# One year after the Big Beautiful Bill, where are your promises, Mr. Trump

> Mr. Trump, exactly one year ago, on July 4, 2025, you signed your One Big Beautiful Bill Act to applause, that massive

- Author: Maxime Marquette
- Publisher: MadMax (https://mad-max.co)
- Section: Open letter
- Published: 2026-07-05
- Canonical URL: https://mad-max.co/en/article/un-an-apres-le-big-beautiful-bill-ou-sont-vos-promesses-monsieur-trump

## Introduction: a letter to mark an uncomfortable anniversary

### Mr. President, exactly one year ago

Mr. **Trump**, exactly one year ago, on **July 4, 2025**, you signed your **One Big Beautiful Bill Act** to applause, that massive bill running more than a thousand pages that you presented as the backbone of your domestic agenda. According to **Forbes**, this **law** passed after a narrow **51-to-50** vote in the **Senate**, where Vice President **JD Vance** had to break the tie, then by **218 to 214** in the **House of Representatives**, despite unanimous Democratic opposition in both chambers.

One year later, to the day by this letter's calendar, it seems fair to ask you to account for what this **law** actually delivered to Americans, compared with what it promised on paper at your triumphant signing ceremony at the **White House**.

*I write this letter not to deny your successes on other fronts, particularly military ones, but because a legislative anniversary deserves an honest accounting, backed by numbers, rather than another celebration without substance.*

## The spectacular debt ceiling increase

### Five trillion dollars in additional headroom

Mr. President, your **law** raised the American **debt ceiling** by **$5 trillion**, according to **Forbes** and multiple independent **budget** analyses. That figure alone dwarfs most historical increases to the American **debt** ceiling, and it deserves to be stated plainly so every citizen grasps its true scale.

This massive increase was not a simple technical administrative adjustment: it reflected an implicit **admission**, within your own **administration**, that the spending and tax cuts contained in this law would require considerable federal **borrowing** in the years ahead.

*Raising the debt ceiling by $5 trillion is not a trivial accounting detail, Mr. President. It is the numerical admission that your campaign's promise of fiscal responsibility ran into the arithmetic reality of your own fiscal priorities.*

### A precedent that dwarfs previous historical increases

Previous increases to the American debt ceiling, under both Democratic and Republican administrations, were typically measured in hundreds of **billions of dollars** rather than trillions. The **$5 trillion** figure in your law therefore represents a significant break in scale from the American **Congress's** previous **budget** practices.

This break in scale deserves to be highlighted not to artificially dramatize the situation, but because it reflects a real **structural** shift in how **Washington** now approaches managing its long-term **public debt**.

## The figure the Congressional Budget Office keeps revising upward

### From 2.4 to more than 4 trillion depending on the calculation method

According to the **Congressional Budget Office**, your law is expected to increase the American primary **deficit** by **$2.8 trillion** by **2034**, a figure already considerable on its own. But according to broader analyses that factor in additional debt service, including the **CBO's** own analysis published in **February 2026**, the cumulative impact climbs to **$4.1 trillion**, or even as high as **$5 trillion** if the law's temporary provisions become permanent, according to the **Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget**.

These successive upward **revisions**, Mr. President, are not the product of a media conspiracy against your **administration**. They come from **Congress's** own nonpartisan **budget** bodies, whose job is precisely to objectively assess the real fiscal impact of laws that have been passed.

*When every new independent budget estimate revises your law's cost upward rather than downward, it becomes hard to keep claiming that this legislation strengthens the fiscal discipline you promised during your campaign.*

## Public debt as a share of GDP is soaring

### One hundred twenty-four percent of GDP by 2034

The **CBO** estimates your law will push federal debt held by the public to roughly **124% of GDP** by **2034**, compared with a baseline projection of **117%** before your bill passed. Other analyses, like the **American Action Forum's**, put this ratio even higher, at **127%**, or even **129%** if the temporary provisions become permanent.

These figures, Mr. President, are not mere statistical abstractions reserved for economists. They directly determine the **federal government's** future capacity to fund **social programs**, national **defense**, and **infrastructure**, without excessive dependence on international **bond markets**.

