The Spark

the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist

“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx

EDITORIAL
Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill"
—Gift to the Wealthy and Preparation for War

Jun 1, 2025

Trump’s “ONE BIG BEAUTIFUL BILL” is ONE BIG BEAUTIFUL HANDOUT to the capitalist class. But it is also ONE BIG TERRIBLE PREPARATION for war.

The big handout in the bill is the 3.8-trillion-dollar tax cut, most of which goes to the wealthiest one percent of the population.

That transfer of wealth to the already very wealthy is to be paid for by cuts that will further impoverish every working class community.

One trillion dollars is being cut from Medicaid and Food Stamps through so-called “administrative” changes. Similar moves for “efficiency” will claw back over 400 billion dollars from Social Security, and several hundred billion more from Medicare.

Trump’s “ONE BIG BILL,” running 1000 pages, is packed with specific cuts that never make the headlines. But they harm someone.

If you buy your own medical insurance in the exchange, your premium will balloon next year.

If you are trying to get technical training at a community college while working, you may lose your Pell Grant and pay more for a loan.

By the way, did you believe Trump’s promise that your Social Security would no longer be taxed? Well, he screwed you. It’s still taxed.

If you live in rural areas where the few hospitals have been kept alive by Medicaid payments, you may see the last one close.

If you’re a woman who depends on clinics like Planned Parenthood for your medical needs—including cancer screening, pap smears and birth control—you may see your clinic close, deprived of the federal money it needs.

If you are an immigrant who works all year long, paying taxes, you’ll discover you can’t claim a tax credit for your children, not even if they are U.S. citizens.

If you file a safety complaint on your job, you will likely retire—or die—before a federal inspector shows up. Inspections are cut.

If your children go to public school, their school will get less money—it’s going into support for private schools.

This is only a sample. There are hundreds more cuts, ripping money out of social programs and public services to satisfy the lust for wealth of the capitalist class.

That’s not the worst of it. The “ONE BIG BILL” adds hundreds of billions of dollars in military spending—over and above the trillion dollars already allocated in the budget resolution passed in April. The big increase is another indication that the capitalist system is pulling us down the road toward war.

By the way, don’t look to the Democrats, hoping that if they come back in 2026, they will wipe this all out. Did you forget that the Senate Democratic leadership gave enough votes to pass the April Budget Resolution? Did you forget that the Democrats, when they controlled government, also increased military spending?

For over a century, this government, regardless of which party was in power, has carried out two main policies, both at the expense of the population. One has been to keep wealth flowing into the hands of the capitalist class. The other is to prepare for the war their system requires.

With all its wealth, this capitalist nation today has no other answer to the problems its own system has created. Capitalism, itself, shows why it needs to be torn up, tossed aside, replaced by a system that puts human needs first.

That system in its time produced an enormous flowering of technology and science, which could be put to use to serve humanity. And capitalism also produced “its own grave diggers,” the working class, the social force that has the potential of sweeping away capitalism.