We have bet the country on one big beautiful bill

We have bet the country on one big beautiful bill

We have bet the country on one big beautiful bill

President Donald Trump displays the signed bill during a ceremony for the One Big Beautiful Bill Act on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington on July 4, Photo by Kent Nishimura/UPI | License Photo

Make no mistake: President Donald Trump’s signing of the one Big Beautiful Bill into law on July Fourth, inadvertently or not, has bet the nation’s future on whether the BBB will work as envisaged or will create the equivalent of a political and economic trainwreck.

How can that be? Could any law have that potential impact for success or failure?

Consider these realities: Not since 1860 has the nation been so politically divided over not a single, but every issue. Trust and confidence in government have eroded to where the legitimacy to govern sensibly is in grave doubt.

The BBB will be fuel that fires the resentment Democrats have for its passage and supercharges excessive Republican zeal for how the bill will transform America for the better.

Bluntly put, will the BBB cause a political explosion that drives the nation even further apart? Or will it be a panacea, as Trump and his Republican cohort promise? And when might we know how this turns out?

Here is the bet: The administration believes that tariffs that bring in trillions of dollars to the Treasury and drastically lower the debt and deficits. And that tax cuts and major spending reductions largely to health care, along with growth incentives, will create a booming economy. Any tariff-borne costs for consumers and taxpayers would be offset by tax cuts and other benefits.

But could, at some point, the BBB become the domestic equivalent of the Tonkin Gulf Resolution that sent America to war in Vietnam and the Authorization for Use of Military Force to disarm Iraq’s non-existent weapons of mass destruction and rebuild Afghanistan? All lacked a viable strategy, making failure inevitable. BBB could follow that path.

In the nearly 1,000-page BBB, there is no overarching or guiding strategy to direct how and why the combination of budget increases and cuts will produce the intended outcomes.

Defense is one example. The BBB adds another $158 billion, yielding an overall budget of about $1 trillion. But there is no five-year defense plan or any mention of how budgets and strategy are linked in the BBB.

In essence, the Pentagon, along with other agencies such as Homeland Security’s Border Protection Service and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, will be given blank checks. Whether valid or not, cries of “waste, fraud and abuse” will intensify, accelerated by the failure of the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, to produce trillions of dollars in promised savings.

The ticking time bombs are potential massive debt increases that could become hugely inflationary and the political impact of Medicaid, some Medicare and other social cuts. Add the possibility that revenues could be even lower than assumed because tariffs do not produce the expected monies; retaliatory tariffs raise inflation. Throw in IRS staff reductions and other cuts reduce collections. Add the incentives for growth do not work as planned. History suggests each is possible.

Whether by fall 2026 or 2028, the national debt could have swelled to between $40 trillion and $42 trillion. Annual interest payments would be well over $1 trillion, even if the Federal Reserve cut rates. A debt to gross domestic product of 4 to 3, assuming GDP does not substantially grow, is unsustainable.

What about Medicaid? The contradiction is that the costs of medical care and social security are bank-busters. While Democrats complain that Republicans are out to eviscerate Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society, in reality, health care costs must be reduced.

These more dire consequences of the BBB, likely exacerbated and exaggerated by partisan claims of extreme hardship due to cuts and driven by irreconcilable divisions, could cripple an already fragile political system. Inflation almost certainly will reignite. Thus, regardless of the best of intentions as with the Tonkin Gulf Resolution and the Authorization for Use of Military Force, the BBB could prove disastrous.

Here, another ticking time bomb awaits. If the BBB falters, Democrats will almost certainly take control of one or both Houses of Congress in 2026. Given past attempts, another presidential impeachment could be in the cards. And if the BBB takes longer to unwind, the Democrats could win both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue in 2028.

Yet, will Democrats be any better prepared or organized to govern if this disruption unfolds? Probably not.

If the president and Republicans are right, the BBB and America win the bet. However, beware: America is on an entirely uncharted and possibly highly dangerous course for the next few years. Do we understand that?

Harlan Ullman is UPI’s Arnaud de Borchgrave Distinguished Columnist; senior adviser at Washington’s Atlantic Council, chairman of a private company and principal author of the doctrine of shock and awe. His next book, co-written with Field Marshal The Lord David Richards, former U.K. chief of defense and due out next year, is Who Thinks Best Wins: Preventing Strategic Catastrophe. The writer can be reached on X @harlankullman.

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