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

> This letter is addressed to the Republican senators who are still hesitating — those who understand what the Congressional Budget Office is

- Author: Maxime Marquette
- Publisher: MadMax (https://mad-max.co)
- Section: Open letter
- Published: 2026-06-26
- Canonical URL: https://mad-max.co/en/article/lettre-ouverte-senateurs-republicains-votez-contre-ce-gouffre-a-3-000-milliards

## 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 **Trump**ian 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?

*$3 trillion in additional deficit. It's a number so large it loses its meaning. So let's reframe it: that's $300 billion a year. That's $820 million a day. That's $34 million an hour. That is money your children and grandchildren will have to repay, with interest. They're calling it a beautiful bill. I call it an unacceptable intergenerational invoice.*

## 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.

*When **Hegseth** himself can't convince Republican senators that $350 billion for the Pentagon is necessary and well planned — that is a signal. The lawmakers who are skeptical are right to be skeptical. **National defense** deserves a serious budget, not a blank check tucked into a rushed mega-bill.*

## 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.

*Serious Republican economists — not the Fox commentators, but the researchers at Brookings or the AEI — will tell you the same thing: $3 trillion in additional deficit in the current context is reckless. If you don't believe them, at least believe the bond markets: they have a way of punishing countries that ignore their fiscal constraints.*

## 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.

*I am not a Democratic partisan — I am an outside observer of the American political system. And what I see is a Republican Party preparing to cut the healthcare of its own voters to fund tax cuts whose main beneficiaries don't vote Republican anyway. That paradox is one the hesitating senators should sit with.*

## 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 **Trump**ian 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 July 4 deadline is political theater. No one has ever explained why America would be less secure, less prosperous, or less free if this bill were voted on in August rather than July. In legislation, rushing is almost always the sign that someone doesn't want people to read what they're being asked to pass. Take the time to read.*

## 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.

***Hegseth** didn't convince the Republican senators. Perhaps because $350 billion more in bulk, without a precise spending plan, in a reconciliation bill already blowing up the deficit by $3 trillion — even a committed defender of national security should pause. Fiscal patriotism and military patriotism can coexist. They must.*

## 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.

*Moderate Republican senators are an endangered species. They know it themselves. This vote may be their last chance to demonstrate they still exist — that there are still Republicans capable of saying no to their president when fiscal reason and social justice demand it. Seize it.*

## 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.

*John McCain voting no on the ACA repeal — thumb down in the Senate night session — is an image I will never forget. He understood that some votes define a career and a conscience. I don't know if a Republican senator will find that courage today. But I know history is watching to see.*

## 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 **Trump**ist 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 **Trump**ist 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.

*"SAVE America Act" — saving America by adding $3 trillion to its debt. Orwell would have appreciated the phrasing. The words "rescue" and "destruction" have rarely been so interchangeable. Naming things accurately is the first responsibility of anyone who claims to serve the public.*

## 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.

*China is watching. **Russia** is watching. **Iran** is watching. They are looking for proof that democracy is incapable of governing with discipline and long-term coherence. Voting $3 trillion in additional deficit in a rush of days before July 4 — that hands them the proof they're looking for on a silver platter. This is not what I hope for from America.*

## 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.

*The boring budget process — hearings, amendments, CBO scoring, committee debates — is what protects citizens from rushed decisions with catastrophic consequences. When Trump treats Congress as a rubber stamp for his priorities, that is not presidential strength — it is contempt for democracy. And the senators who allow it are complicit.*

## 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** — **Trump**ist 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.

*Medicaid cuts in states with high proportions of Trumpist beneficiaries — that is the definition of voting against your own interest. Republican strategists know this reality. That some of them still hesitate to vote no shows how intense the Trump pressure is. And how important it is to support them when they resist.*

## 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.

**Trump**ism 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 Republican Party that preached fiscal discipline for decades is now voting for $3 trillion in additional deficit without blinking. That is the most glaring demonstration that political "principles" are often tactical tools rather than convictions. The hesitating senators with real fiscal convictions have an opportunity to prove theirs.*

## 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.

*Madison and Hamilton created the Senate to be capable of saying no to populist impulses and executive pressure. This Thursday, June 26, some Republican senators have the opportunity to serve precisely the function for which their predecessors designed this institution. I don't know if they will seize it. But I know history remembers those who did.*

## 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 **Trump**ism 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.