*Public debt exceeding 120% of American GDP within a decade is not a number you can wave away by invoking future economic growth. It is a concrete burden your successors, and ordinary citizens, will have to carry long after you leave the White House.*

## Tax cuts that mostly benefit the wealthiest

### A net income increase concentrated at the top

According to analyses from **RBC** and the **CBO**, the net effect of your law for the highest income decile translates into a roughly **2.7%** increase in household income, while resources for the poorest decile would fall by about **4%** by **2033**, mainly because of cuts to the **SNAP** food assistance program and to **Medicaid**.

Your law cuts roughly **$187 billion** from **SNAP** funding over a decade, according to **RBC**, a reduction that will directly affect millions of low-income Americans, even as tax provisions benefiting the wealthiest taxpayers, such as raising the **SALT** deduction cap to **$40,000**, were largely preserved.

*You promised a law for the American middle class, Mr. President. The CBO's numbers instead tell the story of a redistribution that benefits wealthier households more, while the most vulnerable absorb the bulk of the budget cuts.*

### The SALT cap, a measure that mostly benefits high-income states

Raising the **SALT** deduction cap to **$40,000**, then to **$40,400** in **2026**, disproportionately benefits taxpayers living in states with high local taxes, often wealthier states, according to **King & Spalding**. This measure phases out gradually for taxpayers whose adjusted gross income exceeds **$500,000**, but it remains highly advantageous for a broad swath of high-income households.

This **provision** illustrates, once again, the tension between your campaign's populist rhetoric and certain concrete **tax** choices in the law, which favor segments of the population considerably wealthier than the **middle class** you claimed to prioritize.

## Nearly eleven million Americans at risk of losing health coverage

### A Medicaid overhaul with direct human consequences

According to **Wikipedia** and consistent legal analyses, the **CBO** estimates your law will cause roughly **10.9 million Americans** to lose health coverage, mainly because of new work requirements imposed on **Medicaid** recipients and stricter eligibility checks. Your law also cuts **Medicaid** funding by nearly **12%**, a figure confirmed by several law firms that analyzed the text in detail.

A **$50 billion** relief fund for rural hospitals was included in the law to partly cushion these effects, according to **King & Spalding**, but several health policy experts believe that amount remains far short of what is needed to offset the scale of coverage losses projected nationwide.

*Eleven million people at risk of losing their health insurance is not an abstract statistic, Mr. President. These are real American families, in every state, who will have to live with the medical uncertainty your law directly created.*

## The promises kept that deserve to be acknowledged

### No tax on tips or overtime

It would be dishonest of me, Mr. President, not to acknowledge that some of your campaign promises were indeed delivered in this law. Eliminating the federal tax on tips up to **$25,000** and on overtime up to **$12,500** for single filers, according to the **Internal Revenue Service**, represents direct, tangible tax relief for the workers who actually benefit from it.

Likewise, the child tax credit was raised from **$2,000** to **$2,200** per eligible child, with a permanent inflation adjustment starting in **2026**, according to the **IRS**. These targeted measures directly answer commitments you made to American voters.

*I want to be fair here: certain concrete measures in this law genuinely help workers and families in their daily lives. But acknowledging these specific gains should not stop us from measuring their structural cost to public finances over the long run.*

### Child savings accounts, an interesting but limited idea

Your law also creates **Trump accounts**, savings accounts for American children, which cannot be funded until **July 4, 2026**, according to the **IRS**. This measure, while symbolically interesting, is still too new to be seriously evaluated for its real impact on American families.

Other **provisions**, such as the refundable **adoption** tax credit of up to **$5,000**, according to the **IRS**, represent targeted gains for specific families, without changing the overall **budget trajectory** this bill imposes on the country as a whole.

## The promised economic growth remains to be fully proven

### Optimistic projections that diverge depending on the source

The **White House** itself, in an economic report published in **April 2026**, claims your law will add between **3 and 12 basis points** of real annual economic growth, an effect the **CBO** judges far more modest, estimating the impact at roughly **0.9 percentage points** of additional **GDP** for **2026** alone, according to **RBC**.

