OPEN LETTER: Republican Senators, Vote Against This $3 Trillion Abyss

Introduction: a letter from the edge of the fiscal cliff

Who this letter is written to

This letter is addressed to the Republican senators who are still hesitating — those who understand what the Congressional Budget Office is telling them, those who have constituents on Medicaid in their states, those who will still remember after the midterms that they voted for this bill. It is addressed to those being pressured by the Senate majority leader to vote on the budget reconciliation bill in the procedural vote scheduled for Saturday, June 28 — a rushed vote to meet Trump's July 4 deadline, according to Ground News on June 25, 2026. This letter is not a plea — it is a challenge.

The bill in question — the third budget reconciliation act, dubbed the "SAVE America Act" or, in the Trumpian version, the "One Big Beautiful Bill" — is presented as fiscal liberation and national security. It is in reality a fiscal sinkhole of $3 trillion over ten years, according to Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projections reported by Ground News on June 25, 2026. The beauty here is mostly in the title.

What this bill contains and why it raises alarms

The bill concentrates three objectives into a single text of monumental size: $4 trillion in tax cuts, enhanced border security, and Medicaid reforms that would affect healthcare access for 1.4 million undocumented individuals currently covered — data from Ground News on June 25, 2026. At the same time, President Trump is demanding $350 billion more for the Pentagon through this same reconciliation mechanism, according to Politico on June 24, 2026. It is significant that Pete Hegseth's pitch for this defense budget was met with skepticism by Republican lawmakers themselves — a sign that even the administration's natural allies have doubts.

Ladies and gentlemen senators, the question is not whether you support tax cuts in principle. The question is: can you look your constituents in the eye and explain why you voted for $3 trillion in additional deficit while cutting their healthcare?

The $4 trillion in tax cuts: for whom?

The anatomy of an upside-down redistribution

$4 trillion in tax cuts — the figure is colossal. The question every citizen should ask is simple: who benefits? The fiscal cuts of the Trump 1.0 era, whose provisions this bill extends and amplifies, have been documented as disproportionately benefiting high-income households and large corporations. The tax cuts for middle-class households — real but modest — weigh far less in the budget balance than the tax gifts to the wealthiest.

Meanwhile, this bill restricts Medicaid — the healthcare program for America's most modest earners. The logic is relentless in its cynicism: reduce taxes on the wealthy and cut healthcare for the poor to present an approximately balanced budget equation. This is not economic policy — it is a values choice that deserves to be named clearly.

Last year, $150 billion for the Pentagon — today, $350 billion more

Last year, the "One Big Beautiful Bill Act" had already added $150 billion to the Pentagon budget — data from KPMG Capitol Hill Weekly on June 22, 2026. Today, Trump is requesting $350 billion more through this third reconciliation act. Politico on June 24, 2026 documented that Hegseth's pitch to Republican lawmakers on this defense budget "fell flat" — members of his own party were not convinced. That hesitation is healthy and should be heard.

The defense budget question deserves serious debate — separate from the mega fiscal bill. Mixing massive tax cuts, social program reductions, and a drastic increase in the defense budget into a single bill rushed through before July 4 is a form of legislative bundling that prevents any serious examination of individual components. Senators who vote for the whole must take responsibility for every one of its parts.

The CBO has spoken: $3 trillion in deficit

The independent authority nobody can ignore

The Congressional Budget Office is not a partisan body. It is the Congress's independent budget institution, whose analyses are respected and used by both parties. When the CBO projects an additional $3 trillion deficit over ten years if this bill passes — Ground News on June 25, 2026 — that is not a political opinion. It is an actuarial analysis based on available fiscal data. And it says that this bill is, in its budgetary terms, a long-term disaster.

Ladies and gentlemen senators, you have all cited the CBO when its analyses suited you. You trusted it when it concluded that a Democratic bill was too costly. You cannot now ignore its findings because they contradict a Republican bill. The integrity of your legislative role demands that you take these projections seriously, independent of presidential pressure or the approaching midterms.

