OPEN LETTER: One Big Beautiful Bill in the Senate — The Marathon Vote Under a July 4 Ultimatum

Introduction: A letter to the United States Senate, written from the other side of the world

Why write to American senators from Paris

Ladies and Gentlemen of the United States Senate, I am writing to you from Paris, a city of light that watches with growing unease what is happening in your Capitol corridors. The procedural vote scheduled for Saturday, June 28 on the Big Beautiful Bill — and the July 4 ultimatum that President Donald Trump has set as a non-negotiable deadline for its passage — is a decision that does not belong to America alone. It will resonate across the world, and particularly in European capitals that are counting on American power and cohesion to navigate an increasingly unstable world.

I am not an American citizen. I have no right to vote for you, no right to approach you in your offices, no right to exercise any pressure within your internal democratic process. But freedom of the press grants me the right — and the duty — to name what I see from this distance, which is also a form of clarity. This bill, in its current form, contains provisions that will strip healthcare coverage from 11.8 million Americans according to the Congressional Budget Office. That is a fact I cannot ignore in the name of respect for American democratic sovereignty.

$4 trillion in tax cuts under the pressure of July 4

The Big Beautiful Bill — officially the One Big Beautiful Bill Act — is presented as the signature legislative project of Trump's second term. It contains $4 trillion in tax cuts, border security measures, and a sweeping reform of the Medicaid program. This combination — less taxes for the most affluent, less healthcare protection for the most vulnerable — deserves the careful examination that the marathon vote under the July 4 ultimatum does not encourage.

The Republican Senate leader set the procedural vote for Saturday, June 28 to advance the bill despite resistance within the Republican Party itself. This self-imposed urgency — the July 4 deadline as a symbolic national holiday date — is a political communication strategy designed to short-circuit debate in the name of patriotic symbolism. But the 11.8 million Americans who would lose their Medicaid coverage deserve more than a vote accelerated by a communications calendar.

To you, Republican senators who are wavering

Your resistance is resistance on behalf of your constituents

This letter speaks particularly to the Republican senators who have expressed reservations about the Big Beautiful Bill — those who, according to reports from Ground News on June 25, 2026, have made it difficult to advance the bill despite pressure from the leadership and the White House. Your hesitation is not cowardice — it is potentially wisdom. Resisting the July 4 ultimatum to ensure the bill's real implications are understood is not a betrayal of your party — it is service to your constituents.

Your constituents — including those in Republican states — use Medicaid. Rural states, often with heavy Republican majorities, have some of the highest Medicaid utilization rates in the country. The 11.8 million people who would lose their Medicaid coverage according to the CBO are not a distant demographic abstraction — they are residents of your states, people who voted for you or your predecessors. Policy is personal, even when it is framed as budgetary.

The Senate parliamentarian and the 60-vote threshold: why process matters

Among the important procedural stakes, the rulings of the Senate Parliamentarian determined that certain provisions of the Big Beautiful Bill — notably those related to green energy — require 60 votes rather than the simple majority of the budget reconciliation procedure. This is not a technical detail — it is a constitutional safeguard ensuring that the legislative process respects the rules of the democratic game.

The reconciliation procedure exists to allow the passage of budgetary legislation with a simple majority — but it is strictly limited to provisions with a direct budgetary impact. Using reconciliation to push through non-budgetary policy measures bypasses the deliberative process the United States Senate is meant to embody. The parliamentarian's ruling is not a partisan political obstacle — it is a protection of the institutional norms without which the Senate would be nothing more than a rubber stamp.

The 11.8 million Americans without Medicaid coverage: the humans behind the figure

Who are these 11.8 million people?

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated that the Big Beautiful Bill, in its current form, would strip 11.8 million Americans of their Medicaid coverage over 10 years. To those 11.8 million must be added 3.1 million more who would lose access via the ACA (Affordable Care Act) through the legislation's secondary effects. In total, potentially 14.9 million people would find themselves without healthcare coverage as a result of this bill.

