[00:00:00] Welcome to Discourse where we cut through the noise and make sense of the chaos. I'm your host, Wayne Unger. I'm a law professor and former Silicon Valley nerd, and I've spent years breaking down complex topics into digestible takeaways. And on this podcast, we'll take a deep dive into the pressing issues shaping our world in law.

Politics, technology, business and more. No echo chambers, no corporate influence. Just thoughtful analysis and respectful civic dialogue because understanding different perspectives isn't just important. It's necessary. Let's get started.

Welcome back to Discourse. This is the second part of a two episode series regarding the big beautiful Bill. If you missed the first episode, be sure to check that one out too. On that episode, episode one of the series, we mostly spoke about the changes to Medicaid and the elimination of the green energy tax credits, which will have a long-term detrimental effect, in my opinion. Now for this episode, we'll mostly cover the federal spending [00:01:00] and the tax reforms in the big beautiful Bill. Now I remind you we are recording this at 12:30 PM on Tuesday, July 15th, and of course, things may have changed since. So let's get started.

Now, much of the bill includes appropriations for the United States military and the Department of Homeland Security. For instance, the Bill Appropriates $162 million for military childcare, a hundred million dollars in tuition, assistance for military families, and $50 million in bonus pay for the military.

To me, all of those seem like great investments, but the big beautiful bill goes further. In fact, much further. So here is a quick laundry list of what stood out to me. 27.2 billion in funding for shipbuilding. 25.6 billion in spending on missiles, unmanned aerial systems, rocket motors, missile interceptors, missile radar systems, and other [00:02:00] weapons.

5 billion for investments in critical minerals supply chains. $15 billion were appropriated for scaling the manufacturing of low cost weapons, including $50 million for and I quote from the bill, the development, the procurement, and the integration of high altitude stratospheric balloons for military use.

Remember that balloon that the United States shot down and it was the Chinese balloon? Gonna put that out there. The bill goes on $1.5 billion in appropriations for artificial intelligence initiatives, including $2 million for the deployment of automation and AI to accelerate the audits of financial statements of the Department of Defense, $20 million for darpa.

Okay. We like that because DARPA, in part led to the internet. $8.6 billion for new aircraft like the F 15 EX and the F [00:03:00] 16 aircraft. Another $10.8 billion for nuclear capabilities, like $2 billion to accelerate the development, the procurement, and the integration of nuclear sea launched cruise missiles.

Another 12.6 billion for military exercises in the Indo-Pacific. Now this includes $300 million for quote, surveillance and recon capabilities for the United States Africa Command. Hmm, another $1 billion for offensive cyber operations, cyber warfare, $16.3 billion.

I quote from the bill again to improve the readiness of the Department of Defense. That's all it says, $1 million for border operations and migrant jails funding directly to the Department of Defense. Now, this is separate to be clear, [00:04:00] from the appropriations given to the Department of Homeland Security and an additional 24 and a half billion dollars for the United States Coast Guard.

Now, that's a whopping. Whopping total nearly $200 billion for defense spending. There is also an $11.6 billion appropriation for air traffic control now. I think that that's necessary. $10 billion for Mars exploration. Another $150 million for AI research investment, $2 billion for the Department of Homeland Security or DHS to spend on immigration and enforcement activities, removals of background checks and transportation of migrants, another 30 billion for DHS to hire and train more personnel, provide retention and signing bonuses, performance bonuses, and other onboarding activities.

Another [00:05:00] appropriation for $750 million for law enforcement training centers, $3.3 billion for the Department of Justice to prosecute immigration matters and hire more immigration judges. Meanwhile, the Trump administration is proceeding to terminate or fire many immigration judges. So while the big, beautiful bill says, we need more judges, here's the money the Trump administration is saying, we're gonna fire them.

Hmm. The bill also appropriated $5 billion to the Bureau of Prisons and $1.1 billion to the Secret Service. If you've lost track, and understandably so, I've detailed approximately $270 billion in new appropriations, just in the big beautiful bill, and this total doesn't include other appropriations found elsewhere in the bill that I haven't detailed.

