The "$4 Trillion Bill": More debt...
This massive bill transfers wealth and adds $4 trillion to the national debt, with no plan for debt reduction.
Congress just dropped a 1,000+ page tax bill with a catchy name, but what does it actually do? Let me cut through the political spin and legal jargon to tell you what's really in it, based directly on the bill's text.
The Big Picture: More Debt, Different Priorities
First, the elephant in the room: This bill directly increases the national debt limit by $4 trillion. Despite all the talk about fiscal responsibility, there's zero plan outlined in this document to pay down existing debt. We're simply raising the government's credit limit.
Who Wins Big
The Wealthy Get the Biggest Gifts
Estate Tax Exemption Jumps: The exemption for estate and gift taxes permanently increases to a staggering $15 million per person ($30 million for couples). This means rich families can pass down massive fortunes entirely tax-free.
Business Owners Get Permanent Tax Breaks: Those with qualified business income receive a permanent tax deduction, increasing from 20% to 23% on their business income.
High Earners Keep Lower Tax Rates Permanently: The modified federal income tax bracket schedules and lower tax rates are made permanent, benefiting those in higher income brackets.
Middle-Class Families Get Some Relief
Child Tax Credit Boosts: The child tax credit is permanently doubled to $2,000 per child (indexed for inflation after 2026), with a temporary bump to $2,500 per child through 2028.
Standard Deduction Stays Higher: The increased standard deduction is made permanent, with additional increases for tax years 2025-2028, meaning most people won't need to itemize their taxes.
"No Tax on Tips" and "No Tax on Overtime": New deductions are allowed, meaning no tax on tips and no tax on overtime pay – but only through 2028. There's also a "No Tax on Car Loan Interest" deduction for the same period.
Who Gets Left Behind
Low-Income Workers
If you don't make enough to owe much in taxes, many of these "tax cuts" won't directly benefit you. The bill's structure, heavily reliant on deductions, primarily helps those already paying substantial taxes.
Immigrant Families
Restricted Access to Health Benefits: Premium tax credits for health insurance are severely restricted. Eligibility is eliminated for individuals who are not Lawful Permanent Residents or certain other specified statuses (like those from Compact of Free Association countries). This means individuals with asylum, parole, or temporary protected status (TPS) will be ineligible.
Medicaid Ineligibility Impacts Credits: You'll also lose access to premium tax credits if you're ineligible for Medicaid due to your alien status. These provisions will significantly impact mixed-status families.
Clean Energy Workers
Massive Rollback of Green Energy Tax Credits: The bill significantly accelerates the expiration or phases out several key green energy tax credits.
Electric vehicle credits are ending in 2025.
Clean electricity production and investment credits will be phased out, becoming zero after 2031.
Clean hydrogen production credits are accelerated, expiring for facilities beginning construction after 2025.
Other credits for certain energy property and advanced manufacturing production are also phased out or aligned to expire by 2031.
This widespread curtailment of incentives could certainly impact both blue-collar manufacturing jobs and white-collar engineering roles in the renewable energy sector.
The DOGE Connection (Sort Of)
Remember all that talk about the Department of Government Efficiency cutting waste? This bill has some targeted anti-fraud measures, but they are limited:
Actual Anti-Fraud Measures:
Medicare AI: $25 million is allocated to hire AI contractors and data scientists to identify and recoup Medicare overpayments.
EITC Reform: Better systems are implemented to detect and manage duplicate claims on earned income tax credits.
Penalties for Tax Info Disclosure: Penalties for unauthorized disclosures of taxpayer information are significantly increased (fines up to $250,000, imprisonment up to 10 years). This targets improper handling of sensitive tax data, not broadly "tax preparers who help people cheat" on their taxes.
But Here's the Catch:
These allocated savings are tiny compared to the $4 trillion debt increase this bill authorizes.
Medicaid: The bill does not outline direct cuts to the Medicaid program as a whole. However, it does implement restrictions on immigrant access. Specifically, it disallows premium tax credits during periods when an individual is ineligible for Medicaid due to their alien status, which impacts how some immigrants can access health coverage.
SNAP (Food Stamps): The bill explicitly addresses food stamps. It includes specific provisions under its "Nutrition" subtitle, such as new "Able bodied adults without dependents work requirements" and "Alien SNAP eligibility." This means the bill does indeed make changes related to SNAP.
The Fine Print That Matters
Temporary vs. Permanent:
Tax cuts for the wealthy: Permanent.
Help for working people (tips, overtime): Expires in 2028.
This remains a consistent pattern: permanent benefits for the rich, temporary relief for workers.
The Eligibility Restrictions Based on Alien Status:
While the phrase "work-eligible Social Security number" is not explicitly found "throughout the bill" for "most benefits" in the provided document, the bill does implement significant restrictions on eligibility for certain benefits (like premium tax credits and Medicare) based on alien status. These provisions effectively exclude undocumented immigrants and mixed-status families from receiving these benefits, even if they pay taxes with an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (ITIN).
The Bottom Line
This bill is essentially a wealth transfer from working people to the already wealthy, wrapped in populist language about helping workers.
The Math:
$4 trillion added to the national debt limit.
The biggest benefits go to people who can pass down $15+ million estates tax-free.
Working-class benefits are temporary and, due to eligibility restrictions, may exclude millions of taxpayers.
The Politics:
Despite rhetoric about government efficiency, this bill effectively expands spending through significant tax cuts that reduce government revenue.
The "beautiful" name masks some pretty stark distributional effects.
The acceleration of clean energy credit expirations could lead to job losses in both traditional and renewable energy sectors across various states.
Clean hydrogen production credits are accelerated, expiring for facilities beginning construction after 2025.
Hydrogen Reality Check: All “Clean Hydrogen” Is Not Equally Clean
The Reality: Every form of hydrogen production has different emissions risks. Producing hydrogen from renewable electricity is the most straightforward way to ensure emissions are near zero, but all methods of production will require additional regulations to meet the mark. Supply chains must be strictly managed with a cradle-to-gate view on emissions to maximize hydrogen’s climate benefits.
The term “clean hydrogen” has no universally accepted definition. It has become a catchall term for nearly all low-carbon production pathways for hydrogen, but the term gets tossed around without any real clarity as to what “clean” means.
Broadly, “clean” hydrogen refers to any hydrogen produced with lower emissions than the incumbent fossil fuel-based methods. While there are many clean hydrogen production pathways often categorized by “colors,” we will use the two most common types to exemplify the main considerations:
Green hydrogen: Hydrogen produced by splitting water molecules through electrolysis using renewable energy sources
Blue hydrogen: Hydrogen produced from a natural gas feedstock with capture of the by-product carbon dioxide.
Both green and blue hydrogen are getting attention today for their carbon reduction benefits, but these pathways are not created equal. Furthermore, a simple color coding is insufficient to clarify the emissions of each production path. Depending on differences in the supply chain and technology performance, two supplies of hydrogen with the same “color” can have widely different carbon footprints, as seen in Exhibit 1. Understanding these differences requires visibility into the carbon intensity of the supply chain.
https://rmi.org/all-clean-hydrogen-is-not-equally-clean/
Remember the Romanovs.