Measure would tighten eligibility for health and food programs for the poor and could add $3.8tn to US debt
BREAKING: The House passes Trump's domestic policy bill after GOP leaders win over holdouts. It next goes to the Senate.
-- CNN (@cnn.com) May 22, 2025 at 6:59 AM
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OpEd: Attack of the Sadistic Zombies
paulkrugman.substack.com
... Republicans in Congress, taking their marching orders from Donald Trump, are on track to enact a hugely regressive budget " big tax giveaways to the wealthy combined with cruel cuts in programs that serve lower-income Americans. True, the legislation suffered a setback last week, initially failing to make it out of committee. But that was largely because some right-wing Republicans didn't think the benefit cuts were vicious enough.
OK, news at 11.
Isn't this what Republicans always do? But this reconciliation bill -- that is, legislation structured in such a way that it can't be filibustered and may well pass with no Democratic votes -- is different in both degree and kind from what we've seen before: Its cruelty is exceptional even by recent right-wing standards.
Furthermore, the way that cruelty will be implemented is notable for its reliance on claims we know aren't true and policies we know won't work -- what some of us call zombie ideas.
And it's hard to avoid the sense that the counterproductive viciousness is actually the point.
Think of what we're seeing as the attack of the sadistic zombies. ...
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