So $270 billion is a fraction of the appropriations [00:06:00] in the big beautiful bill. I also noticed that there are some line item appropriations to several red states. None for blue states, by the way. So $120 million to Mississippi, $250 million to Florida, $300 million to Texas, $100 million to Alabama, $30 million to Louisiana.

All of this appropriations to these individual states are for special projects related to nasa. Okay. For instance, the $120 million to Mississippi is for, and I quote from the bill quote, construction, revitalization, recapitalization and other infrastructure projects and improvements relating to designating certain facilities of NASA as the John c Stennis Space Center.

How are we going to pay for all of this new spending, again, over $270 billion by just the spending that I highlighted in the bill, and that doesn't include some other spending that I kind of glossed over. [00:07:00] Well, we need to cut some spending in order to pay for the new spending, right?

That's one way of doing it. So the Republicans cut much of the climate change related funding programs that the Biden administration put into place. In the big beautiful bill, the big beautiful bill rescinded, and this will be a long list, so bear with me. The big beautiful bill rescinded funding for clean heavy duty vehicles, the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, diesel emissions reduction fund, the funding that addressed air pollution.

Because, because we need funding to address air pollution, guys like we really do. Also get this one. It also rescinded funding that addressed poor air quality in schools. The big beautiful bill also fund, uh, rescinded the funding for low emissions electricity programs, the funding for Clean Air Act.

The funding for corporate reporting on greenhouse gases and funding for methane emissions and waste reduction initiatives. In addition, it rescinded the [00:08:00] funding for EPA Environmental Reviews, funding for Environmental and Climate Justice grants, funding for climate data collection, funding for federal building assistance, funding to reduce carbon emissions of federal buildings, and a lot more.

The big beautiful bill also cut the inflation reduction Act tax credits. Those tax credits for kind of the green or energy efficient projects that sought to build out America's energy efficiency and renewable energy sources. These include the tax credit for electric vehicles, commercial clean energy vehicles, energy efficiency, home improvements, like new energy efficient appliances, new Windows HVAC units.

Water heaters, residential battery storage units, et cetera. The incentives to build out energy efficient commercial buildings, all of that repealed. It terminates the federal incentives for solar and wind facilities as [00:09:00] well. Meanwhile, my guess is we'll continue to see Republicans claim that we're losing the clean energy race to China.

But if one Republican says this, I'll happily, happily, happily show them the text of the big beautiful bill and how they are the ones that cut federal incentives for green energy. So. What now? Uh, so we've eliminated the tax credits associated with this Green New Deal, which by the way was never called the Green New Deal, but the big beautiful Bill characterizes it as such because that's a great speaking point for Republicans.

But here's how I see it. We eliminated tax credits. That's, that caused significant growth in industries, including many small businesses around the country. The HVAC industry, for example, from manufacturers to installers, they benefited from this tax credit with this [00:10:00] incentives. Individuals like myself, I'll fully admit, that, upgraded their HVAC systems in our homes.

Small businesses, like the guy who installed mine, who employs his nephew and his son. Well, they benefited 'cause they got more business because the tax credits exist. Homeowners and landlords were investing in their properties. The big, beautiful bill ended those incentives to improve our homes, which means to the HVAC guy who installed my own HVAC system, perhaps his business will slow now. Per the Wall Street Journal,

The sale and installation of of heat pumps increased significantly following the enactment of the inflation reduction Act, of these green energy tax credits. OEMs, which stands for original equipment manufacturers like Johnson Controls and Lennox, they launched programs to help contractors and homeowners navigate

these benefits, these federal tax credits. [00:11:00] The door and window manufacturers. Well, they also benefited from the tax credits too. They saw increases in their businesses. Same with the local handymen who installed those windows and doors. All of those small businesses across the country.

