CHARBONNEAU – U.S. Congress squeaks up on the Big Beautiful Bill

THE AMERICAN CONGRESS has been silent as a church mouse up until now.

I’ve been wondering how long Congress would remain silent as President Bluster blows hard in daily media.

Now the U.S. Senate is pushing back against the president’s ridiculously named Big Beautiful Bill (BBB).

The BBB narrowly passed Tuesday with a vote of 51-50. Bluster’s flunky JD Vance broke the tie after three Republicans joined all Democrats in opposing the bloated debacle.

A lot is on the line in the passage of the huge bill. The White House sent a memo warning to the Senate to fall into line. The memo said that failure to approve the bill “would be the ultimate betrayal.”

But the Republicans are nervously looking at next year when 435 seats in the House of Representatives are up for election and 35 in the Senate.

Worried about how the BBB will impact Medicaid, Republicans Rand Paul of Kentucky and Thom Tillis of North Carolina, and Susan Collins of Maine rejected the bill.

Tillis was concerned that the BBB would cost his state billions of dollars in healthcare funding, a program that is relied on by millions of elderly, disabled and low-income Americans.

In addition to adding trillions of dollars of debt, the BBB would make cuts to the SNAP program; a program that replaced food stamps and provides benefits to low-income families to supplement their grocery budget.

President Bluster whined: “Did Rand Paul Vote ‘NO’ again tonight? What’s wrong with this guy???”

Bluster is worried about elections next year. On Truth Social he issued a warning to Republicans who have concerns over the bill. “REMEMBER, you still have to get reelected. Don’t go too crazy!”

The egotistic president imagines that if he replaces candidates who don’t sway to his blowhard, he’ll replace them. He seems to forget that voters won’t automatically vote for his designated candidate when they are faced with cuts to medical care and grocery supplements.

Other sections have been removed from the BBB by Senators with nary a peep from the president.

Such as the part that some Republicans refer to as the “revenge tax.” The U.S. Treasury Secretary asked Republican Senators to remove that section of the BBB.

And they did.

In Section 899 of the BBB, the petulant president wanted to get revenge against Canada for implementing the digital services tax (DST).

President Bluster had planned to tax Canadian investors in the U.S. – a bad idea thought the Senators because it would chase away foreign investment in the United States.

Republican Senators understood much better than the president just how much the revenge tax could hurt America.

And Bluster probably hasn’t even read the hundreds of pages of the BBB.

In a clever move by Prime Minister Carney, Canada responded to Bluster’s recent outburst by cancelling our Digital Service Tax.

Bluster was in his glory.

Press secretary Karoline Leavitt parroted the president “It’s very simple: Prime Minister Carney and Canada caved to President Trump and the United States of America”.

Carney cancelled the DST to stroke the president’s delicate ego. That will keep negations going in private where the real deals will be struck – deals of which Bluster will likely be unaware of.

David Charbonneau is a retired TRU electronics instructor who hosts a blog at http://www.eyeviewkamloops.wordpress.com.