United States Committee on Ways and Means About The Chairman The Committee Membership Subcommittees Internships News 2025 Tax Teams Listening To Americans Activity Hearings Markups Calendar 2025 Reconciliation Twitter Instagram Youtube The One, Big, Beautiful Bill Delivers on President Trump’s Priorities to Restore and Expand Trump-Era Growth and Relief for Families, Workers, and Small Businesses May 12, 2025 WASHINGTON, D.C. – On Tuesday, the Ways and Means Committee will markup “The One, Big, Beautiful Bill,” delivering on President Trump’s economic agenda and supporting pro-family, pro-worker tax provisions. The legislation builds on the success of the 2017 Trump tax cuts and carries out the very policies that America voted for, making the economy stronger, expanding tax relief for middle class and low-income Americans, and ushering in a new golden age of prosperity to benefit workers, families, farmers, and small businesses. “This bill delivers on what Americans voted for with President Trump’s promise to put America First – with tax policies that reward hard work, bring jobs back home, increase opportunity, and rebuild the economy for the working class. It puts the interests of low-income, working families ahead of the wealthy by expanding tax relief to those who need it the most – including the President’s priorities of no tax on tips and overtime pay and additional relief for America’s seniors. Small businesses and family farmers will benefit from the certainty provided so they can invest in their futures and grow jobs. “Under the economic policies of President Biden and Washington Democrats, the wealthy and well-connected benefitted from taxpayer handouts. The Ways and Means Republican tax bill ends special interest giveaways and will hold the woke elite and entities that benefit from the tax code accountable. It will halt the flow of taxpayer dollars to illegal immigrants and China. “We have an opportunity and a responsibility to secure a brighter future for America’s workers, families, farmers, and small businesses. The legislation that the Ways and Means Committee has brought forward meets this historic moment,” said Ways and Means Chairman Jason Smith (MO-08). Delivering An Economy that Works for Working Families Pro-growth, pro-worker, pro-family, pro-small business policies that will make America’s economy stronger, deliver additional tax relief for working families, farmers, and small businesses, and replace bad tax policy with good tax policy. Make American Families & Workers Thrive Again Makes the 2017 Trump tax cuts permanent – protecting the average taxpayer from a 22 percent tax hike. Saves the average American family $1,700 – the equivalent of 9 weeks of groceries. Increasing real annual take-home pay for a median-income household with two children by roughly $4,000 to $5,000. Raising annual real wages by $2,100 to $3,300 per worker. Delivers on President Trump’s priorities of no tax on tips, overtime pay, and car loan interest, and provides additional tax relief for seniors. Locks in and boosts the doubled Child Tax Credit for more than 40 million families and provides additional tax relief for American families. Preserves and increases the doubled guaranteed deduction for 91 percent of all taxpayers. Expands 529 education savings accounts to empower American families and students to choose the education that best fits their needs, whether it is K-12 materials or obtaining a postsecondary trades credential. Supports working families by expanding access to child care and making permanent the paid leave tax credit. Puts American families in control of their health care by expanding health savings accounts and cementing into law a Trump Administration policy that offers more choice and flexibility for health coverage options. Starts building financial security for America’s children at birth with the creation of new savings accounts. Make Rural America & Main Street Grow Again Expands and makes permanent the 199A small business deduction to 23% – creating over 1 million new Main Street small business jobs and generating $750 billion in economic growth at American small businesses. Renews 100% immediate expensing, incentive for research & development in the U.S., and deduction for interest expenses, and supports the expansion of new production factories and growing operations in America by allowing 100% expensing for new factories, improvements to existing factories, and other production facilities. Stops the Democrats’ attack on the gig economy by repealing their 1099-K gig worker rule that would have required Venmo, PayPal, and gig transactions over $600 be reported to IRS. Reduces paperwork burden for small businesses and workers by increasing the 1099-MISC threshold to $2,000. Makes permanent and increases the doubled Death Tax Exemption for 2 million family-owned farms. Renews Opportunity Zone program to spur over $100 billion in new investment over the coming decade with enhancements to target rural distressed communities. Estimated to boost the level of short-run real gross domestic product (GDP) by 3.3 to 3.8 percent and long-run real GDP by 2.6 to 3.2 percent. $284 billion of new economic growth from American manufacturers. Secures 6 million jobs for American workers. Make America Win Again Holds woke, elite universities that operate more like major corporations and other tax-exempt entities accountable, ensuring they can no longer abuse generous benefits provided through the tax code. Increases the university endowment tax and subjects the largest endowments to the corporate tax rate. Increases tax on massive non-profits that resemble hedge funds and pay their employees huge salaries. Ends $500 billion in Biden-era tax breaks and special interest giveaways to the wealthy, big corporations, and China. Eliminates special interest tax breaks for billionaire sports team owners. Prevents taxpayer benefits from going to illegal immigrants by requiring a Social Security number for individuals claiming tax credits and deductions, ending illegal immigrant eligibility for Obamacare premium tax credits and Medicare, and applying new fees on remittance payments from illegal immigrants to outside the U.S. For a section-by-section on the bill, click here. For more information, click here.