The national debt and crowding-out effects

The United States already carries a record national debt. Adding $3 trillion over ten years to that debt is not without concrete macroeconomic consequences. Economists across the political spectrum agree on the crowding-out effects of excessive public debt: when the government borrows massively on financial markets, it competes with the private sector for available capital, driving up interest rates and raising the cost of credit for households and businesses. That is a hidden tax on the real economy — paid not to the IRS but to the financial markets.

The interest rate environment of 2026 makes this prospect even more troubling. In an already high-rate environment, a $3 trillion fiscal stimulus is a potential inflation accelerator that the Federal Reserve may need to counter by keeping rates even higher. That cycle is destructive for the real economy — the one your constituents live in, not the Wall Street economy that will do fine regardless.

Medicaid: cutting healthcare for the most vulnerable

The 1.4 million undocumented — and then what?

The bill would restrict Medicaid for 1.4 million undocumented individuals currently covered — Ground News on June 25, 2026. This measure may poll well — Trump's anti-immigration rhetoric has found a genuine resonance with a segment of the electorate. But the practical consequences of this cut are more complex than the political slogan lets on.

When a person without medical coverage develops a health emergency, they don't disappear — they show up at the ER, where they receive emergency care that the law requires hospitals to provide. Who pays for that care? The hospitals, who pass the costs on to insured patients, who see their premiums rise. The Medicaid cut for 1.4 million people is therefore a disguised tax on insured Americans — a reality that the bill's defenders consistently avoid mentioning.

Republican senators from Medicaid expansion states

Republican senators from states that adopted Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act are in a particularly difficult position. Their states have hundreds of thousands of constituents who depend on Medicaid — not just immigrants, but low-wage workers, elderly residents in nursing facilities, and people with disabilities. Cutting Medicaid for these populations, a few months before the midterms, is an electorally suicidal calculation that some senators have clearly grasped — hence the documented "pushback" from within the GOP.

Senators Lisa Murkowski, Susan Collins, and a handful of others have a tradition of independent voting on healthcare questions. Their resistance to the previous version of Medicaid reform in 2017 saved the ACA. Today, similar resistance could save not only Medicaid but the Republican Party's civic credibility — which risks losing millions of voters who directly depend on this program.

The July 4 deadline: rush as a pressure tool

An imposed calendar, not a democratic one

The July 4 deadline imposed by Trump for the vote on this bill is itself problematic in its democratic implications. The choice of that date — a national symbol of American independence and freedom — to force a vote on a $3 trillion deficit bill is an exercise in political rhetoric, not good governance. No one can seriously claim that America's national security depends on this bill passing before July 4 rather than in September.

Rush is almost always the enemy of good legislation. Complex bills — and this one, with its $4 trillion in tax cuts, Medicaid reforms, and $350 billion for the Pentagon, is among the most complex in recent legislative history — deserve careful scrutiny. Every senator should be able to answer to their constituents for every line they vote on. The rushed June 28 vote is designed precisely to prevent that scrutiny.

Trump's pressure and the principle of separation of powers

Trump canceled the signing of a housing bill on June 24 in frustration over an election bill dispute — according to Politico on June 24, 2026. That behavior — rewarding allies and punishing those who stray — is exactly the kind of pressure that hesitating Republican senators are feeling. The question facing them is fundamental to the institutional health of American democracy: are they independent legislators who represent their constituents, or are they executors of a presidential agenda they have no power to change?

The United States Senate has a tradition of institutional pride — the "world's most exclusive club" whose members have always defended legislative prerogatives against encroachments by the executive. That tradition is now being tested. Senators who yield to Trumpian pressure for a rushed vote on a bill with dramatic fiscal consequences are not serving their country — they are serving their short-term career, at the expense of their long-term legacy.