Who are these people? The demographic data on Medicaid beneficiaries reveals a complex reality that defies political stereotypes. They are elderly people in nursing homes whose care is covered by Medicaid (60 percent of American nursing home residents are covered by Medicaid), people with disabilities whose specialized care is funded by this program, children from low-income families, low-wage workers in sectors that offer no employer health insurance. These are not people on the margins of society — they are ordinary, vulnerable members of American society.

The $1 trillion in Medicaid cuts over 10 years: what it really means

The American Medical Association (AMA) estimated that the bill would reduce Medicaid by $1 trillion over 10 years. This colossal figure represents a fundamental transformation of American healthcare security — not merely an "optimization" of the program as its promoters present it, but a structural reduction in access to care for the most vulnerable populations. The AMA, an organization representing American physicians, has rarely taken such clear-cut political positions — its opposition to the bill reflects a serious professional assessment of the clinical consequences of the cuts.

These $1 trillion do not vanish from the federal budget by magic — they represent care that will not be delivered, medications that will not be dispensed, hospitalizations that will end too soon, illnesses that will not be prevented. Behavioral health services — addiction treatment, mental health — are particularly exposed according to the report from Rize Recovery on June 21, 2026, at the very moment when America is facing an opioid crisis that demands more resources, not fewer.

To you, Democratic senators: your role in this crisis

Opposition as responsibility, not as posture

This letter also speaks to the Democratic senators — not to congratulate them on their predictable opposition, but to remind them that effective opposition in a democracy is not just refusing to vote: it is building credible alternatives and clearly communicating the stakes to citizens. Senators Warren and Kelly did their job by writing about the impact of tariffs — a letter is a start, but what matters is the ability to convince citizens in Republican states who feel excluded from the grand Democratic narrative.

Democratic opposition to the Big Beautiful Bill is easily predictable — every wavering Republican senator calculates that Democrats will vote uniformly against. This calculus makes undecided Republican votes even more precious. Democrats would be better served by targeting their communication toward Medicaid recipients in Republican states, by humanizing the 11.8 million statistics into names and stories, by making the abstract cost concrete and immediate for voters who will not read CBO reports but who might see the face of a neighbor in a local headline.

SNAP, the Farm Bill, and farmers: unexpected allies

The report from AL Reporter on June 25, 2026 notes that the Senate version of the Farm Bill retains the SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program — formerly food stamps) cuts planned in the One Big Beautiful Bill. This dimension is important: the SNAP cuts affect not only urban recipients but also rural agricultural communities that depend on these food purchases to keep their local businesses and economies running.

Agricultural organizations like Farm Aid, which represents small American farmers, have documented the concrete concerns these cuts raise for the rural economy. These voices are not traditionally associated with the political left — they come from a rural, conservative America that often supports Trump but that directly feels the consequences of budget decisions reducing food purchasing power in their communities. Finding alliances in that territory is more useful than preaching to the converted.

School choice and cultural provisions: what else is in the bill

Beyond healthcare cuts: a blueprint for social transformation

The Big Beautiful Bill is not only a fiscal and healthcare bill — it contains provisions that fundamentally transform American social policy. Townhall on June 24, 2026 reports that the bill includes measures for school choice — allowing families to use public funds to finance private or religious education. This measure is presented by its supporters as educational liberation; its opponents see it as a weakening of public school funding in favor of systems not held to the same standards of equity and accessibility.

This cultural dimension of the Big Beautiful Bill reveals its nature as a social vision project as much as a fiscal one. It aims to fundamentally reshape the relationship between the state and civil society — less collective healthcare protection, more individual educational choice, less public food assistance, more private markets. This coherent project deserves deep public debate, not a marathon vote accelerated by a July 4 deadline.

The manufactured housing industry and the forgotten in the debate

Among the less-covered provisions of the Big Beautiful Bill is its impact on the manufactured housing industry. The report from the Manufactured Housing Institute (MHI) on June 24, 2026 details how the bill will affect this sector, which represents affordable housing for millions of low-income Americans, particularly in rural areas. Tax provisions, zoning-related regulations, and modifications to state-guaranteed loan programs could substantially alter the affordability of this type of housing.

