ESSAY: The "Big Beautiful Bill" by the numbers — $4 trillion in tax cuts, 11.8 million losing Medicaid

Introduction: The most transformative law since 1965

The signature that changes America

On July 4, 2025 — a date carefully chosen for maximum patriotic symbolism — Donald Trump signed the One Big Beautiful Bill. This omnibus legislation, presented by its supporters as the most ambitious achievement of Trump's second term, makes the 2017 tax cuts permanent, deeply slashes Medicaid, reduces food assistance through the SNAP program, and reorganizes the federal government according to DOGE logic — less administration, more market.

One year later, in June 2026, the effects of this law are beginning to materialize in statistics, court decisions, and congressional debates. And the numbers are brutal. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated that 11.8 million people will lose their Medicaid coverage over ten years. That is the largest rollback of American public health coverage since Medicaid was created in 1965. Here is cause enough to write an essay.

A legislative text that concentrates decades of debate

The One Big Beautiful Bill was not born in a day. It concentrates decades of Republican desire to reduce the American welfare state, lower taxes for corporations and wealthy individuals, and shift social responsibility toward states and individuals. Trump provided the political momentum. Congressional Republicans wrote the details. The result is a law that transforms American social architecture more deeply than any text since Lyndon Johnson's Great Society.

This essay does not seek to be neutral. It seeks to be honest with the numbers — setting promises against realities, winners against losers, short-term effects against the long-term consequences of a law signed on a July 4th under the fireworks of national pride.

Medicaid: the great dismantling

$1 trillion in cuts over 10 years

The CBO pegged Medicaid reductions in the Big Beautiful Bill at $1 trillion over ten years. This is a massive rollback of a program created in 1965 to cover low-income people, elderly nursing home residents, and people with disabilities. According to Rize Recovery (June 21, 2026), 11.8 million people will lose their Medicaid coverage over this period, and 3.1 million more will lose access via the Affordable Care Act (ACA).

To give this number scale: it is the equivalent of removing all medical coverage from the combined populations of Los Angeles and Chicago. These are not budgetary abstractions. These are diabetics who will no longer be able to afford their medications, children without vaccinations, pregnant women without prenatal care, people in addiction recovery losing access to behavioral health services — a sector particularly harmed by these cuts according to Rize Recovery.

Work requirements as an exclusion mechanism

The Big Beautiful Bill introduces mandatory work requirements to receive Medicaid — a measure that seems reasonable on the surface but in practice excludes entire categories of people: family caregivers, chronically ill individuals, workers in the informal economy, people living in rural areas with no available jobs. These conditions were presented as a way to encourage employment. Historical data suggests they primarily function to exclude legitimate beneficiaries.

The paradox is cruel: the people most likely to lose their Medicaid coverage under this regime are often those who need it most — not because they refuse to work, but because their life circumstances make it impossible to satisfy the administrative criteria imposed by a federal bureaucracy that is simultaneously supposed to be reduced by DOGE.

SNAP and the food security of the most vulnerable

The Senate Farm Bill maintains food aid cuts

On June 23, 2026, the US Senate published its Farm Bill proposal which, according to AL Reporter, maintains the SNAP cuts (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) embedded in the Big Beautiful Bill. SNAP, formerly known as "food stamps," provides monthly food assistance to tens of millions of low-income Americans.

The decision to maintain these cuts in the Senate Farm Bill — which is less conservative than the House version — reveals a fragile bipartisan consensus on the necessity of reducing deficits. But this consensus is built on the backs of the most vulnerable: single-parent families, elderly people living alone, part-time workers. The food security of millions of Americans is being gambled in a federal budget calculation.

Bipartisan tensions around the Farm Bill

The Farm Bill is traditionally a compromise text, bringing together the agricultural interests of red states (farm subsidies, protective tariffs) and the food programs of blue states (SNAP, food bank support). The Big Beautiful Bill fractured this historic compromise. Democratic senators refused to vote for a Farm Bill cutting food aid, while rural Republicans resisted reductions in agricultural supports.

This deadlock illustrates a deep tension in 2026 American politics: the Trumpist coalition is incoherent on rural economic issues. It promises to defend heartland America while cutting the programs heartland America depends on. This contradiction is not yet politically fatal — but it is creating fractures worth observing.

Housing blocked: Trump vetoes the Housing Bill

85 to 5 in the Senate, but vetoed by Trump

On June 25, 2026, Donald Trump refused to sign the Housing Bill — a text that passed the Senate with a remarkable bipartisan score of 85 votes to 5. According to KCN Online, the president made his signature conditional on the prior adoption of the SAVE Act, controversial legislation on citizenship verification for federal elections. Trump is using the housing crisis — which is hitting millions of Americans hard — as political bargaining currency.

This decision reveals a clear priority: electoral politics over the economic well-being of voters. The Housing Bill would have funded the construction of affordable housing, eased regulations slowing residential construction, and supported first-time buyers. Trump's veto suspends these measures to serve a partisan political agenda. The result will be paid by American families who cannot find reasonably priced housing.

