Big Beautiful Billboard

Republicans Finally Advertise Their True Intent To The Nation

I’ve got some incredible news…it’s so good that if you were here right now, you’d probably kiss me right on the lips. That’s gotta make you curious, so drumroll please: Our nation can finally be done with the stifling campaign ads in which Democrats breathlessly warn that Republicans will (insert something almost too nasty to believe here - you know, like: starve kids, give breifcases full of cash to billionaires, or bulldoze hundreds of millions of acres of our public land.) Isn’t that incredible!? The debate is finally settled, and the intrusions into our football weekends and HULU series can stop.

If you sense some sarcasm, ya got me. I’m yanking your chain. I fear we will never be rid of the advertising. But I’m not kidding about Republicans lifting their komono and admitting to openly supporting previously unthinkable policy. Because virtually every GOP member of the Republican House has just enthusiastically voted YES on terrible legislation, AKA the, “The Big Beautiful Bill,” and the only two GOP “No” votes (Massie - KY, Davidson - OH) did so because the content of the 1116-page legislative behemoth was not harmful enough.¹ So we no longer need to debate what MAGA Republicans want for our country; they just told the entire nation, and it might as well be the world’s largest advertising billboard. Like blurting the truth after one too many beers, this vote lays bare their true intent on dozens of topics, but I’ll focus on just three of their stunning admissions:

1. Republicans are for making the rich much richer and for making working people much poorer. You don’t need to trust me on this claim; remember, you have their YES vote for evidence. Jonathan Chait explained it perfectly in his Atlantic headline: “The Largest Upward Transfer of Wealth in American History - House Republicans voted to advance a bill that would offer lavish tax cuts for the rich while slashing benefits for the poor.”²

   

   If you don’t believe Chait, who is hardly a leftist cheerleader, then might I suggest a scathing assessment from none other than the alma mater of one Donald J. Trump which was recently printed in in The New Republic; “The CBO’s findings were echoed by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business last Friday, whose budget model revealed that those in the lowest income quintile (annual income of $17,000 or less) would see their after-tax income cut by $1,035. Meanwhile, those in the top 0.1 percent of earners would take home an additional $389,280.”³ Wow! Nothing makes MAGA Republicans happier than that! Just look at the joyful statement from MT Rep Ryan Zinke, who makes nearly $1 million a year as a consultant for companies like Conoco Phillips: “The Big Beautiful Bill is the bold, decisive action Montanans and Americans demanded.”

2. Republicans are for industrializing almost all of your public lands and for removing your right to review, comment, or protest even the worst bulldozing in even the most pristine wilderness by the world’s largest corporations. Knowing where to begin here is tough because the list of conservation gutting in the bill is so frighteningly voluminous. The Wilderness Society’s official statement summed it up: “The House passes the most destructive environmental bill in history to fund the Trump agenda.” They went on to warn, “As it stands, the bill will force mining leases next to the Boundary Waters, jumpstart leasing in the Arctic Refuge, mandate regular drilling on public lands, and trample judicial review.”⁴

   

   The Wilderness Society's Instagram post after the Republican YES votes

   Outdoor Life’s Andrew McKean published an article warning of the disastorus impacts of the Republican bill that “include the reinstatement of withdrawn mineral leases for metal mining in the watershed of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, opening vast areas of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil exploration, cuts to land-management agencies that are expected to impact visitation as early as this summer, an eye-popping expansion of coal mining and timber harvesting on public land, expedited permitting, and prohibition on protests of most natural-resources regulations.” McKean also highlighted the incredibly dangerous portions of the bill that provide the largest corporations on Earth to simply buy their way out of any review or litigation when their massive projects impact things like clean water or critical wildlife; “It would revise the National Environmental Policy Act to allow private project sponsors to pay an optional fee of 125 percent of the estimated cost of a NEPA analysis for expedited review. Decisions in this opt-in arrangement would be immune from judicial review. Most leasing provisions in the bill have a rider that makes those projects immune from litigation.”⁵ (insert me gritting teeth in anger here)

3. Republicans want millions of Americans to go without healthcare and want to remove food assistance from millions of working Americans and their children. Montanans know something about the tricks used to harm working people and kids. Our governor has tried it all, refusing food assistance and increasing administrative red tape to kick needy people off programs. When it comes to hungry kids, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities summarized national GOP position that would force millions of kids to go hungry: “The House-passed Republican reconciliation plan would cut nearly $300 billion from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) through 2034, based on Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates — by far the largest cut to SNAP in history.”

   And finally, the same party that voted 63 times to repeal Obamacare⁶ can finally get its way and throw as many as 16 million hard-working Americans off their healthcare. This disastrous reduction, accomplished by forcing administrative hardship just like Gianforte did in Montana,⁷ would force hundreds of rural hospitals to close their doors. It would increase costs for all insured Americans because preventive care would plummet and be replaced with much more expensive emergency and triage healthcare. The budget office issued a dire warning: “Specifically, the CBO found that the House-passed bill, when coupled with proposed Trump administration changes to the Affordable Care Act, would lead to 16 million people losing coverage.”⁸

There is so much more that’s terrible in this bill, including a much longer list of environmental harm, trillions in irresponsible ballooning of the debt, and insane things like overt prohibitions against any regulation of artificial intelligence for 10 years. It’s so bad that you could be forgiven for thinking that Democrats might have drafted it as a joke to trick Republicans into going on the record for political purposes. But this is not a joke; Democrats universally and vehemently opposed this bill.

Republicans dreamed it up, wrote it, cheered it, and voted YES. This vote is their billboard to the American people; they just told us who they are, and now it’s time to believe them.

1. https://clerk.house.gov/Votes/2025145

2. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/05/big-beautiful-transfer-of-wealth/682885/

3. https://newrepublic.com/article/195577/gop-threaten-millions-poor-americans

wildernesssociety

A post shared by @wildernesssociety

4.

5. https://www.outdoorlife.com/conservation/conservation-public-land-house-budget-bill/

6. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Efforts_to_repeal_the_Affordable_Care_Act#:~:text=The%20Tuesday%2C%20February%202%2C%202016,on%20March%2023%2C%202010.%22

7.

8. https://www.americanprogress.org/article/the-cbo-confirms-the-devastating-harms-of-house-republicans-one-big-beautiful-bill-act/