These impacts on affordable housing are barely mentioned in the major media debates about the bill. But for the 22 million Americans who live in manufactured homes — often the most economically precarious — these provisions have direct consequences for their ability to maintain housing. Legislators voting on this bill without fully understanding these implications are making a choice without complete information.

To you, Donald Trump: a letter within the letter

On the July 4 strategy: symbols have real consequences

Mr. President, this letter is also addressed to you. You chose July 4 as the symbolic deadline for the Big Beautiful Bill's passage — American Independence Day, the day America celebrates its birth in freedom. It is a shrewd political communication choice. But symbols have real consequences: by framing the bill's passage as a patriotic celebration, you make any opposition to an accelerated vote equivalent to a betrayal of the country's founding values. That is rhetoric that closes debate rather than opening it.

American democracy is stronger when the Senate debates, amends, challenges, and finally votes with full understanding — even if that process is slow and frustrating. The institutional guardrails you sometimes seek to circumvent — the Senate parliamentarian, judicial injunctions, oversight committees — are not your enemies: they are the guardrails that maintain the legitimacy of the system of which you are yourself the product. A president who weakens these guardrails weakens the presidency in the long run, even if it gives him short-term advantages.

On NATO and Ukraine: a reminder from Paris

From Paris, I also remind you that the world is watching your record more broadly than the domestic debates over the Big Beautiful Bill. Ukraine is holding out with the weapons your predecessors and European partners supplied. NATO is maintaining its cohesion despite your repeated provocations on members' financial contributions. Russia has not achieved the capitulation it hoped for, partly because of your refusal to withdraw American support from Kyiv.

On these geopolitical files, you have — despite yourself, perhaps — served the interests of the West. Your pressure on NATO members to reach 2 percent of GDP in defense has produced real results. That is your positive contribution to collective security, the one history will remember. Do not squander it by weakening internally the economic and social foundation of your own country to satisfy short-term electoral interests.

The debt question: the ghost in the room

$4 trillion in tax cuts and the trajectory of federal debt

$4 trillion in tax cuts over 10 years. That is the fiscal core of the Big Beautiful Bill. This figure must be contextualized against the trajectory of American federal debt, which already exceeds $35 trillion — approximately 125 percent of American GDP. Economic models from the CBO and other independent institutions project that, without spending cuts equivalent to the tax reductions, the Big Beautiful Bill will increase the federal deficit significantly over the decade.

Supporters of the bill argue that tax cuts will stimulate growth, generating more tax revenue through a broader economic base — the theory of "trickle-down economics." This theory was applied during the 2017 tax reform — with mixed results according to independent evaluations, the additional growth generated not having fully offset the loss in tax revenues. Bill supporters conveniently ignore these precedents.

The implications for America's allies

America's fiscal trajectory has implications for Europe and Ukraine as well. A financially weakened America — with unsustainable debt, high interest rates, and a dollar under pressure — is an America less capable of sustaining its global military commitments, funding aid to Ukraine, and maintaining its overseas bases. American fiscal sustainability is not only a domestic issue — it is an issue of global power on which Washington's allies depend for their security.

Financial markets are watching the American debt trajectory with growing attention. A downgrade of the United States' sovereign credit rating — raised as a possibility by some agencies in recent warnings — would have cascading consequences on global interest rates, on the financing of emerging economies, and on allied nations' ability to borrow to fund their own defense. American budget policy is therefore disguised foreign policy — and the Big Beautiful Bill must be evaluated from that angle as well.

Border security in the Big Beautiful Bill: a fact check

Border provisions: what is actually in the bill

Beyond the fiscal and healthcare dimensions, the Big Beautiful Bill contains substantial border security provisions — additional funding for barrier construction, resources for immigration enforcement, modifications to asylum procedures. These provisions reflect the declared priorities of the Republican base and the Trump administration on border management.

On this front, it is worth distinguishing among several types of measures. Investments in asylum claim processing capacity, if correctly targeted, could theoretically reduce the case backlog that is itself a source of systemic dysfunction. Measures hardening detention conditions and deportation procedures are more directly tied to political choices about the value accorded to migrants' rights. These distinctions deserve to be maintained in the debate rather than treating the whole package as indistinguishably good or bad.

