Trump's Reverse Robin Hood Agenda Hits Home Stretch

[Passages]

The Big Beautiful Bill will benefit the rich and hurt the poor, while reducing economic growth and causing mass death. Other than that, it’s perfect.

by David Dayen June 16, 2025


House-Senate Struggles
Those of us reporting on the Big Beautiful Bill have been waiting for one shoe to drop: the Senate Finance Committee’s proposed text. The committee is responsible for two of the biggest facets of the bill: taxes and health care changes. The clean energy investments from the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) are all tax credits, and therefore also fall under Senate Finance.

So a substantial portion of the bill comes out of this committee, including the pieces where there are real differences between the House and Senate. We expect the text to finally be released today, and with the alleged tough-guy fiscal hawks in the Senate now chickening out, these inter-chamber provisions are the primary holdups to the bill.

Specifically, Senate Finance, chaired by Sen. Mike Crapo (R-ID), is rolling back the House changes to the SALT deduction cap. This has taken on a high level of importance because it costs $377 billion over a decade, and the fiscal hawks are looking for savings wherever they can find them. The cap was raised in the House to allow people making $500,000 a year or less to take up to $40,000 in deductions from state and local taxes. Senate Finance is going to drop that back closer to the $10,000 cap that’s current law. But that’s likely the continuation of an ongoing negotiation with the House SALT Caucus, who has repeatedly said they would bolt from the bill if they don’t get the $40,000 cap.

A second major change is on the clean energy tax credits. The House phased nearly all of those out for producers if they aren’t in the opening stages of construction within 60 days of enactment. Energy Innovation just put out a report showing that this would increase electricity bills by $170 billion, reduce capacity by hundreds of gigawatts, cut over 840,000 jobs in the first five years, and reduce GDP by $1.1 trillion over a decade. It would be carnage in the energy sector, in other words, and a painful blow after the IRA had really kicked off an energy revolution in the country.
https://prospect.org/politics/2025-06-05-trump-beautiful-bill-economic%20harm/

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