The question of national defense: $350 billion, really?

A serious defense budget requires serious debate

The demand for $350 billion more for the Pentagon deserves serious examination — separate from the rest of the mega fiscal bill. The United States faces real security challenges: the military rise of China, the Russian threat in Europe, the nuclear programs of North Korea and Iran. These challenges justify a robust defense budget.

But a robust defense budget does not mean a defense budget without rigorous oversight. The Pentagon has a well-documented history of oversized projects, chronic cost overruns, and equipment purchases that don't match real operational needs. Voting $350 billion more in bulk, in a rushed reconciliation bill, without serious audits, without deep debate over strategic priorities — that is throwing money at a military bureaucracy that has often wasted it.

Hegseth and the Republican skepticism

The fact that Pete Hegseth's pitch "fell flat" with Republican lawmakers — according to Politico on June 24, 2026 — is instructive. If the Secretary of Defense can't convince his own camp that these $350 billion are necessary and well planned, the request is not well grounded. The senators who expressed skepticism are demonstrating a fiscal wisdom their colleagues should share.

A genuine national defense agenda is not negotiated in the corridors of a rushed reconciliation vote. It is developed in Senate committees — Armed Services, Appropriations — with public hearings, expert testimony, and cost-effectiveness comparisons. That is the process that the June 28 rush short-circuits.

The midterms on the horizon: senators' political calculus

This vote will follow you to the polls

The midterm elections are approaching. Every senator who votes for this bill will have to explain it to their constituents — particularly the millions of Americans who depend on Medicaid, the middle-class workers whose taxes will fall only modestly while the national deficit soars, and the retirees who will see the interest rates on their savings potentially affected by the macroeconomic fallout of this bill.

The short-term political play — satisfying Trump, avoiding a confrontation with the White House before the midterms — can seem like the obvious survival strategy. But history shows that unpopular fiscal votes have lasting electoral consequences. George H.W. Bush's famous pledge — "Read my lips: No new taxes" — contributed to his 1992 defeat. Republicans who vote for a bill that adds $3 trillion to the deficit while cutting healthcare could have their own "Read my lips" moment to manage.

The vote that will define moderate Republicans

For Republican senators running before voters in urban areas and suburbs — the moderate voters who have often split their tickets based on circumstances — this vote is a defining test. Voting for a bill that rewards the wealthiest while limiting healthcare access for the most vulnerable validates the image of a Republican Party that serves only its wealthiest donors. That is precisely the image that moderate Republicans were trying to correct before 2026.

A "no" vote on this bill — even if Trump takes it as betrayal — would be an act of political courage that could positively define the profile of a moderate senator. In a deeply polarized country, political actors who hold their fiscal positions independent of partisan pressure are increasingly rare — and increasingly valued by the independent voters whose ballots often decide elections.

The 2017 precedent: when three votes saved the ACA

McCain, Collins, Murkowski — and history

In July 2017, three Republican senators — John McCain, Susan Collins, and Lisa Murkowski — voted against their party's attempt to dismantle the Affordable Care Act. Their vote was decisive. John McCain, dying of a glioblastoma, rose from his hospital bed to cast a "no" vote — extending his thumb downward in the night session of the Senate. That act entered history as one of the most striking moments of political courage in recent American democracy.

In the days that followed, those three senators faced fierce attacks from Trump and his supporters. And in the months and years that followed, their vote was widely saluted — even by Republicans who had initially condemned it — as an act of institutional responsibility and protection of the most vulnerable voters. History judges differently from news cycles.

The internal resistance in Congress

TaxProf Blog on June 20, 2026 documented how "the tax agenda in Congress is stalling as Trump continues to use administrative levers." That stalling is a sign that internal resistance within the Republican Congress is real — and that the rushed June 28 vote is precisely an attempt to circumvent that resistance before it solidifies into a bloc. Hesitating senators have a few days to decide whether their resistance is principled or performative.

