ArcaMax

There are so many losers and so few winners in Donald Trump's "Big, Beautiful Bill" that it's a minor miracle that, as of this writing, Republicans appear poised to pass it. I'm old enough to remember when Republicans were deficit hawks who would chafe at adding trillions of dollars to what future generations will have to spend just paying off our debts. Remember when they wanted a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution? Not this Republican Party.

We used to pride ourselves on having a progressive tax system that took from the rich and helped the poor. You might even think that the Republicans -- who successfully ran as the party of the working class -- would sign on to that, this time around. Not so. Every news account -- I'm not talking about opinion pieces, but straight news -- points out the winners and the losers on this bill, and the picture couldn't be clearer. Rich people will pay less in estate taxes. High earners in high-tax states will enjoy bigger deductions for state and local taxes. Poor people will lose their health insurance.

According to the Congressional Budget Office, almost 12 million poor Americans stand to lose their health care over the next decade because of $1 trillion (or more in the Senate bill) in cuts to the Medicaid program, which provides health insurance to the poor and the disabled in this country. What is beautiful about that? What is beautiful about cutting food stamps and bringing back hunger, so that rich people can get a tax cut?

But what may be even uglier is what this bill will do to our kids. We owe them better.

We owe them a new generation of leaders. It's time. The New York mayoral race proved that. The 33-year-old won, despite the many problems with his candidacy. Do you hear that, Chuck Schumer? Do you hear that, Andrew Cuomo? Young people need to take over the Democratic Party. We have, across the country, new leaders ready to step up. Meanwhile, the Democratic National Committee is mired in internal politics that aren't going to win us a single election, and the Congress is about to pass the most regressive tax bill in recent history.

And we owe them a cleaner slate, not a mortgaged future. Again, according to the Congressional Budget Office, over the next 30 years, Americans will have to pay a total of $78 trillion in interest alone on the nation's debt. That amounts to 34% of all federal revenues going to pay our debts. How is that fair? The ratio of debt to gross domestic product is reaching the same level as it was in World War II -- but this time, the source of the debt is not our obligation to save democracy, but Trump's promises to cut taxes for the billionaires' boys club.

What kind of future is that? How will the next generation of leaders deal with the issues that will confront them: affordable housing, crumbling infrastructure, hastening climate change, educational challenges, not to mention the crises we can't even imagine, when they're paying our debts of $78 trillion?

Why are Republicans voting for this monstrosity? Because they are more afraid of Trump than they are worried about our children's future. The kids are right to feel betrayed. They deserve better.

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To find out more about Susan Estrich and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

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