And here are some stats that I found. Well, US solar installs increased by 51% in 2023. People were adding solar to their homes because of the tax credit. So solar manufacturing companies as well as solar installers. Well, their businesses skyrocketed. Solar manufacturing capacity, quadrupled. Thanks to the Infrastructure Reduction Act, it had the unintended effect that the Biden administration and Congressional Democrats wanted with the IRA, the Inflation Reduction Act.

And just as the United States was kind of on this tipping point of truly realizing the [00:12:00] benefits of the act, Trump repeals them. To those small businesses across the country were benefiting from the increased spending in new household items and appliances like heat pumps, like doors, like windows, like refrigerators, all of that, sorry, that spike in business is likely to stagnate because there are no more tax credits.

So guess what? The Congressional Budget Office estimated that these tax credits were going to cost the federal government about 10 to $20 billion per year until they expired in 2023. Meanwhile, as I mentioned earlier, let's increase our military spending by $200 billion. Despite whatever rhetoric that we hear from the Republicans, their actions show little to no care for energy efficiency and climate change mitigation. Yet.

Yet. We'll continue to hear the same stuff [00:13:00] from them. We'll continue. Here's my prediction. We'll continue to hear that we are losing the green energy race to China, that China is beating us, that we cannot rely on China for our energy needs. I agree, but look in a mirror and you're part of the cause,

republicans. As my eighth grade math teacher used to say, and we always got a kick when she said this. Just slap 'em with a wet noodle. When they say these things. Now to be clear, this is the lawyer in me. Please don't interpret that as an actual threat or a call to violence. Uh, it's neither. I'm just figuratively saying slap 'em with a wet noodle.

Uh, if they say these things. Two other random but quick provisions that I caught in the big beautiful bill. First, the big, beautiful bill eliminated taxes on firearm sales because of course it did. The big beautiful bill eliminated the transfer tax and the [00:14:00] manufacturing taxes placed on all firearms except machine guts.

Second, remember Senator Murkowski from Alaska? I detailed what she did on a previous episode. I mentioned that she voted to pass the big beautiful bill in the Senate, and she was the most critical vote because she could have shot it down. If she had voted the other way, it would've died in the Senate.

But after she voted in favor of it and it passed, she said to the press immediately after that she believed the bill wasn't ready, that it wasn't good enough, but she only, according to what she said, voted for the bill because she wanted the house to take another stab at amending it. She hoped that the house would better or perfect the bill, but as I mentioned on that other episode, she knew full well, the Republican leadership wanted to pass the big beautiful bill by July 4th. Well, the Senate passed the bill on, I think [00:15:00] it was July 1st or second that only gave the house basically one working day at most to amend the bill. But even if they had amended the bill, it would've gone back to the Senate for approval.

So I said, I call BS on Senator Murkowski because she knew, or did not realize that there was no chance none, that the house was going to revisit the Senate's version. It was done. She knew what she voted for. She knew that that version was going to go into law. The version that she voted on was the final version.

She knew this. Her statements to the press following her vote were plainly a bunch of Bs. Anyways. What benefits did Alaska get on this bill? By the way, she's the senator from Alaska. Well, there was some talk about the whaling industry. Guess what? That provision made it into the bill. [00:16:00]Section 7 0 4 2 9 of the big beautiful Bill states quote, adjustment of the charitable deduction for certain expenses incurred in support of native Alaskan subsistence wailing.

End quote. This provision increased the deduction from 10,000 to $50,000. Oh, and guess what? The big beautiful bill also opened the oil drilling leases. They opened those back up in Alaska, a position that she has supported for years. Murkowski has championed opening a portion of Alaska for oil and gas development.

She also pushed for this, for this increased offshore oil and gas activity. She has long advocated for maximizing Alaska's oil and gas potential. She got it with a big, beautiful bill. So if you haven't been keeping track, the pro environment lobby, well they lost, as Donald Trump would put it, [00:17:00]they lost bigly.

The pro oil, the pro gas, the pro greenhouse gases, the anti-climate change lobby. They one with this bill. We'll be back after this.

