In the movie dramatizing the Watergate scandal, a secretive informant meets a reporter in a dark parking garage and advises him to “follow the money” in order to unravel the mystery involving a botched robbery directed by Richard Nixon’s White House. The actual events (testimony from White House lawyers, a mysterious 18-minute gap in the Oval Office tapes when the crisis was discussed) might have been even more sensational than the movie, but the movie phrase had legs. It is now a directive for understanding controversial government and business actions.

For most of us, government budgets are subjects to avoid if possible: the numbers are dry and dreary; the very definition of a budget expresses limitations rather than joy and freedom; and the math calculations are beyond the basics retained from junior high. But the “big beautiful bill” currently getting batted around in Congress is unavoidable, a Republican elephant in the room, dominating our space. It should command our attention as much as any military performance or court battle, because it will define, guide, and skew our government and country for years to come.

The administration wants a quick rubber-stamp from congressional Republicans. At over 1,200 pages, it’s certainly beyond the abilities of most voters to decipher, with numbers so large they are almost meaningless. Remember when one million dollars was a large sum to imagine? A trillion is a million million, and the discretionary spending in the bill is $1.69 trillion. The budget “floods the zone” with dense verbiage, technical language, and measures unrelated to spending, making it easier for supporters to give it a pass than to analyze it.

Republicans are supplying simplified, misleading talking points: No tax on tips! It’s a great idea, although minuscule in terms of overall economic impact, merely “a distraction” that offers “moderate relief for some” according to groups fighting for a higher minimum wage. How about tax cuts! Everybody loves the idea, but those for the wealthiest dwarf those for the poorest. If passed as is, and in the highest estimates, Americans in the top 0.1% of income (about 16,000 households) will save about $400,000 yearly. The bottom 25% (about 32,000,000 households) will all pay about $1,000 more.

Budgets reflect the values and priorities of those proposing them. This budget shows that current Republican priorities favor more handouts to the wealthiest and less assistance for the poorest to meet basic needs: e.g., an estimated 16 million will lose health-care coverage, about 2 million children will lose access to nutritious food, and $12 billion will be cut from educational grants, work-study programs, and support for disadvantaged students. The poorest group will also have less money to buy groceries, diapers, and medicine, less to pay rent, maintain a car, etc., etc.

It’s another budget that transfers mountains of wealth upward while leaving most Americans even further behind, supported by lying politicians who won’t be honest about its effects. Some still claim (like President Ronald Reagan) that upper-income tax cuts pay for themselves through greater economic production or trickle down in higher wages. The math has proven that upper-income tax cuts merely transfer wealth to those already at the top and add to national deficits.

An old saying encourages people to “put your money where your mouth is.” In this case, it should be the opposite: elected Republicans should put their mouths where the money is going. They should proclaim loudly that Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, George Soros, Michael Bloomberg and 21 other billionaires should pay even less in taxes than their recent payments of about 1% of earnings; Elon Musk should pay less than the roughly 3% he recently paid. They should proudly point out that 80,000,000 of the poorest American men, women and children will be forced to pay higher taxes so that the 40,000 richest can buy more Rolex watches, a Ferrari or two, or make a down payment on a bigger yacht.

At a December 2023 fundraiser, Donald Trump noted that the crowd was “rich as hell” and “we’re gonna give you a big tax cut.” His big beautiful bill will stick most of us with the same or higher tax bill, and a governmental safety net that is even more moth-eaten than before. Assistance for essentials like education, health care and nutrition will suffer. Instead of our July 4th celebration of the goal that “all men are created equal,” Mitch McConnell, John Thune, and Mike Johnson should hold a press conference to declare America’s new motto, possibly stolen from Marie Antoinette: “Let them eat cake.”

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Allen Woods is a freelance writer, author of the Revolutionary-era historical fiction novel “The Sword and Scabbard,” and Greenfield resident. His column appears regularly on a Saturday. Comments are welcome here or at awoods2846@gmail.com.