The final tally for the Big Ugly Bill

July 22, 2025

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) issued its final report on the “cost” of the Big Ugly Bill. According to the CBO, the bill will increase the deficit by $3.4 trillion and result in 10 million Americans losing health coverage.

No need to believe me. See the CBO’s original summary and detailed report here: CBO, Estimated Budgetary Effects of Public Law 119-21, Relative to CBO’s January 2025 Baseline. (“CBO estimates that Public Law 119-21 will . . . result in a net increase in the unified budget deficit totaling $3.4 trillion over the 2025-2034 period.”) See also Politico, GOP megabill’s final score: $3.4T in red ink and 10 million kicked off health insurance, CBO says.

Let’s pause here for a moment. Republicans have managed to normalize previously unthinkable outcomes by dragging them out over a long period, thereby ensuring that the media loses interest because the stories no longer help sell advertising. Although the deficit increase in the Big Ugly Bill is not the largest in our nation’s history, it is among the largest during non-wartime (WWII and the Civil War), non-pandemic response, and non-economic emergency (e.g., the 2008 Recession). See Peterson Foundation, The One Big Beautiful Bill Act Is the Most Expensive Reconciliation Package in Recent History.

Moreover, the shocking increase in the deficit was spent almost entirely on tax breaks for millionaires and grotesque increases in the budgets for ICE and the military. To the extent the deficit was offset, it was “paid for” by removing 10 million Americans from healthcare.

I realize this is “old” news, but the final CBO report is the most reliable and objective estimate of the Big Ugly Bill’s impact. Let’s hold onto those facts as Democrats fashion their message about the future in 2026.

And before we leave the Big Ugly Bill, it is worth noting that Trump forced through passage of the bill by promising “side deals” to various Senators, including Alaska’s Senator Murkowski. To the surprise of no one (except Senator Murkowski), Trump immediately reneged on one of his promises to Murkowski. See Charlotte Clymer on Substack, Sen. Murkowski Discovers Trump Will Lie and Betray Her.

Per Charlotte Clymer, Senator Murkowski said the following in the Alaska Daily News,

I feel cheated. I feel like we made a deal and then hours later, a deal was made to somebody else. . . . I read it as just a total affront to what we had negotiated. . . . To me, it’s just reckless by the administration . . . . So now you have an executive order that goes against what the president himself signed into law, in my view.

Given that the Constitution means nothing to Trump, Murkowski should not be shocked that Trump would break a side deal the moment that it became in his interest to do so. What is unusual about Murkowski’s complaint is that Trump broke his promise within hours of making it.

Indeed, given that Trump is ignoring congressional appropriations, we should consider the Big Ugly Bill to be more of a mere “guideline” for Trump's cruelty, not a binding piece of legislation. For more on that topic, read on!

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Federal judge orders Trump and OMB to comply with congressional law regarding appropriations disclosures

Virtually every executive order signed by Trump in his second term has violated a congressional statute or the Constitution. Every dollar of congressionally appropriated funding that Trump has withheld violates the Appropriations Clause of the Constitution or the Impoundment Control Act of 1974. Trump’s actions in impounding funds justify impeachment, conviction, and removal from office.

According to the running tally by DOGE, the administration has withheld approximately $180 billion in appropriated funds for which it has not sought congressional approval. See the DOGE tracker here: DOGE Live Tracker | Government Spending Transparency.

The DOGE website claims $190 billion in “savings.” Last week, Congress approved $9 billion in rescissions of previously appropriated funds—leaving $181 billion in unapproved impoundments by Trump.

One method of oversight established by Congress to ensure that the executive branch complies with its appropriations bills is a statutory requirement for an “appropriations tracker website” that details every dollar spent by the executive under an appropriation.

The Trump administration decided that it didn’t like having to disclose what it was doing with the money appropriated by Congress, so it decided to ignore the statutorily required appropriations tracker. So, the Trump administration simply deleted the appropriations tracker website.

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) and the Protect Democracy Project sued the Trump administration, claiming that Trump lacked the authority to refuse to follow the federal statute requiring the public disclosure of funds appropriated by Congress.

On Monday, US District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan ruled that Trump's removal of the appropriations disclosure website violated two congressional statutes. See CREW v. OMB | Memoraundum Opinion | July 21, 2025

Under the United States Constitution, it is the job of Congress to decide how American taxpayer dollars are spent, including how many dollars to spend and on what priorities to spend them. Once Congress authorizes funding through an appropriations bill, and the President signs the bill into law, constitutional responsibility shifts to the Executive Branch to allocate the funds according to congressional instructions.

To facilitate congressional oversight of the apportionment decisions of the Executive Branch and provide the public with insight into the decisions, in 2022, Congress passed, and the President signed into law, a statute requiring the Executive Branch to publish its apportionment decisions on a publicly available online database within two days of the decision.

Defendants argue that this public disclosure law is an unconstitutional encroachment on the Executive Branch’s decision-making authority. Relying on an extravagant and unsupported theory of presidential power, Defendants claim that their apportionment decisions—which are legally binding and result in the actual spending of public funds—cannot be publicly disclosed because they are not final decisions about how to administer the spending of public funds.

However, the law is clear: Congress has sweeping authority to require public disclosure of how the Executive Branch is apportioning the funds appropriated by Congress. Under the law, the decision of the Executive Branch must be made public within two days of the decision.

The order goes into effect on Wednesday, giving the Trump administration time to appeal and seek a stay of Judge Sullivan’s ruling. This clash frames a clear contest between Congress’s authority to appropriate funds and Trump's ridiculous claim that he can change congressional appropriations to suit his “agenda.”