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[00:18:00] Alright, welcome back. Before the break, we were deep into several tax reforms, mostly how the green energy tax credits were cut by the big beautiful bill and how the big oil benefits from the bill. But let's turn to the bill. Other tax provisions. Mainly the codification of Trump's tax reforms from 2017, his first term.

You know, those reforms that added $1.5 trillion to the national deficit. Those, those reforms, the ones that the CBO at the time in 2017 projected. That would, they would grow the deficit by $1.9 trillion. Yeah. Yeah. Those tax reforms, the same increases to the deficit that are projected to reduce the overall economic growth beginning in the 2030s due to higher deficits.

Yes. The big, beautiful bill made those permanent first, and I'm sure many taxpayers will love [00:19:00] this tru. Truly, that's not sarcasm. That's like, that's a legitimate statement. The big, beautiful bill permanently extended the increase in the standard deduction, and over 90% of taxpayers take the standard deduction, so the increase in that standard deduction is going to make a lot of taxpayers happy, making it permanent.

Before Trump's 2017 tax reforms, the standard deduction was right around $6,500. For an individual, it doubled to $12,000. This double rate was made permanent by the big, beautiful bill. This, of course, benefits taxpayers who do not itemize, which is about 90% of them. In some ways, it simplifies the tax return for many Americans, those Americans who would have itemized under the reduced standard deduction, but now find it better to take the post-Trump increased standard deduction. But the truth is. We often see the highest income [00:20:00] earners itemize their tax deductions because they have, well, more likely than not more complex tax situations, such as depreciation expense, business earnings, business losses, business expenses, multiple businesses.

So some of the bipartisan organizations suggest that the larger tax deduction. The standard deduction is in effect, a progressive tax benefiting those who are middle and low income households more so than the higher income households. And I agree with that. I mean, I, I think that's very logical. Now second, the lower tax rates are now permanent.

So before the 2017 tax reforms, single filers earning between $38,000 and $93,000 would pay 25% as a tax rate. But now that the 2017 tax reforms well made permanent by the big, beautiful bill that reduced it [00:21:00] from 25 to 23%. You know which tax bracket actually received the largest decrease as a, as a percentage in their tax rate?

Those who earn over $500,000. Pre 2017, their rate was 39.5%. Again, those income earners over $500,000. The big beautiful bill makes permanent a 37% rate. That's a 2.5% drop for them, but only 2% for the lower income brackets. Third, the big beautiful bill also extends the increase to the child tax credit. The big beautiful bill increases this tax credit by a smudge.

Now this tends to benefit low income earners. So let me pause here and say at this point we've seen several provisions disproportionately benefit low to mid income earning taxpayers [00:22:00] more so than the high income earning taxpayers. So the, to the political talking points, Republicans are, and were correct to an extent. Dems are, and were correct to an extent.

I say to an extent because we've only covered the provisions, these three provisions so far. The truth is there are tax benefits for everyone in the bill, and I think the question that the Dems raised or were trying to raise, but it wasn't exactly clear is, is the bill more beneficial to higher income taxpayers and corporations compared to low income and middle class taxpayers?

That's a bit of a tougher question to answer before I turn to the high income and corporate. Taxpayers. Let's discuss two new provisions in this big, beautiful bill that I think disproportionately benefit taxpayers in lower [00:23:00] income brackets. The first is the no tax on tips. The second is the no tax on overtime.

So let's start with the No Tax on Tips, section 7 0 2 0 1 and the big beautiful bill creates this new tax deduction. Now, I saw some grossly misleading statements regarding this provisions circulating on on social media. For example, there were several posts that went viral that said you only qualify for the No tax on TIPS deduction if you earn less than $25,000 per year.

Well, that's false. It's just plainly false. I read the bill cover to cover. $25,000 is actually the, the cutoff. It's the threshold for the cutoff. This deduction shall not exceed $25,000. Now, it is important to note that this is what we call an above the line deduction, meaning that for tip earning taxpayers, you can deduct up to $25,000 above the line [00:24:00] when calculating your AGI or adjusted gross income.

