage company for a pipeline. The leverage worked -- the eminent domain bill passed, as did the state budget, and everyone got to go home.

Yes, the anti-pipeline bill was vetoed by Gov. Kim Reynolds, opening a tiny window at the end of a still-unlikely tunnel for Summit Carbon Solutions’ and ethanol leaders’ hopes to construct a carbon pipeline in Iowa.

But Reynolds and legislators who had opposed the eminent domain bill were acting on behalf of constituents, too, and their interests: avoiding the unintended blocking of future, desirable projects. It’s nothing to do with keeping the former employers of one particular state senator with gubernatorial aspirations happy and their checkbooks wide-open. (Depending on whom you ask, at least.)

While we’re on the subject, one thing that helps make the carbon pipeline industry especially lucrative is tax credits — specifically, the 45Q tax credits that offer between $85 and $180 per ton, depending on the method of capture. If Summit captures 18 million tons of carbon annually as they claim is their plan, that adds up to between $1.5 billion and $3.2 billion in incentives. Ka-ching.

Everyone loves spending bills when they suit

Democrats in Washington, D.C., and their supporters decry those tax credits as part of the bill’s big, beautiful giveaway to corporations and the wealthy. But they certainly didn’t object to those same handouts when passing former President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act in 2022, which increased the values of those very 45Q tax credits to their present amounts. (And increased the deficit and raised the national debt, but those were minor details, apparently.)

That’s why their arguments fall flat. The game they loathe is the same game they love when their people hold the gavel and the pen.

They condemn Republicans for trying to prevent trillions in tax increases, claiming it will increase the deficit and national debt. (Economic growth from BBB complicates their gloomy forecast.) But when Republicans try to cut a tiny fraction of spending, and they go ballistic and claim people will die.

Big corporations shouldn’t get tax giveaways, they insist. But Congress must protect these tax credits for things like renewable energy upgrades (from which big corporations will profit.)

OK, then.

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That’s why there’s always so much to spending bills, “big and beautiful” or not. Everyone has their own interests. The federal government is an enticing machine for serving those interests.

Bob’s interest is in passing the bill so his taxes don’t go up. Carl’s interest is seeing it fail so the wealthy pay more (even though Bob will, too.)

Roger wants to keep residential solar tax credits alive so he can install panels on his roof. Denise is a server at a restaurant who wants tips to become tax-exempt. Jared desires his overtime pay not to be taxed so he can still take more home even after it bumped him into a higher tax bracket.

Our legislators are the ones trying to represent all those interests while compromising with colleagues representing other, often competing ones. It’s a process.

Some GOP holdouts demanded “perfect“ at the expense of ”good.“ In representative government, there’s no such thing. Especially when the constituency is so polarized and when looming consequences include a big tax increase.

Democrats continue down their road to nowhere

Unfortunately, the Democrat left doesn’t even want for perfect to be the enemy of good. They want to make Trump the enemy of everything. They’re failing at doing so.

Polls show their base is getting accustomed to failure. A record number of Republican voters, on the other hand, are stoked at all this winning. Even in watered-down, twisted-out form, Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill made for yet one more.

Whenever it actually passed, that is. As I turn this in, Minority Leader Jeffries is still talking.

Comments: 319-398-8266; althea.cole@thegazette.com