The Largest Upward Transfer of Wealth in American History

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. By Jonathan Chait House Speaker Mike Johnson Kevin Dietsch / Getty May 22, 2025, 9:21 AM ET

House Republicans worked through the night to advance a massive piece of legislation that might, if enacted, carry out the largest upward transfer of wealth in American history.

That is not a side effect of the legislation, but its central purpose. The “big, beautiful bill” would pair huge cuts to food assistance and health insurance for low-income Americans with even larger tax cuts for affluent ones.

Hakeem Jeffries, the House minority leader, warned that the bill’s passage, by a 215–214 margin, would mark the moment the Republicans ensured the loss of their majority in the midterm elections. That may be so. But the Republicans have not pursued this bill for political reasons. They are employing a majority that they suspect is temporary to enact deep changes to the social compact.

The minority party always complains that the majority is “jamming through” major legislation, however deliberate the process may be. (During the year-long debate over the Affordable Care Act, Republicans farcically bemoaned the “rushed” process that consumed months of public hearings.) In this case, however, the indictment is undeniable. The House cemented the bill’s majority support with a series of last-minute changes whose effects have not been digested. The Congressional Budget Office has not even had time to calculate how many millions of Americans would lose health insurance, nor by how many trillions of dollars the deficit would increase.

The heedlessness of the process is an indication of its underlying fanaticism. The members of the Republican majority are behaving not like traditional conservatives but like revolutionaries who, having seized power, believe they must smash up the old order as quickly as possible before the country recognizes what is happening.

House Republicans are fully aware of the political and economic risks of this endeavor. Cutting taxes for the affluent is unpopular, and cutting Medicaid is even more so. That is why, instead of proudly proclaiming what the bill will accomplish, they are pretending it will do neither. House Republicans spent months warning of the political dangers of cutting Medicaid, a program that many of their own constituents rely on. The party’s response is to fall back on wordplay, pretending that their scheme of imposing complex work requirements, which are designed to cull eligible recipients who cannot navigate the paperwork burden, will not throw people off the program—when that is precisely the effect they are counting on to produce the necessary savings.

The less predictable dangers of their plan are macroeconomic. The bill spikes the deficit, largely because it devotes more money to lining the pockets of lawyers and CEOs than it saves by immiserating fast-food employees and ride-share drivers. Massive deficit spending is not always bad, and in some circumstances (emergencies, or recessions) it can be smart and responsible. In the middle of an economic expansion, with a large structural deficit already built into the budget, it is deeply irresponsible.

In recent years, deficit spending has been a political free ride. With interest rates high and rising, the situation has changed. Higher deficits oblige Washington to borrow more money, which can force it to pay investors higher interest rates to take on its debt, which in turn increases the deficit even more, as interest payments (now approaching $1 trillion a year) swell. The market could absorb a new equilibrium with a higher deficit, but that resolution is hardly assured. The compounding effect of higher debt leading to higher interest rates leading to higher debt can spin out of control.

House Republicans have made clear they are aware of both the political and the economic dangers of their plan, because in the recent past, they have repeatedly warned about both. Their willingness to take them on is a measure of their profound commitment.

And while the content of their beliefs can be questioned, the seriousness of their purpose cannot. Congressional Republicans are willing to endanger their hold on power to enact policy changes they believe in. And what they believe—what has been the party’s core moral foundation for decades—is that the government takes too much from the rich, and gives too much to the poor.

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The floodwaters can only be dammed so long before breaking free. Whether that happens via controlled release of pressure or a disastrous blow out is up to the people with the regulatory power. Their failure to address the tide can only end in their painful ruin. For their sake, they better have fast legs if they don't grow some hearts.

Not me, never had a future.

That's okay.

We'll take the futures from their offspring.

This will not go unpunished.

The #1 issue for all of us is Us versus Them. That's it. There's 1000 of them and 350 million of us.

Exactly. I don't think I am poor but in there eyes, I am dirt poor. Anyone can't afford a seat at their table are at peril.

I'm glad they're coming for your assets.

You have more than enough and should not receive even more while others have less, just like the billionaires you're criticizing.

Edit: All the people getting mad at this reality are the reason why we have to choose between clintons and trumps. As soon as someone threatens the wealth of neo-liberals, they immediately agree with conservatives.

Greed and consumerism are the worst issues we face as a species. It makes sense most of you will react the way that you do when being forced to acknowledge your contribution to the problem.

Now, who's excited for the switch 2 and gta 6?

Well that's the power of federation.

We get banned for talking about increasing taxes on the wealthy through like progressive tax policy?

Senseless killing is a superficial solution. Organization is the sustainable, but less glamurous one.

Senseless killing is a superficial solution. Organization is the sustainable, but less glamorous one.

I want a big enough mass of freak conservative boomers to die off of old age and for the republicans to finally push everyone else hard enough that this country finally fucking snaps and swings left so hard that Reagan’s grave belches black smoke for a month.