America's housing crisis as a ticking time bomb

America's housing crisis is one of the most severe in the developed world. Median home prices have reached historic levels. Mortgage interest rates remain elevated. Available housing inventories are at their lowest in decades. The Housing Bill represented a partial and bipartisan response to this emergency. Its blockage for political reasons will worsen an already critical situation.

For the millions of Americans trapped in a housing crisis — young families unable to buy, renters with exploding rents, workers commuting for hours because they cannot afford to live near their jobs — the Trump veto sends a clear message: the president's political agenda comes before their immediate needs.

DOGE, the IRS, and cuts in education

40% of federal student aid staff eliminated

DOGE — the government efficiency department directed by Elon Musk for part of H1 2026 — cut 40% of the staff responsible for federal student aid, according to Benzinga (June 24, 2026). These job cuts directly affect the management of the $1.7 trillion federal student loan system — a colossal debt weighing on tens of millions of Americans.

Students seeking to refinance, benefit from partial cancellation programs, or simply understand their repayment options now face an understaffed and dysfunctional system. Delays are growing, errors multiplying, and millions of borrowers are left uncertain about their actual situation. DOGE promised efficiency — it delivered disorganization.

A weakened IRS and tariffs that cost jobs

Cuts to the IRS (federal tax authority) — another DOGE target — have paradoxically reduced tax collection capabilities at a moment when Big Beautiful Bill tax cuts are reducing revenues. The 2025–2026 tax season was "largely successful" according to NOTUS (June 25, 2026), but with a reduced tax administration, large corporation and wealthy individual tax fraud will be less detected and less prosecuted — a hidden cost of DOGE cuts rarely mentioned by their proponents.

Furthermore, a letter signed by senators Warren and Kelly cited by CNBC (June 23, 2026) tallies 108,000 manufacturing jobs lost in the first year of Trump's second term, directly linked to tariffs. Tariffs were presented as a way to bring industry back to America. In practice, they have raised costs for American businesses and led to job destruction in the most exposed sectors.

The overall balance: who wins, who loses

The winners: corporations and wealthy households

The Big Beautiful Bill produces clear winners: corporations and high-income households that benefit from permanent tax cuts. The reduction in the corporate tax rate, already effective since 2017, is now enshrined in permanent law. Families earning above $400,000 annually see their tax burden lastingly reduced.

Do these cuts translate into productive investment and better-paid jobs — as the "trickle-down" theory promises? Historical data since 2017 is mixed. Corporate investment increased in some sectors, but income inequality continued to widen. Trickle-down theory is a contested economic hypothesis, not an established fact.

The losers: the middle and working classes

The losers from the Big Beautiful Bill are more numerous and less well politically represented: the 11.8 million future ex-Medicaid beneficiaries, families counting on SNAP to eat who will see their aid cut, indebted students facing an understaffed aid system, workers in tariff-hit sectors. These losers often voted for Trump — convinced he would defend their economic interests. The data from June 2026 tells a different story.

The gap between promise and reality is the definition of a political betrayal. That word is strong. These numbers justify it. 11.8 million people will lose their health insurance. This is not a partisan projection — it is the official figure from the CBO, Congress's bipartisan budget office.

DOGE and the reduced state — when efficiency masks ideological dismantling

DOGE: the promise and the reality

The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) — the project initiated by Elon Musk during Trump's second term — promised to eliminate waste, reduce bureaucracy, and modernize the American federal government. On paper, these objectives are legitimate. A more efficient, less bureaucratic state better adapted to the 21st century is an ambition few people contest in principle. The question is one of method and chosen targets.

In practice, DOGE functioned as a budget sledgehammer rather than a surgical scalpel. The elimination of 40% of federal student aid staff, cuts to the IRS, reductions in social protection agencies — these actions produced a disorganization that hits the most vulnerable services. Bureaucratic inefficiency is real. But the DOGE solution created more chaos than it resolved, according to testimonies compiled by Benzinga and NOTUS in June 2026.

A weakened IRS and the fiscal paradox of the BBB

The reduction of IRS staffing is particularly paradoxical in the context of the Big Beautiful Bill. On one side, the BBB reduces tax revenues through massive tax cuts — approximately $4 trillion over ten years by various estimates. On the other, DOGE reduces the IRS's ability to collect the taxes that remain due. These two movements converge toward the same result: a federal deficit wider than official projections indicate. The 108,000 manufacturing jobs lost due to tariffs further darken this picture.

According to NOTUS (June 25, 2026), the 2025–2026 tax season was "largely successful" despite DOGE cuts. But this result conceals a troubling reality: large fortunes and corporations, which require complex and costly audits, are less scrutinized. Tax fraud by wealthy individuals and corporations is less detected. The fiscal revenue gap from these un-audited cases is not officially quantified — but tax experts know it is real and growing in a context of reduced agency staffing.