A lower AGI means a lower tax bill. Overall, that's, that's what it ultimately leads to. And you get to take this deduction regardless of whether you take the standard deduction or itemize your deductions because the standard deduction or the itemization occurs below the line after you've calculated your AGI.

But there's another issue that arises here. If you earn more than $25,000 in tips. Then only $25,000 of those tips can be deducted. Okay, so let's think practically here, and I want to just disclaim before I get into this that I am not, I am not encouraging anyone to break the law. The law is clear. The law is clear that you must report your tips.

Okay, with that said, how many tip earners report all of their tips? Probably very [00:25:00] few, right? Probably very few, especially if they are cash tips. Well, to take this, no tax on tips this above the line deduction, you must now report your tips. You cannot not report 'em and then take the deduction. Right? You have to report your tips.

Now note the Republicans with the big beautiful bill, they didn't reclassify tips as non-taxable income or non wages. From the IRS's perspective, Tips are still taxable income, they're still wages, and this is important. If you stay with me now at the federal level, up to $25,000 of this income is deductible.

So let's think about this. If you report your tips on your federal tax return to get the No Tax on Tips deduction, then you ought to report those same tips on your state tax return because as I previously mentioned, [00:26:00] tips are still income. It's still taxable, and more likely than not, I bet most states end up taxing your tips. And the only states that don't tax your tips are probably the ones that don't have income tax to begin with, which.

By the way, it makes me miss living in Washington state because they don't have income tax. So what does this all mean? If you receive a portion of your income as tips, you now face a dilemma in my eyes. Do you omit your tips from your income? Again, wait, I disclaim that you should not do this because you must by law report your income.

I am not, and I repeat, I am not telling you or encouraging you to break the law, but I am stating that as a fact, we all know that many tip earners do not report their tips. So do those tip earners continue to not report their tips, thereby [00:27:00] they would forego the no tax on tips deduction. Do they report their tips and take the no tax on tip reduction to reduce their A GI.

But if you do that, you must report your tips on your state return. Guess what? You now subject yourself to tax liability for that tip income at the state level, except for the states that do not tax income, and it's certainly possible that states will move in a direction where they don't tax tip income either, but that hasn't happened yet to my knowledge.

Think of it this way, if I'm prosecuting tax crimes, if I'm a prosecutor and I need to show that you fail to report your tip income, how might I do this? Well, if I get a hold of your federal tax return, which as a tax crime prosecutor, I would be able to easily. It shows, say $15,000 in tips, which you [00:28:00]deducted, and then I compare your federal return against your state return, which again, would be fairly easy for me to get as a tax crime prosecutor.

But your state tax return doesn't report the same $15,000 in tips. Guess what? It's now very easy for me in this hypothetical world in which I'm a tax crime prosecutor to prove you lied about your income to the state or you lied about your tip income to the federal government. You're lying somewhere, right?

That's why they need to match. It's very easy for me to prove that you've committed a tax related crime at either the state or the federal level. So if you, listener are a tip earner that qualifies for this new no tax on tips deduction. I'd say that the Republicans actually pulled a fast one over you.

Sure it provides you with some tax relief, [00:29:00] but it also simultaneously exposes you to additional tax liability. That to be fair, you should have already been exposed to, had you reported all of your tips, and to those taxpayers who earn income in service-based roles, such as lawyers, you might be thinking.

Oh, well, I'll just switch to mandatory tips. Nope. The Republicans saw this potential loophole and they actually plugged it before it happened. The no tax on tips above the line deduction only applies to those jobs that were traditionally regularly and customarily tip based roles before December of 2024.

So here's a kicker regarding this deduction too. It is only in effect for four tax years. 20 25, 20 26, 20 27 and 2028. Notice something about that. It's only in effect for Trump's presidency.[00:30:00]

Now, what about the no tax on overtime? Well, this operates very similar to the No Tax on Tips. It's an above the line deduction, but this deduction is capped at $12,500.