Legislative resistance in the face of an executive seeking to impose its priorities under urgency is a fundamental constitutional right of senators. Congress is not a rubber-stamping chamber for presidential decisions. It is a co-equal branch whose primary function is to deliberate — deliberately, with the time and rigor that the stakes demand.

What Townhall and the base supporters forget

The echo chamber of the base

Townhall on June 24, 2026 documented Trump's demands that Congress pass the "SAVE America Act" as quickly as possible — a message amplified by every conservative media outlet serving the Trumpist base. That echo chamber creates real pressure on senators — no one wants to be the target of an online harassment campaign orchestrated by the MAGA base. But yielding to that pressure is not governance — it is short-term political survival.

What the echo chamber fails to mention: the same MAGA base voters demanding the bill passes use Medicaid in significant proportions in the rural and industrial states that form the core of the Trumpist electorate. Cutting Medicaid to fund tax cuts for high earners means cutting programs that directly benefit the base. That paradox is carefully concealed within the rhetoric of the "One Big Beautiful Bill."

The real "salvation of America"

The title "SAVE America Act" is a rhetorical performance. If America needs saving from anything in 2026, it is first from its chronic fiscal imbalance — a national debt that imposes growing constraints on public policy, reduces room for maneuver in future crises, and transfers crushing obligations onto future generations. Adding $3 trillion to that debt is not an act of salvation — it is an act of aggravation.

A genuine "saving of America" policy would involve a balanced tax reform — targeted tax cuts for the middle class, funded by better revenue collection on the highest incomes — and investments in infrastructure, education, and healthcare that strengthen long-term economic productivity. That is not what the bill currently under discussion proposes.

The international dimension of the American budget choice

What $3 trillion in deficit means for the world

American fiscal policy is not an isolated domestic affair — it has global repercussions. The American dollar is the world's reserve currency. American interest rates influence rates everywhere in the world. The fiscal credibility of the United States is one of the pillars of global financial stability. Adding $3 trillion to an already record national debt, in a high-rate environment, sends a signal to global markets that American fiscal discipline has been abandoned.

For NATO allies and American Asian partners, a weakened dollar and higher American interest rates have direct consequences for their own economies. For Ukraine — whose reconstruction will require massive borrowing on international markets — the stability of global financial markets is a condition of rebuilding. American fiscal policy is never purely American.

American credibility at stake

America's adversaries — above all China — are closely watching American fiscal policy. Beijing has regularly pointed to America's fiscal imbalance as proof of the systemic weakness of liberal democracy. Voting a bill that adds $3 trillion to the deficit in a rush of a few days is an illustration of irresponsible budgetary governance — and China will have no difficulty using it in its narrative of authoritarian model superiority.

The credibility of democratic institutions also passes through the quality of their fiscal governance. A rushed vote to satisfy an artificial presidential deadline on a bill that massively widens the deficit is poor advertising for liberal democracy at a time when it is being challenged by authoritarian regimes around the world.

The alternatives nobody is seriously proposing

What a sound fiscal policy could look like

This open letter is not simply a "no" — it argues for a reflection on what serious fiscal policy could be. Targeted tax cuts on middle incomes ($50,000 to $150,000 annually), funded by reform of the most opaque tax loopholes. A defense budget debated in committee with clearly defined priorities and robust audit mechanisms. A Medicaid reform that improves the program's administrative efficiency without cutting coverage for vulnerable populations.

None of that can be done in a rushed reconciliation process driven by a presidential deadline. These reforms require the time and scrutiny that the American Congress is constitutionally mandated to provide. Senators who demand that time are not obstructing — they are doing their job.

Returning to budgetary normalcy

At its core, this letter argues for a return to the normalcy of the American budget process: bills debated in committee, amended on the basis of CBO analyses, voted on with full awareness of their effects on every segment of the population. That process is not glamorous. It doesn't produce a One Big Beautiful Bill worthy of a magazine cover. But it is the process that produces responsible and durable policy.