I have no faith the Roberts Court will uphold Congress’s Article I power to control appropriations. But if the Court were not corrupt, hopelessly partisan, and controlled by billionaire puppet masters, it should leave in place Judge Sullivan’s order during the pendency of the appeal.

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Judge hammers administration lawyers in Harvard lawsuit

Recall that Trump withheld funds appropriated to Harvard University because Harvard refused to bend to his demands regarding changes to curriculum, faculty appointments, and research. Trump sought to impose restrictions on Harvard under the guise of Harvard’s alleged failure to adequately respond to antisemitic actions by students on campus.

On Monday, US District Judge Alison Burroughs heard argument on Harvard’s motion to reinstate the funds. Judge Burroughs expressed both alarm and skepticism in response to the argument asserted by the Trump administration. See The Washington Examiner, Judge hammers Trump administration over cutting $2 billion in federal funds to Harvard.

Per the Examiner, Judge Burroughs said the following:

There are limits to what [contracts] you can terminate, and why, and how. It seems to be your idea that you can terminate a contract even if the basis for termination is a constitutional violation.

The consequences of that [argument] in terms of constitutional law are staggering. I don’t think you can justify a contract [termination] based on impermissible suppression of speech. Where do I have that wrong?

Trump immediately criticized Judge Burroughs on social media. See Axios, President Trump blasts federal judge and vows to appeal Harvard ruling.

Harvard University should win, no question. But if the Supreme Court gets involved, all bets are off. It is time to expand the Supreme Court!

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Epstein scandal developments

Trump and congressional Republicans continue their efforts to deflect attention from Trump's involvement in Epstein's sex trafficking of minors. Speaker Mike Johnson and the House Rules Committee are struggling mightily on Monday evening to prevent a vote on a non-binding, Republican-sponsored resolution calling for the release of the Epstein files. (Yes, you read that correctly. Johnson is attempting to prevent a vote on a Republican resolution.) See Politico, Epstein crisis forces House GOP to scrap votes.

Speaker Johnson justified his delaying tactics by saying, in part,

We need the administration to have the space to do what it is doing. If further congressional action is necessary or appropriate, then we’ll look at that. I don’t think we’re at that point yet, because we agree with the president.

Separately, Reps. Ro Khanna and Thomas Massie are gathering signatures to force a floor vote on legislation that would compel release of the Epstein files. As Johnson has the non-binding Republican resolution bottled up in the Rules Committee, Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries inexplicably said on Monday that he has “not yet taken a look at” the discharge petition by Khanna and Massie. (In the same statement, he also said that he supported full transparency regarding the Epstein files.)

Let me decode Hakeem Jeffries’s statement: He is damning the discharge petition with lip service to transparency while failing to support the petition. I cannot for the life of me understand why he would choose to slow-walk the release of the Epstein files—especially when Khanna and Massie appear to have the votes to force their bill to the floor of the House.

Other actions by Trump included the unscheduled release of hundreds of thousands of documents relating to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. See Meidas Touch News, MLK’s Daughter Calls Out Trump: “Now, Do the Epstein Files.”

According to reporting on MSNBC, the King family was in the process of reviewing the files, which may have included FBI documents that were part of J. Edgar Hoover’s campaign to smear Dr. King. See AP, Trump administration releases FBI records on MLK Jr. (“He was relentlessly targeted by an invasive, predatory, and deeply disturbing disinformation and surveillance campaign orchestrated by J. Edgar Hoover through the Federal Bureau of Investigation,” the King children said in their statement.)

Trump also banned a Wall Street Journal reporter from the press pool covering Trump's trip to Scotland. See Deadline, Trump White House Pulls Wall Street Journal Reporter From Upcoming Press Travel Pool Because Of Jeffrey Epstein Story. Prior to being pulled, the WSJ reporter was scheduled to be on the final two days of Trump's trip to Scotland.

In short, Trump and his Republican acolytes are playing full defense, engaging in delaying tactics, hoping that the congressional recess will cause the press and the American people to forget about Trump's adjacency to a decades-long criminal sex trafficking operation involving girls. We must not forget. The perpetrators should be prosecuted and the victims granted justice and compensation for the crimes they suffered.

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Concluding Thoughts

I received a note on Monday from a grassroots organizer in Marin County, CA. She wrote about the relative paucity of media coverage about the Make Good Trouble rallies. She wrote,

I appreciate your efforts to elevate the Good Trouble protests. Media coverage has been even more scarce than it was for the earlier protests. You might enjoy seeing this video of the protest activity in Marin. We have developed a system of coordinated protests across the county that is working well. We had about 1500 turnout.

The link to the protests in Marin, CA is here: Good Trouble Lives On in Marin, California! The video is short, to the point, and uplifting! I recommend that you take two minutes to view the video.

I highlight the video because it is a good example of grassroots leaders creating content that can sustain those who participated in the protests by reminding them of their collective efforts. Additionally, the video can inspire and motivate those who could not participate in the protests.

Creating a video and photo montage to be posted on YouTube would be a perfect pathway for a younger member or recruit to become involved in the work of a grassroots organization. (Although anyone with technology and media savvy could be assigned the task, regardless of “seniority”!)

While I didn’t attend the Marin protests, the video gave me a sense of the dedicated group of grassroots activists who stood up for democracy in the Make Good Trouble Protests! Well done!

Talk to you tomorrow!

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Daily Dose of Perspective

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