So if you make over $150,000 in adjusted gross income. Then the deduction gets reduced for every $1,000 over that 150,000 AGI that you make for many. This is big. It is. It's, it's big. Unlike the note tax on tips as a taxpayer, you won't face that same dilemma whether to report the income or not, because over time pay is reported, right?

It's part of your W2 income. So when I consider both the no tax on tips and the no tax on overtime provisions, I say that they are pretty limited when you consider the greater picture. Now, don't get me wrong, as I mentioned, they will still benefit millions of Americans, and it is clear to me after reading the the big beautiful [00:31:00] bill cover to cover that this big beautiful bill disproportionately benefits higher income taxpayers.

So let's get into that. I already mentioned how the highest income brackets received a greater reduction in their tax rates as a percentage than the lower income brackets. Okay. What else? For those high income taxpayers? It also changed the estate tax, which is something that can be referred to as the death tax.

Maybe you've heard those terms interchangeably. On July 5th or so, Trump was actually in the Midwest touting this change that he signed into law. He claimed that the au, he claimed to an audience of farmers that he reduced their death tax. But some commentary after the fact noted that farmers likely are not subject to the estate tax anyways.

Now, I haven't verified this to be fair, but regardless, the big beautiful bill increase the threshold to $15 [00:32:00] million, meaning that, there is no estate tax liability unless the decedent, the person who died, their estate exceeds $15 million. Now, Trump and Congressional Republicans raised this threshold from 5.6 million to 11.2 million in the 2017 with those reforms, and this change was set to expire, which would have reverted the threshold to the five-ish million dollar threshold.

But with the big beautiful bill, it now stands at $15 million. This provision, yes. Benefits millionaires by definition, by its plain text, it benefits millionaires by relieving them of tax liability. It only applies to millionaires if you think about it, right? You must be a millionaire in order to trigger the estate tax.

So by essentially moving the goalposts, it benefits millionaires. Now the big beautiful [00:33:00] bill also increased the salt cap, SALT. Now salt stands for state and local tax, so it increased the state and local tax deduction. Here you get to deduct your state and local taxes paid on your federal return. So if you paid state and local taxes, you get to deduct that amount on your federal return. Before 2017, before Trump's reforms,

The deduction was limitless. There was no cap according to my research. But then Republicans implemented a $10,000 cap in 2017. This disproportionately hurt taxpayers in higher state tax states. So in those states that charge more in state taxes such as California and New York, but the big beautiful bill also increased this cutoff to $50,000.

So now taxpayers who face state and local tax liability can deduct up to $50,000 from their federal return. I call that a win [00:34:00] for many blue states because many blue states typically fall into that. They tend to tax more than traditionally red states. I also say for any congressional Republican from a competitive district that perhaps is in a state that does have high state and local tax, it's a win for them as well.

Now, of course, this, in my eyes, disproportionately benefits higher income taxpayers, and I say this with several assumptions, so let me detail those first. I assume that higher income taxpayers are more likely to own property. Second, I assume that those who own property, face property taxes, and third, I assume that those property taxes are sizable.

They're meaningful, they really take a good chunk of change. With this, I assume that lower income taxpayers are less likely to own [00:35:00] property, and thus they are less likely to pay property taxes.

However, that doesn't mean that lower income taxpayers, who I assume are more likely to pay rent, well, they don't pay property taxes at all. At least not directly. They pay it likely indirectly. Landlords likely pass their property tax liability onto the tenants via their monthly rents. I know that I do to my tenant in one of my properties, but by the way, I fully disclose that to him just so he knows.

Thus, low income tax payers and renters actually end up paying the tax liability indirectly, but the landlords get the benefit of the salt deduction. the salt deduction certainly seems to me to benefit higher income property owning taxpayers than those who are lower income taxpayers who are less likely to own property.

Here are some [00:36:00] other statistics that I pulled from several news sources. 72% of all tax cuts in the 2017 Trump tax reforms, most of which, by the way, were made permanent by the big, beautiful bill. Well, they benefit the top 20% of earners. 72% of all tax cuts benefited the top 20% of earners.

