Notes

Governing on the edge. U.S. President Donald Trump’s massive tax-cut and spending legislation cleared its final hurdle in Congress on Thursday, as the Republican-controlled House of Representatives narrowly approved the package in a 218-214 vote. The legislation— dubbed oddly, if in a distinctively Trumpian idiom, the “One Big Beautiful Bill”—contains trillions of dollars in tax cuts and enhanced immigration-enforcement spending, offset by significant reductions in spending on Medicaid—the U.S. government’s health-insurance program for low-income Americans—and other programs. The bill would add US$3.4 trillion to America’s $36.2 trillion debt over the next decade, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

The final push was dramatic. The Democratic House minority leader, Hakeem Jeffries, broke records with a nearly nine-hour filibuster speech—the longest in the chamber’s history—decrying the bill before the final vote. Despite concerns within Trump’s own party over the bill’s price tag and health-care cuts, only two of the House’s 220 Republicans voted against it, following an overnight standoff. Trump signed it into law at 5 p.m. ET on Friday, the United States’ Independence Day.

The scope of the new law is staggering. It represents the most significant U.S. domestic-policy overhaul in decades. But as such, it also raises the question of what it means to American democracy for such massive changes to pass by a handful of votes in what’s at the moment—and foreseeably—a deeply divided country.

Well?