What is in the "Big Beautiful Bill"--and What is Not

Over the weekend, I saw this meme all over social media, and it soon became viral. Posters—assuming this was true—were understandably upset. Many began hounding the media and elected officials demanding to know why this information was being hidden. As I have posted repeatedly, this is a really awful bill that will do awful things. This meme, however, is largely false, and it is doing serious damage to the credibility of those fighting the bill. That may, indeed, be the intent.

I have therefore decided to actually review the actual text of the “Big Beautiful Bill” and explain what is in the bill—and what is not.

I will start with the claims in this meme:

“He can delay or cancel elections—legally.” False. There is no such provision in the bill. Indeed, there are no election-related provisions in the bill.

“He can ignore Supreme Court rulings for a year or more.” False. This is not in the Bill, and there is not even a reference to the Supreme Court.

“He can fire government workers for political disloyalty.” Partially true, but there are some nuances. Section 900004 of the bill, entitled “ELECTION FOR AT-WILL EMPLOYMENT AND LOWER FERS CONTRIBUTIONS FOR NEW FEDERAL CIVIL SERVICE HIRES”, provides that at the end of their probationary period, most federal employees can voluntarily elect to be employed as an at-will employee not protected by the civil service law protections. As an inducement to get employees to accept at-will status, the Bill provides that employees who do not have elect this status will have their contribution to the federal pension program increased by almost a third from 10.6% to 15.6%.

Those federal employees who elect this status will indeed be subject to being fired for political disloyalty, and the large increase in pension contributions may cause many new federal employees to elect at will status. This provision seems to only apply to new federal employees or those still on probationary status.

A very bad provision that the Senate should strip from the bill. (And it may not qualify for the Senate’s special budget reconciliation rules and my be removed at the direction of the Senate Parliamentarian).

“Judges can’t enforce their own orders.” Partially true, but there are some nuances. I wrote about this in a post last week. Section 70302 provides that “No court of the United States may use appropriated funds to enforce a contempt citation for failure to comply with an injunction or temporary restraining order if no security was given when the injunction or order was issued pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 65(c)”. What this means is that unless an injunction or order requires the plaintiff to post a security bond, the subject of the injunction can willfully disobey the order with no risk of a contempt citation. In constitutional litigation against the federal, state and local government, such security bonds are rarely required for the simple reason that the bond—likely to be massive—would make vindication of constitutional rights simply out of reach.

For new injunctions, a court can make the injunction enforceable simply by requiring a nominal Rule 65(c) security bond—such as one dollar. Older injunctions, however, could be put at risk. I suspect that the Judges who want to make their orders enforceable will simply amend their order by requiring nominal security bonds.

The intent here is awful, and could invite high security bonds in some cases. Still, it is so poorly drafted that as a practical matter may not accomplish much. Litigants and courts can get around this provision by the use of nominal bonds since the provision does not set a minimum Rule 65(c) bond. It can still still cause mischief, and we need to watch to make sure that the Senate does not add a minimum security bond requirement.

“Protests can be tracked and criminalized.” False. The Bill provides for no new law enforcement authorities.

“LGTQ+ rights, education, health care and media? Gutted.” This is too vague to fact check. No provision addresses any rights, however, so I categorize this as false. There are, however, some funding cuts that would apply to some of the listed communities. As I noted in this post, the Bill hits healthcare hard by cutting Medicaid by hundred of billions. It also did not extend the enhanced tax credits for Affordable Act premiums. Also troubling is that the Bill targets the transgender community by prohibiting Medicaid funding from covering gender-affirming care for transgender care for all ages.

“Your VPN? Tracked. Your vote? Suppressed. Your speech? Flagged?” Once again this so vague that it is hard to track down. Still, I found nothing in the Bill even remotely relevant to these claims after multiple searches. As I noted above, there are no election law provisions or law enforcement enhancements.

So this meme is largely false. Sadly, the viral nature of the meme means that thousands of people are likely calling their Senators complaining about provisions that aren’t even in the bill. As a result they have no credibility with the Senate. Perhaps that was the intent of the authors of this mysterious meme. More importantly, they are not focused on the real harm of this bill:

• It will add trillions of dollars to our national debt , causing increased interest costs that will harm businesses and consumers. Most of the tax cuts benefit the wealthy.

• It will result in 7 to 10.3 million people to lose Medicaid coverage through reduced state resources and new administrative requirements to stay covered. Rural hospitals that rely on Medicaid may close.

• As noted above, the Bill would ban the use of Medicaid to cover gender-affirming care for all transgender person regardless of age.

• According to the Congressional Budget Office, an estimated 3.2 million people will lose access to food aid through the SNAP (food stamps) program.

• Unless Congress acts to waive the S-PAYGO law, the Congressional Budget Office says that there will need to be an automatic 4% in Medicare. I am sure that Congress will stop this, but it is the result of the Bill that the Bill does not address.

• The Bill dramatically scales back the tax credits for clean energy enacted in the Inflations Reduction Act. This will especially hurt the American solar energy industry.

• The Bill includes numerous provisions that will make it easier for the oil and gas industry to obtain permits and leases for use of public land.