Now the bottom 20% of earners lose on average. Facing a 2.9 to 4% reduction in their income, translating to about 700 to $1,600 annually, primarily due to the cuts in Medicaid and Snap. Now, CBO estimates at the bottom 10%. Of taxpayers will lose approximately 4% of their income by 2033, and the top 10% of taxpayers gain approximately 2.3% in income.

But to be balanced, and I have to mention this just so it gives us a little perspective, [00:37:00] the top 20% of taxpayers in the United States pay approximately 75 to 90% of all federal income tax revenue. The bottom 50% of taxpayers pay approximately two to 3% of the total revenue collected by the IRS. Think of it this way, which taxpayer brackets have more money to give back via tax credits and deductions.

Well simply. The top 20% because they pay the vast majority of tax revenue in this country. Okay. What about corporations? I'm not gonna get too far into the weeds here. It can get hairy, but the corporate tax rate was cut from 35% to 21% in 2017. This was a permanent change in 2017. There were some other reforms to the corporate and business related taxes in the big, beautiful bill, some benefiting corporations and passed through entities.

If you have no idea what I'm talking about, eh, let's not worry. I'm not gonna dwell on it. [00:38:00]Others not so much, but I won't get too deep into these. So here's the bottom line in my view. Republicans were correct and not misleading with some things with some of their talking points, but not others. Same with Democrats.

Democrats were correct and not misleading with some of their claims, but not with others. Both parties, however, are guilty of misleading characterizations of the big. Beautiful. Bill. Now to close out our conversation about the big beautiful bill, I want to do a fire round. Some other provisions that stood out to me.

Number one, the big beautiful bill establishes a task force to eliminate the IRS direct file. Why? I ask why? What's the point? Why not allow taxpayers to directly file for free with the IRS? Why must everything go through a commercial provider like Intuit? Here? The tax lobby [00:39:00] won.

Number two. The big beautiful bill effectively rescinded a Biden era rule that would have established a mandatory nurse to patient ratio in long-term care facilities. The Biden administration passed a regulation that required a registered nurse, for example, to be available at all long-term care facilities like nursing homes, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

It also established a mandatory ratio 3.48 total nurse staffing hours per resident or patient. The Republican said, Nope, let's block that regulation from going into effect. They blocked it with a provision hidden really in the big beautiful Bill. God forbid, think about it. God forbid, we require nursing homes to have nurses on call 24 7.

The big beautiful bill also banned. This is number three, all federal funding to Plan [00:40:00]Parenthood and any 5 0 1 C3 healthcare facility that provides abortion services because of course, the Republicans won with this. Federal funding should not be used for abortions. Number four, the big beautiful bill increased the debt ceiling by $5 trillion, $5 trillion.

Because the Republicans know that the big, beautiful bill is going to increase the deficit, meaning that we have to take on more debt to pay what they've appropriated. Now. Number five, the big beautiful bill. Also change the student loan program, which we'll likely discuss in a future episode. But in short, they made it more difficult for students to receive financial aid.

They incentivized universities to reduce tuition, which probably is a good thing. And they made it more difficult for students to pay back their student loans because of course they did. Number six. Oh, and this really, this one really caught my eye. If a student loan [00:41:00] borrower goes to a school that defrauded them.

Sorry. No relief. You must pay back your student loans despite the school defrauding you. The Biden administration passed a regulation as that essentially allowed for those loans to be canceled if the school was found to be defrauding its students. The Republicans said, eh, doesn't matter if the school defrauds you, you still have to pay your loans.

Now, number seven. Relatedly, if a school closes before you complete your program and you took out student loans to pay for that program, too bad, anything you borrowed must still be paid back. There's no relief for borrowers whose school closed to no far fault of the borrower's own.

Again, that was another Biden era student loan protection that the Republicans just said, eh, kill it.

Number eight. The bill Appropriates [00:42:00] 46 and a half billion dollars on the border wall, because of course it did. 46 and a half billion dollars on the border wall.