The geopolitical consequences of the Big Beautiful Bill for the Western Alliance

A weakened America affects its allies

The effects of the Big Beautiful Bill do not stop at American borders. An America in which 11.8 million citizens lose their medical coverage, whose food aid is reduced, whose higher education is disorganized by DOGE cuts — that is a less cohesive America, more polarized, and potentially less capable of maintaining long-term international commitments. American domestic policy has direct external effects on the coherence of the Atlantic Alliance.

Europe watches these developments with growing concern. NATO's European partners need a stable, engaged, and reliable America. A country torn by intense political debates about healthcare access, food security, and economic direction is one whose attention and resources are partially mobilized internally. Support for Ukraine, collective defense commitments, investments in NATO — all these files are affected by the quality of American domestic governance.

American polarization as a systemic threat to the West

Beyond the BBB specifically, the underlying trend is worrying: American political polarization is reaching historic levels. Trump's refusal to sign the Housing Bill voted 85-5 in the Senate — a remarkable bipartisan majority in today's America — illustrates a drift where partisan political calculation trumps the real needs of the population. This dynamic erodes the institutional credibility of the United States as a reliable partner in multilateral commitments.

For Ukraine and Europe, this reality reinforces the urgency of building defense and aid capacity of their own — less dependent on American electoral cycles, more anchored in durable European institutional commitments. The Big Beautiful Bill is one more signal that Europe must rely on itself. The €15 billion SAFE loan, national drone orders, the Military Schengen — all of that is moving in the right direction. But the urgency is real.

Conclusion: The America Trump is drawing

A coherent project, not an improvisation

It would be a mistake to present the Big Beautiful Bill as political improvisation. It is a coherent ideological project, built on decades of American conservative thinking: reduce the state, cut taxes, make individuals rather than communities responsible. This project has serious proponents and intellectual arguments. It deserves honest debate, not mere rejection.

But an honest debate requires looking at the numbers. $4 trillion in tax cuts benefiting mainly the wealthy. $1 trillion in Medicaid cuts. 11.8 million people without health coverage. 108,000 manufacturing jobs lost due to tariffs. These numbers do not tell the story of a popular project's triumph — they tell of an upward wealth transfer dressed in patriotism.

The necessary evil and its limits

This text's editorial stance considers Trump a "necessary evil" for the West — a formulation that acknowledges his geopolitical utility in confrontation with Russia and China, while naming the collateral damage of his domestic policy. The Big Beautiful Bill is precisely where this "evil" becomes difficult to justify. American domestic policy in June 2026 harms America's most vulnerable — and a democracy that sacrifices its most vulnerable to finance tax cuts loses something essential.

The America Trump is drawing with the Big Beautiful Bill is more unequal, less protective, less accessible. It may be more fiscally competitive — for corporations and the wealthy. The debate about this societal choice is legitimate. But it must take place with the real numbers, not the grand promises of a July 4th speech.

Signed Maxime Marquette, columnist

Columnist's transparency box

Sources, figures, and positioning

This essay draws on data published between June 21 and 25, 2026 by Rize Recovery (CBO), KCN Online, AL Reporter, NOTUS, CNBC, and Benzinga. The CBO figures — 11.8 million Medicaid, $1 trillion in cuts — are official bipartisan estimates, not partisan projections. The author cites them as is, neither minimizing nor exaggerating.

This text clearly adopts a critical position on the Big Beautiful Bill. The author acknowledges that good-faith economists support arguments in favor of tax cuts and state reduction. This essay does not claim to cover the full economic debate — it presents the measured effects on the most vulnerable populations, which it considers insufficiently represented in public debate.

What this essay does not say

This essay does not address in detail the potentially positive effects of the Big Beautiful Bill on economic growth, corporate investment, or administrative simplification. It does not address the precise mechanisms of all DOGE cuts. These topics deserve separate treatment. The objective of this text is to shed light on effects on vulnerable populations — an angle often underrepresented in the mainstream coverage of this law.

The author is not American and has not lived the daily realities of the Medicaid or SNAP systems. His analysis is external, based on journalistic sources and official data. This distance may constitute a limitation, but it may also offer a perspective that internal debates sometimes make difficult to achieve.

Sources

Primary sources

Rize Recovery — Big Beautiful Bill: Medicaid and behavioral health cuts, CBO figures — June 21, 2026

KCN Online — Trump blocks Housing Bill, conditions signature on SAVE Act — June 25, 2026

Secondary sources

AL Reporter — Senate draft Farm Bill retains SNAP cuts from the Big Beautiful Bill — June 25, 2026

NOTUS — Tax season with IRS DOGE cuts: mixed results — June 25, 2026

CNBC — Trump tariffs: 108,000 manufacturing jobs lost according to Warren and Kelly — June 23, 2026

Benzinga — DOGE cuts 40% of federal student aid staff, raising alarms over $1.7 trillion loan system — June 24, 2026