American democracy, at its best, is not spectacular — it is laborious, complex, and subject to compromises that nobody finds perfect. That is its strength. That is what distinguishes it from autocracies that can decide in a single day but have no one to question their decisions. Senators, do not sacrifice this process on the altar of a presidential deadline.

Social cuts and vulnerable voters: who really pays the bill

Beyond Medicaid: the cumulative effects of the cuts

The Medicaid restriction affecting 1.4 million people is only the most visible part of a set of cuts that will touch the most vulnerable populations. The reconciliation bill, in its multiple components, also reduces food assistance programs (SNAP), tax credits for lower-income households, and healthcare subsidies for households near the poverty threshold. The cumulative effect is a significant reduction of the American social safety net for those who need it most.

These populations are often invisible in the political debate — they are not active donors, do not read national political newspapers, and do not send lobbyists to Washington. But they vote. And electoral studies consistently show that cuts to social programs that directly affect voters translate into electoral losses in subsequent cycles — sometimes with a one- or two-cycle lag, but with remarkable regularity.

Republican senators in rural districts under specific pressure

Republican representatives in rural districts face a specific contradiction: their voters are among those who benefit most from programs like Medicaid, Medicare, and SNAP — often due to weakened rural economies, higher poverty rates, and limited access to private healthcare. Voting for cuts to these programs is voting against the concrete economic interests of their own voter base.

It is that contradiction that explains the documented hesitations of certain Republican senators. They are not necessarily driven by acute social conscience — they are doing a simple electoral calculation. And that calculation says that Medicaid cuts in states like West Virginia, Missouri, or Kentucky — Trumpist states with high Medicaid coverage rates — represent a major political risk. Senators who abstain or vote no may simply be protecting their own electoral survival. That is not heroic — but it is useful.

The budgetary legacy of Trumpism: a decade of consequences

The deficit as a generational legacy

The $3 trillion in additional deficit projected by the CBO over ten years is not an accounting abstraction — it represents a political decision with generational consequences. Generations being born today in the United States will inherit a national debt whose accumulation they did not request. They will have to, in their working years, contribute to repaying the interest on that debt — at the expense of their own purchasing power, the public services they will benefit from, and the room for maneuver of future governments to respond to coming crises.

That is the deep meaning of the phrase "we are making our children pay for today's tax cuts" — a phrase that economists across the political spectrum use to describe policies that defer present costs onto future generations. The One Big Beautiful Bill is, in its fiscal architecture, a decision to make today's children pay for the tax cuts of today's wealthy. Named plainly, it no longer sounds like beautiful policy.

What Republicans said about deficits before Trump

There was a time when the American Republican Party defined itself in part by fiscal discipline. The Reagan revolution had indeed accompanied deficits, but carried a discourse of controlling public spending and reducing the size of the state. Republicans of the 1990s and 2000s regularly invoked the specter of the federal deficit to block Democratic social spending. That budgetary tradition, as imperfect as it was in practice, constituted a declared principle that had coherence value.

Trumpism abandoned that tradition. Deficits no longer matter when the goal is reducing taxes on the wealthy or increasing the military budget. Only deficits caused by social spending are objectionable. That selectivity reveals that concern for the deficit was never an economic conviction — it was a political argument used opportunistically. Republican senators with genuine fiscal convictions should take note.

The role of the Senate in the American constitutional architecture

The upper chamber as an institution of deliberation

America's founders designed the Senate precisely to be the chamber of slow and careful deliberation — a counterweight to the more immediate reactiveness of the House of Representatives. The six-year terms, the historically indirect election method, the seniority rule — everything in the original design of the Senate was aimed at creating an institution capable of resisting the impulses of the moment and reasoning over the long term. Alexander Hamilton and James Madison envisioned an upper chamber that would be immunized against short-term populist pressure.