Look at Mike Johnson's face--he's not dying for a long long time. Get over the idea that evil people are all old and you just need to wait for them to die, it's not going to happen. New evil ones are born every day, they exist in every generation, they've been with us forever and will be with us forever.

You summarize it perfectly. I am so disheartened by my fellow countrymen. So put off that I left the country and have no intention of ever returning there to live. When I see someone like Klepper interview maga, it is always driven home just how absolutely stupid and ignorant maga are. It's really no wonder he got elected again. trump is indeed the symptom not the disease. I think the Leopards Ate My Face communities do a grave injustice because I see such communities giving people the false impresssion that maga is "realizing" something. That couldn't be further from the truth. Many of my progressive friends are stuck in the "surely they're all waking up", "surely he wouldn't try to do that", "surely he wouldn't get elected again" cycle.

I believe there is a third reason in addition to ignorance and hate: tribalism. whether it's their religious tribe, or racial tribe, or sexuality tribe, conservatives tend to embrace tribalism more than anyone else. To them there are in groups and out groups. In groups that the law protects but does not bind, and out groups that the law binds but does not protect.

Ignorance, tribalism, hate, xenophobia, intolerance have always been able to take root in the minds of the weak. But when the oligarchs realized that the ignoranti could be a powerful tool, they became a product. Those millions of maga people you mention have been and are groomed continually to be tools for enabling the transfer of wealth. They are groomed with fear, misinformation, manipulation, appeals to tribalism, and appeals to uncertainty. They are groomed so effectively that they groom themselves and their own children.

It's called false consciousness. The workers are socialized through media, religion, and other social institutions, to identify with and support the ruling class. You see this in the way they adore Elmo Skum. I've known IT workers who bragged about the fancy car they basically bought for their manager.

Yes, it's a Marxist perspective. But Marx wasn't wrong.

Can't trust the random public anymore. It's a real shame. There has been a massive shift in my perception of these people.

They'd just blame the system and the party for the choice they chose to make. Chicken shits.

There is an option in your settings so you don't see upvotes or downvotes on individual comments.

None of these imaginary points matter.

(Lemmy is rad)

Best is to let them go into poverty and famine, and go extinct

...the sad part is that perhaps half those MAGAs aren't necessarily bad people, but they're so profoundly indoctrinated by its disinformation sphere that they legitimately believe their support serves a greater good...

...the other half are outright evil, though...

Everyone seems to forget the Libor scam/conspiracy. Trillions.

The swing voters in the US is dumb as a brick.

They care a lot more about "culture war" issues.

The democrats are in on it too and it doesn't matter how many candidates they have politically aligned with the public's best interest. I keep saying this but the only way to break out of this loop is for both parties to split and take a large chunk of resources with them with they do. They also need to eliminate the "CEO" position for any party and all vote for the primary candidates instead of making arbitrary decisions. I get it, you need a leadership for housekeeping reasons, but the current RNC and DNC CEO's are not at all about housekeeping for the greater good. All of it is lip service while they take tax-free "political contributions" from all those shady "SuperPACS" . This is all wishful thinking and I'm just hear along for the ride in the billionaire made hand basket to hell.

did you know that protesting is not legal in many places in the US and also the police like to just murder people randomly

To be fair the French complain about their access to stolen modern day African money

Because these two countries are otherwise identical in every way. Good thing you have an easy solution that still works in spite of the existence of assault rifles and wire taps

Trickles down on the rich.

This is not end of the world, history is full of bad moments and we got out of them.

We need people to join protests to help change things, not kill themselves. If we accept that we have no power, we will have no power.

https://www.mobilize.us/indivisible/

https://fiftyfifty.one/

https://maydaymovementusa.org/

You could do so much more good with that gun.

That's most millenial Americans' retirement plans.

I have given up on the idea of retirement or security/safety in my lifetime a loooong time back. We live in the worst possible type of dystopia, a world where "evil" won long ago, and has had ample time and opportunity to sink its claws into every aspect of our lives, forever.

And the worst part is that most people won't even believe it. In fact, almost a majority seem to relish it somehow. Like they want the world to be as terrible as it can possibly be, even for themselves.

If your mental health is in that kind of state, please get rid of the gun. The world is better with you here, and we need each other the fight that's coming.

And if we need guns later, I'm a hobbyist that's been collecting them for years and I've got a TON of them.

It's working exactly as intended.

Many of us realize that it's broken, but voting doesn't seem to fix it.........

Well they have all been promised since the Reagan era that it would all trickle back down. I’m sure it will start doing that any day now.

That was when he was doing the PPP loans and required them to be untraceable, at the time it was the biggest transfer of wealth, this apparently does even more and goes even further

It was true then and it's true now.

Could? Should

Too bad the republican propaganda machine will blame Biden or brown people or something else, that this is going to remove freeloaders and make the gutted programs save them money. Even if they personally lose their healthcare, somehow it'll be the democrats that made it that bad. Somehow...