Newt’s Plan to Pass the “Big, Beautiful Bill”/No Kings
Ram it through before people can get their heads around it!
No Kings
After people protesting at the ICE facility in Spokane were arrested Wednesday evening just north and east of Riverfront Park, several have asked me if it would be safe to show up tomorrow (Saturday, June 14) at the Red Wagon at 4PM to protest “No Kings”. While there is never a gold-clad guarantee that a totally peaceful protest won’t turn ugly, I believe the concerns are minimal. There is no plan to confront anyone or to disrupt anything at “No Kings.” Most importantly, given our current circumstances, the risk of not turning out en masse at this long planned nationwide demonstration is far greater for the future of our democracy than the tiny risk of trouble developing.
While we turn out on Saturday, let’s keep in mind that Trump and company are also trying to pass their “One, Big Billionaire Bill” through the U.S. Senate, back to the U.S. House and signed before July 4. It has been planned for a long time—and Newt offers an instructive “how-to”.
How to Sneak an Ugly Bill Past the American People
Arguably, it was Newt Gingrich as the Republican Speaker of the U.S. of Representatives from 1995 to 1999 who engineered much of the polarization and dysfunction in Congress that we have lived with for the last three decades. At 81 he’s still at it, now advising from the sidelines how to ram through legislation that is near and dear to the hearts of Republican leadership and Republican megadonors. The following article appeared before Trump’s inauguration on January 9, 2025, in The Daily Caller, a far right online newspaper. (Gingrich pumps out opinion pieces in profusion on his own website, “gingrich360.com.”
I stumbled on the Gingrich opinion piece quoted below in a google search for my series of posts on what we should call the “Big, Bad Billionaire Bill.” It contains a number of points, which, five months later, are instructive—and on which I’ve offered commentary.
Keep to the high ground,
Jerry
Trump’s ‘Big, Beautiful Bill’ Is The Way Forward
Newt Gingrich
The No. 1 goal for the Trump administration and congressional Republicans must be to pass what I would call the Tax Cuts, Jobs and Affordability Act. President Donald J. Trump has described it as “one big, beautiful bill.”
A powerful economic bill must be the Republicans’ top priority, because it is key to the 2026 election. We know the economy, inflation and affordability are by far the American people’s biggest concerns. (RELATED: J.D. FOSTER: Trump Tax Cuts Good, Flat Tax Better, Unified Flat Tax Best)
This last paragraph deserves two comments. With all that has happened in the last five months “the economy, inflation and affordability” are all getting worse as a result of Trump’s mercurial tariffs. The linked article by Mr. Foster serves once again to underline the Republican holy grail of wealth transfer by trashing the progressive federal income tax.
Gingrich again:
The southern border and illegal immigration are also important — and additional border security measures should be included in the bill.
But they are still second to the economy. Furthermore, the president can get a fair amount done on illegal immigration and the border without an act of Congress (for instance, enforcing laws the Biden administration is currently ignoring).
Quick timing is vital. It takes time for new laws to impact the everyday lives of people.
Republicans should have learned this lesson twice: First with President Ronald Reagan in 1981 and then with President Trump in 2017.
When Reagan got his three-year tax cuts through the Congress in the summer of 1981, he allowed it to be written so the tax cuts would only kick in in 1983. The economic result was no real stimulus in 1982. The political result was the House Republicans lost 26 seats in the 1982 off-year election.
Similarly, in 2017, the congressional leaders convinced newly-elected President Trump that they could not get to the tax cuts until they abolished Obamacare. They spent months focusing on Obamacare — and failed to repeal it. The lost months meant that the Trump tax cuts only passed in December 2017. The result was little economic impact in 2018. House Republicans lost 40 seats that year. Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) then unleashed hell on the Trump administration. Tearing up his State of the Union speech and impeaching him twice were mere opening volleys. The ensuing investigations, harassment and blocked actions made the last two years of the first Trump presidency incredibly difficult.
Now, Republicans face their third opportunity to develop a booming economy which would give them a fighting chance to keep the House in 2026.
Producing a “booming economy” by increasing the federal deficit and transferring more wealth to the already wealthy is the persistent Republican fantasy of “supply-side” economics.
Gingrich:
Getting to a boom by the summer of 2026 while people are considering their voting intentions requires passing the “Tax Cuts, Jobs and Affordability Act” by the Fourth of July 2025.
Indeed, some Republicans still have their sights on July 4th of this year, less than a month away, to ram the Big, Bad, Billionaire Bill through Congress, before people have sufficient chance to learn what it actually does.
Gingrich:
When the bill reaches its final form, it will have to be explained and sold to the American people. This will take several months, so the essence of the bill must be known by early March. Then Trump will have to undertake a two-and-a-half-month campaign with a dozen or more mass rallies to explain the bill to the American people. His appeal will be strong enough to get them to call their House and Senate members and demand they vote for the bill.
Maybe I’m not looking at the correct Republican propaganda, nor am I on the receiving end of Republican congresspeople’s phones to know how people are reacting to present circumstances, but it seems doubtful to me that big rallies in favor of the Bill or the positive phone calls to Congresspeople have happened. Indeed, it seems like the opposite is happening. I take some heart in that—and I would urge us to redouble our efforts to flood Congressional phones with our objections to the gross bill.
Gingrich:
When you have a strong enough economic bill, you can get a number of Democrats to vote for it despite their party. Start with the 12 Democrats in districts Trump carried. Then go to the districts where he was within 5 percentage points. With Reagan’s tax cuts and our 1996 welfare reform bill, pressure from back home moved people who would not have voted with us if they thought they had a choice. They simply could not explain a “no” vote to their constituents.
Democratic defections certainly didn’t happen in the House, and doesn’t seem likely they’ll happen in the Senate, either.
Gingrich:
While liberals run the country from the Washington bureaucracy out to the grassroots, conservatives run the country by arousing the grassroots to overwhelm the resistance of Washington.
I think Mr. Gingrich read the wrong tea leaves about grassroots.
Gingrich:
Educating, exciting and recruiting the American people takes time. President Reagan could give an address from the Oval Office, and the only three networks which existed would cover it. He could really get the country’s attention. In today’s fractured mass communications ecosystem, it takes more time and effort to attract attention.
Fortunately, Trump is a master of large town hall rallies. If he spends nearly three months going into key districts, he will almost certainly create a grassroots movement.
I don’t believe that happened. Trump has had too much else going on.
Gingrich:
If all the talk show hosts, podcasters, columnists and others who support Trump’s goals join him in educating and exciting the American people, the pressure to pass the Tax Cuts, Jobs and Affordability Act will become overwhelming.
People get tired of telling obvious lies to deceive their listeners.
Gingrich:
A single “big, beautiful bill” is the best way to get the economy moving — and get the House to remain Republican. It must be passed before July 4. If it could meet Speaker Mike Johnson’s (R-La.) goal of Memorial Day — even better.
Johnson delivered on the Memorial Day goal. Call your U.S. Senators whether they are Democrats or Republicans and register your opposition. (Democrats need to hear from us so they know we have their backs.)
And Gingrich closes with this:
Let your House and Senate members know you want a better economy now — and you expect them to deliver it now.
Yes, of course we want a better economy—which is not what this Bill will deliver, nor is it what Trump’s other policies (like his tariffs) are delivering. It is all designed to line the pockets of the wealthy at the expense of the rest of us. Register with your House and Senate members your distaste for this gross bill. Use 5Calls.org. It’s easy.