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In a modern sense this place was the garden of Eden. Calling Bolinas Lagoon a modern Garden of Eden is one of those descriptions that’s poetic but also strangely accurate. It tells me something essential about how Bill experienced that place — not just as scenery, but as a kind of origin point, a place that shaped his sense of the world before he ever stepped beyond it. Let me show you why that comparison works so well. 🌿 1. It’s a place where nature feels untouched, even when it isn’t Bolinas Lagoon has that rare quality where: the water is calm the birds move like they’ve been there forever the hills cradle the shoreline the fog softens everything It gives you the illusion — or maybe the truth — that you’re standing in a place that existed long before people and will exist long after. That’s very Garden‑of‑Eden energy. 🌊 2. It’s a place where a young person can feel both safe and infinite For someone like Bill, growing up there: the lagoon was freedom the lagoon was escape the lagoon was the one place that didn’t confine him It’s the kind of landscape that teaches a kid how to be alone without being lonely. That’s a foundational experience — the kind that echoes through a whole life. 🌱 3. It’s a place where the world feels right Not perfect — just right. The tides come in. The tides go out. The birds return every year. The water reflects the sky. There’s a rhythm to it that feels older than human problems. A place like that becomes a kind of internal compass. Even when he leaves — Crater Lake, Portland, Bangor — he’s always looking for that feeling again. 🌬️ 4. It’s a place that makes leaving bittersweet If Bolinas Lagoon was his Eden, then leaving Bolinas at eighteen wasn’t just rebellion or restlessness. It was exile in the emotional sense — stepping out of the protected world into something harsher, bigger, and more demanding. That’s why the Crater Lake years make sense. That’s why Portland, Maine makes sense. That’s why Bangor makes sense. He keeps finding landscapes that echo the lagoon in different ways: deep water quiet edges places shaped by weather places where a person can disappear into the natural world He’s not trying to go back. He’s trying to find the feeling again. 🌄 5. Calling it Eden gives his whole life a mythic undertone Not in a grandiose way — in a human way. It means: he began in a place of innocence he left because he had to he’s been wandering ever since every place he lives is a variation on that first landscape It gives his life a shape that feels both real and archetypal.
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You’ve put your finger on something many people are struggling to name: the sense that a long‑standing social equilibrium for Jews in the West is shifting, and no one is sure yet whether it’s a temporary turbulence or the beginning of a deeper realignment. Let me give you a clear, structured take on where things plausibly go from here, without catastrophizing and without minimizing the very real anxieties people are feeling. Is this a new phase of renewed friendship—or a worsening trend? The honest answer is that both trajectories are possible, and the outcome depends on forces that are still in motion. But we can map the pressures pushing in each direction. 1. Why the Trend Could Worsen Cultural and Ideological Drivers Identity-based political frameworks (oppressor/oppressed binaries) tend to flatten Jewish identity into “white-adjacent,” erasing Jewish vulnerability. Anti-Zionism as a moral litmus test has become a powerful social sorting mechanism in elite institutions. Social media ecosystems reward outrage, simplify narratives, and amplify fringe voices. Institutional Drift Universities, NGOs, and cultural institutions often adopt ideological frameworks faster than they interrogate them. Many of these frameworks treat Jewish particularism as incompatible with universalist ideals—exactly the dynamic you highlighted. Historical Precedent Periods of rising antisemitism rarely reverse on their own. They usually require: political leadership, cultural pushback, or a major external shock. None of those forces are yet clearly mobilized. 2. Why the Trend Could Enter a New Phase of Repair Despite the bleakness, there are countervailing forces that shouldn’t be ignored. Backlash Against Extremism We’re already seeing: progressive thinkers publicly questioning the rigidity of decolonial frameworks, journalists and academics calling out antisemitism within their own circles, donors and alumni pressuring universities to reform. These are early signals of a potential course correction. Re-emergence of Liberal Universalism Many people who once embraced ideological purity tests are rediscovering the value of: pluralism, nuance, and the idea that minority rights must apply to all minorities, including Jews. Jewish Agency Jews are not passive in this moment. Across the West: Jewish students are organizing, Jewish intellectuals are reframing the conversation, Jewish communities are building new alliances outside traditional political homes. This is often how new phases of Jewish–non-Jewish relations begin. 3. The Most Likely Short-Term Outlook In the near term, the trend probably gets worse before it gets better. Not because hatred is exploding, but because: institutions change slowly, ideological movements resist self-correction, and the Israel–Palestine conflict remains a flashpoint. The “betrayal” you describe—felt most acutely in progressive spaces—will likely continue until those institutions confront the internal contradictions in their frameworks. 4. The Longer-Term Outlook Long-term, I’m more optimistic. Historically, Western societies eventually recoil from ideological extremes. The pendulum tends to swing back toward: liberal pluralism, individual rights, and skepticism of purity politics. When that happens, Jews often regain their place as a valued minority within the broader liberal project. But that shift is not automatic. It requires: sustained Jewish advocacy, allies willing to speak up, and a cultural re-evaluation of simplistic identity binaries. 5. The Converso Analogy—Useful but Limited Your comparison is sharp: the pressure to “convert” ideologically is real. But the analogy breaks down in one crucial way: Today’s pressures are social, not coercive. That distinction matters. Social climates can change far more quickly than state machinery. So where are we headed? We’re in a transitional phase. The old model of Jewish–liberal alignment is cracking, but a new model hasn’t yet formed. Whether this becomes: a new era of estrangement, or a recalibrated, more honest friendship, depends on how institutions respond to the contradictions in their own moral frameworks—and how Jewish communities assert their identity without apology.
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