The wall and the funding: a cost-effectiveness assessment

Studies on the effectiveness of physical border barriers — walls, fences, barbed wire — in reducing unauthorized crossings show mixed results. Migration flows adapt to physical obstacles by finding alternative routes or using legal points of entry for extended stays without authorization. Migration experts suggest that investments in surveillance technology, qualified immigration personnel, and cooperation with countries of origin are more cost-effective than physical barriers.

These data are not partisan — they emerge from independent academic studies. Their neglect in the Big Beautiful Bill debate in favor of symbolic arguments about the wall reveals that this debate is more governed by political communication than by rigorous evaluation of public policy effectiveness.

Behavioral health and the opioid crisis: lives at stake

Medicaid cuts and their impact on mental health services

The report from Rize Recovery on June 21, 2026 highlights a particularly concerning aspect of the Big Beautiful Bill's Medicaid cuts: their impact on behavioral health services — addiction treatment and mental health care. Medicaid is the primary funder of mental health and addiction treatment services in the United States. A $1 trillion reduction over 10 years will inevitably strike this sector, at a moment when America is fighting an opioid crisis that kills more than 80,000 people per year.

American states that expanded Medicaid under the ACA saw significant reductions in overdose mortality — a correlation documented by numerous epidemiological studies. Reducing Medicaid funding in these states very likely means an increase in overdose deaths. This is not a political hypothesis — it is a projection based on solid empirical data. It is a human cost that the July 4 vote should weigh with the same seriousness as the budget savings.

American veterans and Medicaid: a political contradiction

A particularly sensitive aspect of Medicaid cuts in the context of Trump's politics involves American veterans. A significant proportion of veterans, particularly the younger and more economically precarious, depend on Medicaid to supplement their coverage through the VA (Department of Veterans Affairs). These veterans served the United States — often in wars decided by administrations of both parties — and now see their healthcare coverage threatened by the bill of an administration that calls itself their greatest champion.

This contradiction — cutting Medicaid while claiming to support veterans — is one of the most visible tensions in the Big Beautiful Bill. Veterans organizations such as the American Legion and the VFW have expressed concerns about certain provisions of the bill, signaling that the image of military support is not always consistent with the reality of the funding policies for their care.

To you, American citizens reading this article

Your role in this legislative moment

I am also writing to you, American citizens — those who will perhaps read this article in translation or see it cited in social media discussions. The June 28 vote on the Big Beautiful Bill is not reserved for political professionals. Every American citizen whose life will be affected by this bill — and many will be — has the right and the responsibility to contact their senators, share their story, and make visible what statistics render invisible.

The 11.8 million people who would lose their Medicaid coverage have voices. The 3.1 million more affected through the ACA have voices. The anxious veterans, the people with disabilities, the nursing home residents, the families in addiction treatment: all of these people constitute a silent majority with as much legitimacy to be heard in the democratic debate as the wealthiest beneficiaries of the $4 trillion in tax cuts.

Democracy as responsibility, not as spectacle

American democracy is going through an intense period of testing — institutions are under pressure, norms are being challenged, trust in processes is fraying. In this context, civic engagement is not an option but a necessity. The July 4 vote — if Trump gets his way — will be presented as a victory for America. The 14.9 million people who will have lost their healthcare coverage as a result of that vote are not collateral damage of a victory — they are the direct victims of a political choice whose human consequences were deliberately minimized in the public debate.

I write this letter from Paris because the America I see from Europe is not only the military and economic power that Europe needs for its security — it is also the country that has embodied, imperfectly but genuinely, the project of liberal democracy. When this America weakens its social safety net, it also weakens the argument that democracies take care of their citizens better than authoritarian regimes. This is not an American internal matter — it is a question that concerns the credibility of the democratic model across the world.

Republican resistance: portrait of a divided caucus

Why Republicans are resisting their own bill

Republican resistance to the Big Beautiful Bill — which Ground News on June 25, 2026 documents as a source of difficulty in advancing the procedural vote — is not homogeneous. It comes from several different ideological directions that converge in opposition but for distinct reasons.

