Will the Big Ugly Bill Cost the GOP the Senate?The Republicans just passed one of the least popular, most odious pieces of legislation in history
This morning, the United States Senate passed one of the cruelest, most immoral, stupidest, and politically unpopular pieces of legislation in the country’s nearly 250-year history. Every Democrat voted against it, and all but 3 Republicans voted for it. Somehow, the supposedly less radical Senate Republicans took a terrible bill and made it even worse. The legislative process was an abomination. No one has read the bill text, and passage involved a series of legislative bribes to get people like the once-honorable Lisa Murkowski to sell out her values and her country The bill now heads to the House, where Republicans are under tremendous pressure to pass it before Donald Trump’s self-imposed—and completely arbitrary—July 4th deadline. Congress has done a lot of dumb shit over the years, but this bill—if and when it becomes law—might just be the dumbest. The whole process of passing it has been surreal and serves as a metaphor for the Trump-era Republican Party. No one is asking for it. Other than preventing a tax increase, it doesn’t achieve a single long-standing conservative policy goal. No one campaigned on these ideas, and the public is screaming that they hate the bill. It’s bad policy, worse politics—and yet Republicans march onward because Donald Trump wants a “win.” Not a substantive win. Not even a political win. Just a win for the sake of a win. That’s the only rationale. There’s no further consideration for why this bill should be passed or what happens when it does. They do it because Trump wants it—even though he has no idea why he wants it, or what’s in it. In the past, passage of bills this destructive and unpopular has triggered political earthquakes that reshaped the map. At this moment, Democrats are probably slight favorites to take the House, but the Senate has been considered just out of reach. Will the passage of this monstrosity put the Senate firmly in play? What’s in the Bill?Before we get to the political implications, it’s worth looking at what’s actually in this terrible bill—and what it does. This bill doesn’t solve a single pressing policy problem; in fact, it makes all of them worse. It’s the largest transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich in U.S. history. A recession becomes more likely, interest rates are less likely to fall, the debt skyrockets, and millions will lose health care and food assistance to fund tax cuts for billionaires... Continue reading this post for free in the Substack app
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Tuesday, July 1, 2025
Will the Big Ugly Bill Cost the GOP the Senate?
Our kids never stop learning life skills. Neither do we.
Our kids never stop learning life skills. Neither do we.For those of us who worry we didn’t teach enough while our kids were younger
From 2016-2021, Christine Koh and I co-hosted the Edit Your Life podcast so we could expand upon the ideas in our book, MINIMALIST PARENTING. The through line: small steps lead to big changes. One of our favorite topics was the importance of teaching kids life skills (or move-out skills, as I liked to call them). Our kids were pre-teens and teens at the time and we believed chores, allowance, and accountability would help them grow into functional, independent adults. (Or so we hoped. There are no absolutes in parenting. Kids aren’t machines, and input doesn’t guarantee output.) Spurred on by one of these conversations, we brainstormed a list of 100 life skills kids could learn in five minutes or less. Christine turned the list into a sharable graphic and it went viral, spawning conversations all over social media. I was reminded of this when Christine re-shared the now seven year-old list in her recent newsletter which I encourage you to read as it’s full of gems like this👇:
 Reading through the life skills list again rocketed me back to our conversations when my kids’ “functional adulthood” was theoretical. Now they’re actual adults. How did it all work out? I’m glad to report my kids are indeed functional adults, and like so much else, my parenting choices have only so much to do with it. Now that I’m further down the parenting road with a wider lens and a longer arc, I’m relieved to discover my active teaching of life skills wasn’t always necessary. Sometimes it even got in the way. When my kids were younger, chores were a struggle and their uptake of life skills was uneven. They picked up some practical tasks easily enough, but others took a frustratingly long time to learn. Several fell off the list altogether. With the benefit of hindsight, I see some life skills, like other childhood “learnings,” were on their own inscrutable timeline. This is obvious to me but only in retrospect, sort of like looking back on potty training and knowing now that when it happened mattered less than if it happened. Here’s how I put it on Notes:
I’m committed as ever to the importance of teaching young kids life skills and I’m proud Christine and I amplified that message and helped parents put it into practice. I’m also grateful to witness how life never stops handing us new tasks and we never stop learning how to handle them (or deftly palm them off on someone else). 😉 We’re all getting older and wiser. It’s an encouraging thought.
📝 NOTES OF NOTE
🗄️ IN THE ARCHIVES
…and more on parenting adult kids Thanks for reading Parent of Adults, my invitation to compare notes on life beyond the empty nest. I’m Asha Dornfest, a Portland, Oregon-based author & parent of two young adults. ➡️ Learn more about Parent of Adults or subscribe now for free.
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Will the Big Ugly Bill Cost the GOP the Senate?
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