*Senators, you have an obligation to your constituents, to the Constitution you swore to defend, and to the generations who will pay the cost of your votes. $3 trillion in additional deficit, cuts to Medicaid, $350 billion for a Pentagon without a precise plan — this is not beautiful. It is heavy. Vote accordingly.*

**By Maxime Marquette, columnist**

## Columnist's transparency note

### Editorial stance

I am not a journalist but a **columnist and analyst**. My expertise lies in observing and analysing the geopolitical, economic and strategic dynamics that shape our world. My work is to take political strategies apart, to understand global economic movements, to put the decisions of international actors in context and to offer analytical perspectives on the changes that are redefining our societies.

I do not claim the cold objectivity of traditional journalism, which stops at reporting facts. **I claim analytical clarity**, rigorous interpretation and a deep understanding of the complex issues that concern us all. My role is to give meaning to the facts, to place them in their historical and strategic context, and to offer a critical reading of events.

### Method and sources

This text keeps the basic distinction between **verified facts and interpretive analysis**. The rule never changes: a factual claim is published only when a verifiable source supports it, and the sources this article actually used are listed under **Sources**, never here.

**Primary source families** used by the publication, when the story has them: official statements from governments and international institutions, public statements by political leaders, reports from intergovernmental organisations, dispatches from recognised international news agencies.

**Secondary source families**: specialised publications, internationally recognised news media, analyses from established research institutions, reports from industry organisations.

When an article cites statistical, economic or geopolitical data, it comes from the institutions that produce it (intergovernmental organisations, central banks, national statistics offices), and the exact institution is named under **Sources**.

### Nature of the analysis

The analyses, interpretations and perspectives in the analytical sections of this article are a **critical, contextual synthesis** based on the information available, the trends observed and the expert comments cited in the sources consulted.

My role is to interpret these facts, to set them in the context of today's geopolitical and economic dynamics, and to give them a coherent meaning within the larger story of the changes shaping our time. These analyses reflect expertise built through continuous observation of international affairs and an understanding of the strategic mechanisms that drive global actors.

This article describes a documented state of affairs on its publication date, not a prediction: later developments may shift its outlook. No update is promised in advance; when an article is corrected or completed, the change is dated in the text.

## Sources

### Primary sources

- [Ground News: "GOP leader sets Saturday vote on Trump 'big, beautiful bill' despite Republican pushback" — June 25, 2026](https://ground.news/article/gop-leader-sets-saturday-vote-on-trump-big-beautiful-bill-despite-republican-pushback_3c2aa4)

- [Politico: "Hegseth's budget sales pitch falls flat with GOP lawmakers" — June 24, 2026](https://www.politico.com/news/2026/06/24/hegseth-republicans-defense-budget-skepticism-00973978)

- [KPMG Capitol Hill Weekly: June 22, 2026](https://kpmg.com/us/en/articles/2026/capitol-hill-weekly-june-22.html)

### Secondary sources

- [TaxProf Blog: Congressional Tax Agenda Stalls — June 20, 2026](https://taxprofblog.aals.org/2026/06/20/congressional-tax-agenda-stalls-as-trump-continues-to-use-administrative-levers/)

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

- [Politico: Trump cancels housing bill signing over election bill frustrations — June 24, 2026](https://www.politico.com/news/2026/06/24/hes-getting-pissed-trump-cancels-housing-bill-signing-over-election-bill-frustrations-00974648)

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Source: Maxime Marquette, MadMax. When citing, name the author and link https://mad-max.co/en/article/lettre-ouverte-senateurs-republicains-votez-contre-ce-gouffre-a-3-000-milliards