This considerable gap between your own administration's projections and those of nonpartisan bodies like the **CBO** illustrates a recurring tension in evaluating your economic reforms: your agencies consistently favor the most favorable scenarios, while independent analysts remain considerably more cautious.

*When your own administration produces growth estimates several times higher than those of Congress's own Budget Office, it becomes fair to ask which of these two versions actually reflects the country's real fiscal reality.*

## Interest rates climbing despite promises of a decrease

### An inflationary effect you had not publicly anticipated

According to the **CBO**, your law is expected to push interest rates higher, which would in turn increase interest payments on the federal debt by nearly **$441 billion** compared with baseline projections. This mechanism, in which massive federal borrowing competes with private borrowers in bond markets, directly contradicts your stated goal of quickly lowering interest rates to support the American economy.

This dynamic illustrates an internal contradiction in your overall economic strategy: on one hand, you exert constant public pressure on the **Federal Reserve** to cut rates, while on the other, your own budget law structurally helps keep those same rates higher than they would otherwise be.

*One cannot seriously demand lower interest rates while passing a law that, by the CBO's own calculations, pushes those same rates upward. This contradiction deserves to be named clearly, Mr. President.*

### The impact on international bond markets

International **bond** investors are watching America's **fiscal trajectory** very closely, according to several financial analyses published by **Forbes**. A continued deterioration of American **public finances** could, over time, require higher **yields** on **US Treasury** bonds to keep attracting the foreign capital needed to finance this growing debt.

This dynamic, if it holds in the coming years, could eventually weigh on the entire American economy, from mortgage rates to corporate borrowing costs, far beyond abstract federal budget considerations alone.

## An annual deficit already topping one point eight trillion

### The concrete weight of 2025 and 2026

According to the **CBO**, the American federal **deficit** reached **$1.8 trillion** in **2025**, or **5.8% of GDP**, and is expected to hit **$1.9 trillion** in **2026**. These figures, already considerable even before all of your law's provisions are fully in effect, point to a particularly heavy fiscal trajectory for the years ahead.

The **Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget** estimates your law alone will add **$500 billion** to the deficit in **2026** and **$635 billion** in **2027**, before that annual impact gradually declines toward the end of the decade, as certain temporary provisions expire.

*A deficit exceeding $1.8 trillion a year is no longer a technocratic abstraction, Mr. President. It is a sign of an American fiscal trajectory that drifts further, year after year, from any form of serious fiscal discipline.*

## What this law reveals about your real priorities

### Between campaign rhetoric and government arithmetic

Mr. President, your campaign promised tighter budget management than your predecessors. One year after this law's signing, the figures produced by nonpartisan institutions like the **CBO** tell a different story: one of a net, substantial increase in the deficit and public debt, only partially and insufficiently offset by economic growth whose real scale remains contested.

This gap between campaign rhetoric and fiscal reality is not unique to your administration alone; it runs through recent American fiscal policy history. But the scale of the numbers at stake here, with trillions of dollars in additional projected deficits, deserves particularly rigorous public scrutiny.

*I recognize your firmness on military and diplomatic matters facing Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea, Mr. President. But that international firmness should not exempt you from an equally rigorous review of your domestic budget choices.*

## What Congress could still fix

### Annual appropriations as the next battle

According to the **National League of Cities**, **Congress** must now pass twelve annual appropriations bills before the start of the next fiscal year, a deadline that offers another opportunity to adjust some of the most problematic budget trajectories set by your law. This upcoming legislative step will determine whether cuts to local federal programs, particularly for municipal governments, are applied rigorously or eased.

Members of **Congress**, whether **Republican** or **Democrat**, still have legislative levers to fix some of the budget excesses identified by the **CBO**, provided the political will exists to face the difficult choices that correction would inevitably require.

*The responsibility for this legislative anniversary does not rest on your shoulders alone, Mr. President. Congress as a whole, in its current makeup, will also carry the historical weight of what it chooses to fix, or to let slide.*

### The midterm elections as a possible turning point

The upcoming midterm elections could be a key moment in determining whether American voters want to reward or punish the budget choices contained in this law. Public opinion polls on how this legislation is perceived remain split, with some voters welcoming the direct tax relief while others worry about the scale of the accumulated debt.

