It’s said that Republicans run for office for two reasons: to cut taxes and to increase military spending. The One Big (add your own adjective) Bill signed into law last week certainly does both of those, and a lot more. There are $4.5 trillion in tax cuts over the next ten years and $150 billion in new defense spending on top of the $852 billion for defense in the 2025 annual budget. This bill is what can happen when one party controls the House, the Senate, and the White House even by tiny margins.
The bill, officially known as a reconciliation bill, is limited to provisions that affect taxes and spending. Therefore, we here at SCA didn’t have to worry too much about policy provisions. There can’t be anything like “Every school will open the day with a prayer” in a reconciliation bill. However, people do try to sneak things into a 940 page bill. We did fight the one clear problem, the school voucher program known as ECCA, until the final vote. Thanks again to everyone who contacted their representatives or met with someone in their district office on this.
First ECCA was in the bill, then it was removed, and then it was reinserted a day later by Republicans but in a watered down version. It is no longer a blatant tax shelter and states will have some say about where it will be available as a voucher program. After a year we will have data on how ECCA is working out. And after the 2026 elections, hopefully one side of Congress or the other, or both, will be willing to reexamine the need for this harmful tax credit that helps fund private and religious schools.
Before the final vote in the House Hakeem Jeffries, the Minority Leader, gave an eight-hour-plus speech against the bill. I doubt it changed any votes but he gets unlimited time to do that, so he highlighted just about every reason he thought the reconciliation bill was bad policy. He even cited some Bible verses, like the ones where Jesus says we should help the poor, not screw them. (I’m paraphrasing there…the bill cuts an estimated $186 billion from food assistance programs over 10 years.)
Jeffries needed a lot of material to fill eight hours and it’s always good to zing Christian nationalist House Speaker Mike Johnson with some Bible verses. Johnson didn’t let them go unremarked on either. He said they were “taken out of context” in his We-passed-the-bill! speech right after the final vote.
Then Johnson quoted the Declaration of Independence. “We hold these truths to be self- evident, that all men are created equal. What is a self-evident truth? It is something that is obvious…It does not say born equal, it says created equal. It is our Creator, yes, that gives us our rights. See, the powerful thing about that is we are the first nation in the history of the world that acknowledged that our rights do not derive from government. They come from God Himself.”
He kept going in his victory speech: ”It says `In God We Trust’ right above the Speaker’s rostrum…(a previous) Congress voted to put that there as a rebuke to the Soviets’ worldview at the height of the Cold War. Why? It is because Communism, Socialism find their roots in Marxism, and Marxism begins with the belief that there is no God. Marxism is wrong.” So that’s what showed up in the comments section, otherwise known as the Congressional Record.
I just saw an analysis of political activity in the last two elections, broken down by religion. The big conclusion was that political activity such as attending a political meeting, working for a candidate, putting up a yard sign, or donating to a candidate was down across the board in 2024.
I’m always interested in the atheists and they were again at the top or second in all these kind of categories. If atheists aren’t at the top then it’s the Jews, in case you’re interested. The non-atheist Nones (“no religion in particular”) come in low on these ratings. The evangelicals, who get a lot of credit for electing Republicans, come in around the middle. My takeaway is that atheists continue to be very politically active and the candidates who hear that and reach out will have an advantage over those who don’t in 2024.
