Expanding the Police State

Early in the reaction to the ICE raids and National Guard deployment that provoked such a strong reaction in Los Angeles, some Democratic senators landed on the thesis that it was all a distraction. “Don’t kid yourself they know they are absolutely getting cooked politically [with] their terrible bill and rising prices, and they want to create a violent spectacle to feed their content machine,” posted Sen. Brian Schatz (D-HI), a member of the Senate Democratic leadership. “Instead of creating more chaos, Trump should talk to economists and everyday Americans about … the devastating impact his Big Beautiful Betrayal will have on seniors, families, and veterans,” said Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), another leadership team member, on Face the Nation.

Clearly the message from the top is to pivot. And when people are being snatched off the streets, and troops are being sent to American cities to quell protests that are largely peaceful, that messaging discipline can strike people as somewhere between weak and clueless. You go to war against the set of facts you have, not the facts you wish you had. The bill is hugely consequential—that’s why we’re doing an entire pop-up newsletter about it—but sometimes you have to be in the room, as we’d put it when I was doing stand-up comedy. If someone’s heckling you, and you plow forward with your act, you’ll lose everyone’s attention and look dumb.

But there is in fact a very easy way to connect Trump’s Beautiful Disaster with his authoritarian orders in Los Angeles: the bill would enable more ICE raids, more provocations, and the opportunity to seize more power.

Because the mega-bill is primarily about extending the Trump tax cuts, and because the most politically salient pieces are about cutting Medicaid, not much attention has been given to the surge of money that will go to immigration enforcement from this bill. The House version provided $151.3 billion in additional resources for immigration agencies, and while the Senate Judiciary Committee has not yet released its text, the targets in their budget resolution would raise that number even higher.

A big chunk of this money (about one-third) goes to border wall construction. But even more goes toward detention and enforcement. The $45 billion earmarked for building new detention centers would represent a 364 percent annual increase to the construction budget, supercharging the detention beds available to at least 125,000. The entire federal prison system only holds a little bit more than that. Then, another $27 billion is plowed into enforcement and deportation, enough to hire 10,000 more ICE officers over the next five years.

Meanwhile, there’s only a tiny increase given to the budget for the immigration court system. This will dramatically increase the existing backlog and ensure prolonged detention, precisely what angers communities who see families separated and people held in jail-like settings without charges.

So if you don’t like the snatch-and-grabs you’re seeing in Los Angeles, be warned that the Big Beautiful Bill will bring those raids and detentions to your city. The enforcement apparatus being directed by White House “border czar” Tom Homan and Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller will have much more resources to carry out operations across the country.

So Democrats don’t need to pivot so awkwardly when talking about the hazards of this bill. More cities like Los Angeles will certainly be the result if it passes.

House Demands Changes to Bill They Passed

Red line season has become so popular that now House Republicans who already voted for the bill are making demands on it.

Thirteen moderate Republicans have asked the Senate to construct slower phase-outs for clean energy tax credits from the Inflation Reduction Act. Tighter phase-out timelines were the main victory that the Freedom Caucus got at the last minute of the House version of the bill. They also want to water down the “foreign entity of concern” provision that would make accessing tax credits virtually impossible if a clean energy project has any interaction with China. Meanwhile, Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX), speaking for the Freedom Caucus, said he would bolt from the bill if those clean energy phase-outs were changed at all, setting up a situation where some faction on the House side is bound to be disappointed by the Senate result.

A similar split is inevitable on the state and local tax deduction cap, which was changed to allow wealthy people in high-tax states to take as much as $40,000 in deductions. SALT Caucus member Rep. Nick LaLota (R-NY) would oppose any change to that, but House conservatives put out a ten-page letter with a host of new demands; near the end they endorse the Senate “curtailing” the SALT increase, which costs $377 billion relative to current policy, because “it disproportionately benefits high-income households in high tax (Democrat-run) states.”

Interestingly, the conservatives’ letter opposes new fees for electric and hybrid vehicles (“Republicans should not create a new car tax,” it states) and the ten-year ban on state regulations on artificial intelligence, among many other items like more cuts to Medicaid, canceling more clean energy subsidies, and budget neutrality that eliminates the “gimmicks” of phasing out certain tax cuts early.

It’s funny that the House is openly asking the Senate to do their job for them. Conservatives are grousing about deficits in a bill they signed onto; moderates are grousing about spending cuts in a bill they signed onto. If they didn’t like it, maybe they should have withheld those votes.

They’ll have another chance very soon. The House has to vote again on technical corrections to ensure the bill doesn’t run afoul of the Senate budget reconciliation rules. Any of these House members urging changes to the bill could seek them in this new vote, or hold up the bill. They don’t have to wait for the Senate to make their decisions.

Other Big Beautiful Thoughts

Municipal bond tax advantages might go away in the bill, so municipal bond sales are surging. (Financial Times)
There’s a quiet attack on states with abortion insurance mandates in the bill that threatens Affordable Care Act funding. It’s not like abortion is a terrible issue for Republicans or anything, I’m sure this will go over fine. (NOTUS)
Arkansas’s experience with work requirements reveals the real intention of the measure: to kick poor people off public insurance on a technicality. (New York Times)
Fuel economy rules for cars and trucks are at risk in the bill. (Heatmap)
Inside the numbers on the OBBBA. (Jared Bernstein)