Now remember in the first episode, I think I said there was something like $20 billion in Medicaid funding that was cut or effectively cut. With the big beautiful bill, given those who would fall out of the Medicaid program or would not get a renewal for their Medicaid services. That was $20 billion per year, and the Republicans appropriated 46 and a half billion on the border wall just because of course they could.

There's also $20 billion for border patrol personnel. Likely necessary.

But keep in mind that the Biden administration, along with a Republican led Congress negotiated a bipartisan bill that would've increased the funding for border patrol personnel, except Trump shot that down because we were in the middle of election and he wanted the [00:43:00] political win. So for the Republicans who now get to parade, oh, we got $20 billion for border patrol personnel.

Well, yeah, but the Dems already agreed to that during the last administration.

Number 10, the the 10th thing that really caught my eye, there's $2 billion in funding for security at the 2028 Olympics. Now, that's probably a good thing. Moreover, there's $625 million in security funding for the FIFA World Cup in 2026. Also probably a good thing.

Now this one, this one really gets me kind of frustrated at the Republicans. In the bill, There's $300 million in extra funding for Trump's residences as the bill provides, I'm gonna read directly quote. For the reimbursement of extraordinary law [00:44:00] enforcement personnel and costs for protection activities directly and demonstrably associated with any residences of the President, president Trump.

This one really gets me because Donald Trump has multiple residences. Of course, yes. He's living in the White House. He also goes to New Jersey. He also goes to Florida. Hell, you can say he has one in Scotland at his Scotland golf course, right? $300 million in extra funding on top of what has already been appropriated.

Because Trump's residences need more security . So consider it this way. The Republicans said, we're gonna make it more difficult for individuals to renew or to get their Medicaid coverage. We're gonna increase the administrative burden in that front.

Meanwhile, here's $300 million to the Trump properties. [00:45:00] That's what they did.

Now this one really gets me because of the irony. The last one that I really noticed is a hundred million dollars in appropriations to find quote. Budget and accounting efficiencies in the executive branch end quote. In other words, the big beautiful bill appropriates a hundred million dollars to find efficiencies.

I say the irony because I question whether the a hundred million dollars is actually efficient to find those efficiencies. Is it an inefficient appropriation to find efficiencies and inefficiencies? Seems like a lot of money, doesn't it? The irony of it all. And I'll leave with a potentially positive note.

This was kind of the fund provision that I caught. We now have an official definition for Spaceport in the big beautiful bill. It's now codified in federal law. That's right. A spaceport as defined by the big, beautiful bill is any facility [00:46:00] located at or in close proximity to a launch site or reentry site used for the manufacturing assembly or repairing of spacecraft,

Space Cargo flight control operations, providing launch services and reentry services, transferring crew space, flight participants, and space cargo. There you have folks. We now have a federal definition in law for spaceports. Now, some of you are thinking, why, right? What was the point? Republicans are wasting their time.

Well, if you have studied the law. My final comment, if you have studied the law. You know that when we write laws, we often have to define the terms that we use in those laws. So if we are saying that we're going to invest as an example, the big beautiful bill doesn't say this to be clear, but if we write a bill that says we're going to appropriate a hundred million dollars to the build out of space ports, well, we need to [00:47:00] define what a space port is.

So we pass a provision, That is the definition of Spaceport. That's why it's in there. So you may be thinking, oh, this is a waste of time. Why are the Republicans focused on, you know, defining spaceports? Well, it's because we do it all the time in the law. We have to. Okay, so there you have it folks. We now have a definition of spaceports and that concludes our two-part series on the big beautiful bill.

There's lots in it. I covered a lot of it. Hopefully you now have a greater picture of what the bill actually does from somebody who read it cover to cover.

 That's it for today's episode of Discourse. Thank you for tuning in and being part of the conversation. You can catch future episodes of discourse wherever you get your podcasts. If you found this discussion insightful, be sure to subscribe, leave a review and share it with others who value thoughtful analysis over the noise.[00:48:00]

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