That institutional vision is now being tested by Trump's demand for a rushed vote before July 4 on a $3 trillion deficit bill. Rush is the antithesis of what the Senate was designed to produce. A senator who votes for this bill without having read it, without having examined it in committee, without having heard expert testimony — betrays not only their constituents but the constitutional function they are supposed to fulfill.

When the Senate says no: the founding moments

The history of the American Senate is marked by moments when senators said no to their president and their party — and history proved them right. The Senate's refusal to ratify the Treaty of Versailles in 1919. Margaret Chase Smith's vote against McCarthyism. The Republican senators' vote for Nixon's impeachment. Those moments constitute the institutional patrimony of the upper chamber — a tradition of political courage that transcends partisan loyalties.

The upcoming vote on the One Big Beautiful Bill may be the opportunity for certain Republican senators to add their names to that list. Not to be heroes — but because it is exactly what the Senate was designed for. Deliberate. Resist the pressures of the moment. Think long-term. That is their constitutional role. It is theirs to fulfill.

Conclusion: voting no is voting for America

An act of institutional courage

Ladies and gentlemen, hesitating Republican senators, you were elected to represent your states and the long-term interests of your constituents — not to ratify presidential deadlines. The vote you are about to cast on this bill will define your political legacy far more durably than Trump's reaction in the next few hours. The $3 trillion in additional deficit you will vote for if you yield to pressure will still be there in ten years — when Trump is no longer in office, when the midterms are behind us, when you will have to explain to your grandchildren why you left them that bill.

Voting no on a fiscally irresponsible bill is not betraying your party. It is serving it — by reminding everyone that the Republican Party has a serious fiscal tradition that Trumpism has largely betrayed. Fiscal discipline, defense of the middle class, pragmatism over ideology — those are genuine Republican values that this vote can embody.

The America you can defend

The America you swore to serve is not the America of a presidential tweet. It is the America of families who pay their taxes, wait for their medical care, prepare their children's futures, and hope that their elected representatives are making decisions in their real interest. Those families cannot afford a lobby in Washington. They are counting on you to read the CBO report on their behalf and act accordingly. Don't let them down in a rush on June 28.

Vote no. Demand more time. Insist on transparency for every line of the bill. That is your role. That is your honor. And it may well be the decision you are most proud of when the dust of news cycles has settled.

Signed Maxime Marquette, columnist

Columnist's transparency box

Editorial position

This open letter expresses the personal positions of Maxime Marquette, a columnist who stands outside the American political system. As an international observer, I do not consider myself a partisan of any specific American party. My critique of the budgetary bill discussed here is grounded in arguments about fiscal policy and democratic governance, not partisan preference. I regard Trump as a complex political actor — a "necessary evil" for certain aspects of the current international order — whose budgetary choices nevertheless deserve grounded criticism.

Limits of the analysis

This letter is based on CBO projections as reported by the cited sources. It does not claim expertise in American tax law or specific American legislative procedure. The figures cited ($3 trillion, $4 trillion, $350 billion) come from the indicated sources and have not been independently verified beyond cross-referencing between sources.

Absence of conflicts of interest

This letter was commissioned by no political party, fiscal interest group, or lobbying organization. Maxime Marquette received no compensation from parties with a stake in the American budget debate. The opinions expressed are exclusively his own.

Sources

Primary sources

Ground News: "GOP leader sets Saturday vote on Trump 'big, beautiful bill' despite Republican pushback" — June 25, 2026

Politico: "Hegseth's budget sales pitch falls flat with GOP lawmakers" — June 24, 2026

KPMG Capitol Hill Weekly: June 22, 2026

Secondary sources

TaxProf Blog: Congressional Tax Agenda Stalls — June 20, 2026

Townhall: Trump Demands SAVE America Act Passage — June 24, 2026

Politico: Trump cancels housing bill signing over election bill frustrations — June 24, 2026