Whatever the electoral outcome, this law's **fiscal consequences** will continue unfolding over several years, regardless of the political makeup of **Congress** that emerges from the ballot box.

## A precedent that goes beyond your presidency alone

### America's long-term fiscal trajectory

Beyond your specific administration, Mr. President, this law fits into a broader and troubling American fiscal trajectory, where annual deficits systematically exceed a trillion dollars, regardless of which party holds power in **Washington**. The **CBO** projects cumulative deficits of **$24.4 trillion** over the next decade, according to an analysis published in **February 2026**.

This structural dynamic raises a question that goes well beyond your term alone: how much longer will international financial markets keep financing this American fiscal trajectory without demanding significantly higher interest rates to compensate for the perceived risk.

*This question goes beyond ordinary partisan politics, Mr. President. It touches America's long-term financial credibility on the world stage, a stake that should transcend party lines in Washington.*

## The burden future generations will carry

### A debt that never disappears, it gets passed on

Mr. President, a simple arithmetic truth deserves repeating: every additional dollar of deficit your law creates today will, one day, have to be repaid or refinanced by future generations of Americans. The **$24.4 trillion** in cumulative deficits projected by the **CBO** over the next decade are not an accounting abstraction reserved for economists in **Washington**: they are concrete financial obligations that children born today will have to honor through their own future taxes.

This intergenerational reality should, in my view, transcend the usual partisan lines in **Washington**. No American political party can sincerely claim to defend the interests of younger generations while piling up, term after term, deficits in the trillions of dollars with no credible long-term repayment plan.

*I keep coming back to this question whenever I read CBO budget reports: which young Americans today were ever consulted about this multi-trillion-dollar debt being handed to them without their explicit consent? That question should haunt every lawmaker in Washington, regardless of party.*

## Conclusion: a letter demanding transparency, not controversy

### What I am asking of you, one year later

Mr. President, this letter is not meant to deny the beneficial targeted measures contained in your law, nor to minimize your achievements on other fronts, particularly your firmness toward the West's geopolitical adversaries. It simply aims to ask you, in the name of the most basic democratic transparency, to publicly acknowledge the real scale of this law's fiscal cost, as documented by the **CBO** and other nonpartisan institutions.

Americans deserve an honest debate about the budget trade-offs this law imposes, rather than a one-sided celebration of its benefits alone, one year after it was signed under the **White House** spotlight.

### An invitation to dialogue, not confrontation

I invite you, Mr. President, to organize a genuine public accounting of this law, with the participation of economists from across the political spectrum, rather than letting this debate play out solely through competing reports between your **White House** and the **Congressional Budget Office**. American citizens, who will collectively carry the weight of this debt for decades, deserve that clarity.

*I close this letter as I opened it: without personal animosity, but with a demand for an honest accounting backed by numbers. One year after this law was signed, Americans deserve better than triumphant rhetoric that ignores the very figures produced by your own federal budget agencies.*

### What I will keep following

Mr. President, I will keep closely tracking how the budget figures tied to this law evolve in future columns, particularly as new **CBO** projections are published and the real effects on **Medicaid** and the **SNAP** program are concretely felt across American states. This ongoing journalistic vigilance seems to me the least I owe my readers on a matter of such financial magnitude.

**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

- White House — The Economic and Fiscal Benefits of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, April 2026

- Congressional Budget Office — Dynamic estimate of H.R. 1, One Big Beautiful Bill Act

- Internal Revenue Service — One Big Beautiful Bill provisions

### Secondary sources

- Forbes — One year after Trump's Big Beautiful Bill, here's what actually happened, July 4, 2026

- RBC Economics — What's changing with the One Big Beautiful Bill Act in 2026, February 12, 2026

- Wikipedia — One Big Beautiful Bill Act, history and fiscal impact

- Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget — What's in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, July 22, 2025

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Source: Maxime Marquette, MadMax. When citing, name the author and link https://mad-max.co/en/article/un-an-apres-le-big-beautiful-bill-ou-sont-vos-promesses-monsieur-trump