Some Republican senators from states that expanded Medicaid under the ACA are anxious about the political impact of the healthcare cuts on their constituents. Others are concerned about the deficit increase that the $4 trillion in tax cuts implies — a concern that contrasts with the traditional Republican rhetoric of fiscal discipline. A few have reservations about specific provisions that affect their regional economic sectors. This diversity of resistance is itself revealing of a project too sweeping and too poorly consulted to have a coherent coalition behind it.

The ultimatum paradox: a weakness disguised as strength

The July 4 ultimatum imposed by the Republican leadership paradoxically reveals a weakness rather than a strength. If the bill had solid majority support within the Republican caucus, no artificial deadline would be necessary. It is precisely because that support is fragile and uncertain that the leadership seeks to force a vote before the resistance has time to consolidate into an opposition large enough to block it.

This strategy of legislative speed is a time-tested but risky technique. When it succeeds, it produces a spectacular legislative victory. When it fails — because the hesitant senators prefer to resist pressure rather than assume the political consequences of an unpopular vote — it produces a humiliating public defeat. Republican Senate leadership is playing for very high stakes with this July 4 ultimatum.

What Europe takes away from the American debate

The cascading effects of an aggressive American fiscal policy

For European policymakers watching the Big Beautiful Bill, concerns go beyond the American humanitarian impact. The $4 trillion in tax cuts financed by an increase in American federal debt will put upward pressure on American interest rates — and therefore global interest rates, given the dollar's role as the international reserve currency. Higher rates in America make it more expensive for European countries, Ukrainian governments, and emerging economies to finance their own debt.

This fiscal externality of American budget policy is rarely discussed in multilateral forums, but it is real and significant. When America prints debt to fund tax cuts, it exports part of the cost of those cuts to its global trade and financial partners. Europe should name this reality in its discussions with Washington with the same clarity as it names NATO commitments.

Consistency between values and policies

From the European perspective, what is most concerning about the Big Beautiful Bill is not economic but symbolic: it represents an American social choice that prioritizes tax cuts for the most affluent over healthcare protection for the most vulnerable. This choice contrasts with the European social model — with all its flaws and tensions — which maintains universal healthcare and social protection systems as the foundation of national cohesion.

This divergence of values is not without political consequences. European populist parties that challenge the continental social model use the American example to validate their positions. The demonstration that the world's greatest democracy can choose to reduce its public healthcare protection is an argument that the European radical right will not hesitate to instrumentalize in its own national debates.

The letter as a genre — a final reflection before the conclusion

Why the open letter in this context?

The open letter as a journalistic genre is an act of transparency — it explicitly names its recipients, states its intentions, and assumes its subjectivity. It makes no claim to the neutrality of reporting or the omniscience of analysis. It says: here is who I am, here is who I am talking to, here is what I think and why. In a world saturated with content that masks its positioning under pretensions to objectivity, the open letter has a structural honesty that I value.

I chose this genre to treat the Big Beautiful Bill because this legislative text demands a moral response as much as an analytical one. One can objectively describe its provisions — $4 trillion in cuts, $1 trillion in Medicaid cuts, 11.8 million people losing coverage. But these facts do not speak for themselves — they demand a voice that contextualizes, weighs, and confronts them with explicit values. The open letter assumes that role with more honesty than an analysis that would pretend to have no position.

The limits of the open letter: what I cannot do

I must also name what this letter cannot do. It cannot change the vote of the United States Senate. It cannot convince senators who have sophisticated political calculations to act against the interests of their political careers. It cannot replace the civic engagement of the American citizens who will be directly affected by these decisions.

What the letter can do is keep alive in the public space the reality of these 11.8 million people who risk losing their Medicaid coverage, who are not defended by powerful lobbies, who have no public relations office to present their case in politically presentable terms. This function of bearing witness, even from Paris, even without any guarantee of impact, is worth assuming.

What American debt reveals about a nation's priorities

The paradox of a nation cutting social programs while exploding its debt

Senators, let us talk about money — not politics, money. The One Big Beautiful Bill adds according to the CBO approximately $3.8 trillion to the national debt over ten years. At the same time, it cuts $1 trillion from Medicaid. These two figures together reveal something fundamental about the bill's real priorities: it is not a fiscal discipline project — it is a wealth transfer from the most vulnerable to the most affluent, wrapped in the language of budgetary responsibility.

