Right on cue, Congress delivered Donald Trump his One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) to sign on the Fourth of July. Like the military parade on Flag Day (aka Trump’s birthday), we suffered through another mindless Trump celebration, produced for MAGA-reality-TV nation. Unlike the military parade, this one will leave a lot more damage than potholes in the streets.
There has been no bigger defender of Trump and OBBBA (and presumably Abba) than Mike Lawler, even though the Act defies everything Lawler promised us: fighting for the working and middle classes, fiscal responsibility, no cuts to Medicaid or Medicare, reducing energy costs, working across the aisle.
At the end of the day, he sold out to ambition. Many of us have wondered what he got out of the deal. Could it be this?
If you asked AI to produce an image of selling your soul to the devil, it might look like this. I hope he didn’t promise the child.
Mike was also busy celebrating the 4th in the Foxosphere, misinforming those who will never change the channel.
The most striking passage for me was his summation:
Mike Lawler: “The big winners in this bill are low income and middle income working class Americans, and that is why we fought to get this across the finish line. My Democratic colleagues wanted all of that to expire. They wanted to raise income tax rates on every American. They wanted to cut the standard deduction in half. They wanted to cut the child tax credit. They didn’t want to give seniors an enhanced tax credit. They did not want to give no tax on tips and no tax on overtime. So, for any of my Democratic colleagues who voted no yesterday, which was every single one of them, that’s what they voted for. They did not want to cut taxes for the American people, period.”
Of course, this is the biggest lie of all. The GOP cravenly presented the country with a single choice: pass Donald Trump’s bloody conglomeration of a bill — filled with favors for the wealthy, pain for the voiceless and record-setting deficits — or let all of the tax cuts expire.
This is the most simple-minded kind of criticism. Let’s play the same game. Here’s a selective list of what the Republicans formally voted against in last week’s “vote-a-rama,” when Democrats proposed a number of amendments to soften the blow of this bill:
- providing more time to read, understand, fix or improve the 1000-page bill that was finalized overnight
- challenging Lindsey Graham’s accounting determination that the $4T+ in tax cuts didn’t count as spending since they were extensions
- renewing Obamacare enhanced premium subsidies
- taking out tax cuts for individuals making over $10M, or $25M, or $100M, or $500M, or $1B
- increasing child tax credits
- taking out cuts to Medicaid, SNAP, Planned Parenthood, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
- reducing the cost of prescription drugs in Medicare and expanding dental, vision, and hearing coverage
- taking out cuts to clean energy
- limiting increases to the deficit
- taking out school vouchers for private schools
- adding provisions to prevent cryptocurrency corruption
- limiting layoffs of veterans
- prohibiting money to retrofit planes given by foreign nations (e.g. from Qatar for Air Force One)
You can review a full accounting of the “vote-a-rama” action here.
If you accuse Mike Lawler of promises broken, this is how he responds, epithets over substance:
Of course, you would never see Mikey say this about somebody like Stephen Miller, Trump’s consigliere who designed the current terror campaign on a nation of immigrants. The son of wealthy Jewish Democrats who grew up in Santa Monica and campaigned for student government in high school with a platform to make the janitors work harder: “Am I the only one who is sick and tired of being told to pick up my trash when we have plenty of janitors who are paid to do it for us?”
And boy is Lawler grateful for the electoral success of NYC Mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani. The perfect opportunity for him to change the subject, redirect his invective and rev up the fear. What will you find “pinned” to the top of Mike Lawler’s X account? Not tax cuts for the middle class, but this:
There is truly nothing creepier than the forced and frozen dark grin of Mike Lawler as he’s introduced in these TV spots, trying to lock eyes through the airwaves and possess your soul. As soon as the camera shifts, he puts his teeth away and rolls out the lies.
There’s got to be a morning after.
In case you didn’t get my oblique references to the 1972 disaster picture, The Poseidon Adventure, please enjoy the Oscar-winning song below. Its Hallmark-worthy lyrics and nostalgic vibes may lift you for a moment or two.
Rule of Lawler 