AlterNet
President Donald Trump's massive tax and spending law — whose official name is the "One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA)" — continues to remain deeply unpopular among a majority of Americans. Now, Trump is aiming to rechristen it ahead of next year's midterm elections.
NBC News reported Tuesday that the president acknowledged during a recent Cabinet meeting that the law was in need of a rebrand as Republicans struggle to sell it back in their home states and congressional districts. Trump said he wants the new name to emphasize tax cuts for working people (even though the vast bulk of the tax cuts overwhelmingly benefit the richest Americans).
"Last month, in a landmark achievement, I also proudly signed the largest working-class tax cuts in American history. So the bill that — I’m not going to use the term 'great, big, beautiful' — that was good for getting it approved, but it’s not good for explaining to people what it’s all about," Trump said. "It’s a massive tax cut for the middle class."
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Trump's comments on the bill's name marks the first time he's publicly admitted that the legislation is a public relations miss, after months of Republicans getting battered by angry constituents over their support for it in town hall meetings. And the push to reframe the OBBBA as a benefit for the middle class could be an uphill battle, given the massive wealth transfer the legislation codified into law.
Several weeks before the legislation was signed, the New York Times broke down its implications for Americans in the working class and ownership class, and found that the latter benefits disproportionately at the direct expense of the former.
"The bill as passed by the House in May would raise after-tax incomes for the highest-earning 10 percent of American households on average by 2.3 percent a year over the next decade, while lowering incomes for the poorest tenth by 3.9 percent, according to new estimates by the Congressional Budget Office," wrote the Times' Emily Badger, Alicia Parlapiano and Margot Sanger-Katz. "The shape of that distribution is rare: Tax cut packages have seldom left the poor significantly worse off. And bills that cut the safety net usually haven’t also included benefits for the rich."
The OBBBA is also projected to significantly increase the federal deficit — largely due to the legislation's 10-year extension of tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated the law would add $3.4 trillion to the deficit over the next decade.
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Click here to read NBC's full report,
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