The American debt is approaching $36 trillion today. The service on that debt — annual interest payments — now exceeds the budget for national defense. In this context, adding nearly $4 trillion more while reducing benefits for the most fragile is to opt for a form of fiscal Darwinism that will not speak its name. Economists on the left and the right agree on one point: this trajectory is not sustainable.

Future generations and the legacy of accumulated debt

When you vote on this bill, senators, think about the Americans of 2040 who will inherit the consequences of your decisions. They will inherit a monumental debt. They will inherit an impoverished healthcare system. They will inherit weakened rural infrastructure — the Farm Bill programs cut in the current text will directly affect the viability of thousands of farms in your own constituencies.

The conservative movement has long defended fiscal responsibility as a cardinal value. This bill betrays that value. It borrows to fund immediate tax cuts that benefit the wealthiest taxpayers, while creating a budgetary time bomb that your successors will have to defuse. Honesty requires naming it: this is intergenerational irresponsibility, even if it is politically popular today.

Conclusion: Senators, you are carrying more than your vote

The weight of a decision made under the July 4 ultimatum

Ladies and Gentlemen of the Senate, the vote you are about to cast — or refuse to cast — in the coming days will carry consequences that will outlast your term, your career, your political life. The 11.8 million people who will lose their Medicaid coverage if this bill passes in its current form may not forgive you at the ballot box. But history will judge this vote by its real consequences, measured over a decade of effects in the lives of your country's most vulnerable people.

The July 4 deadline is a political construction. It can be ignored without the world collapsing. A vote accelerated by a symbolic ultimatum is no more democratic than a vote taken with the time required for rigorous examination. Deliberative slowness is not a flaw of democracy — it is its strength. Take the time that the 14.9 million potentially affected people deserve.

What the world expects of America

The world — Europe, Ukraine, Asian democracies, countries aspiring to freedom — expects America to embody its declared values as much as its power. An America that votes massive tax cuts for the most affluent while cutting healthcare coverage for the most vulnerable does not set a credible liberal democracy example for nations that are wavering between the available political models.

You may vote for this bill — that is your democratic right and your constitutional prerogative. But if you do, name what you are voting for clearly: a bill that chooses to fund tax cuts for the richest by removing healthcare coverage from 11.8 million of the poorest. That clarity is the minimum honesty you owe your constituents, your country, and yourselves.

Signed Maxime Marquette, columnist

Columnist's transparency box

Sources, genre, and positioning

This open letter draws on documented sources: Ground News, June 25, 2026 for the June 28 procedural vote and the July 4 deadline, Rize Recovery, June 21, 2026 for the 11.8 million people losing Medicaid according to the CBO and the impact on behavioral health, AL Reporter, June 25, 2026 for the Farm Bill and SNAP, Farm Aid, June 24, 2026 for the 2026 Farm Bill, Townhall, June 24, 2026 for school choice, and MHI, June 24, 2026 for manufactured housing. Key figures — $4 trillion in tax cuts, $1 trillion in Medicaid cuts per the AMA, 3.1 million via ACA — are all drawn from these primary sources.

The open letter genre explicitly assumes an editorial subjectivity — this article is not neutral and makes no pretense of being so. The editorial line is clearly pro-democracy, favorable toward social protection systems, and critical of policies that weaken the safety net for vulnerable populations. This position is consistent with the general editorial doctrine of this column.

Sources

Primary sources

Ground News — GOP leader sets Saturday June 28 vote despite Republican pushback — July 4 deadline — June 25, 2026

Rize Recovery — Big Beautiful Bill: 11.8 million lose Medicaid, behavioral health impact — CBO — June 21, 2026

Secondary sources

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

Farm Aid — Latest updates on the 2026 Farm Bill — June 24, 2026

Townhall — One small step for school choice in the Senate vote — June 24, 2026

MHI — Highlights of the One Big Beautiful Bill for the manufactured housing industry — June 24, 2026