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Sometime later today — or tonight — the Republican-controlled House will pass the One Big Beautiful Bill, which funds most of President Donald Trump’s second-term agenda and extends the tax cuts he put in place in 2017.
They will do this despite a majority of the country disliking the OBBB.
(In the Post and Pew polls just over 20% say they support the OBBB.)
Which seems, well, weird. Because Congress is usually in the business of doing things that are popular and, um, not doing unpopular things.
So what gives?
This: Republicans are making a MASSIVE gamble in passing an unpopular bill under the theory that not passing it would be worse for them politically.
The thinking goes like this: The public knows that Republicans control the White House, the Senate and the House. Given that, they expect Republicans to do something. Like, they’ve been given the keys. Now they need to drive somewhere. Not doing so would be a political death sentence in the 2026 midterms.
And so, in Republicans’ mind, passing an unpopular bill is better than passing nothing at all. Because, again in theory, they think that once the legislation becomes law, the public is going to realize they like it a whole lot more than they thought they did.
To hear Republicans tell it, Democrats have engaged in a (successful) campaign of fear-mongering about the impacts of Medicaid cuts and tax breaks for the wealthy that are in the bill.
Once those worst-case scenarios don’t come to pass, people will be thrilled about getting a tax cut (or keeping their previous tax cut). And Republicans note that some of the individual policies in the OBBB — up to and including the work requirements for Medicaid — are actually popular when polled individually.
To which I say: Maaaaaybe.
I’ve heard this argument before. Democrats made it in 2010 while they were voting for the Affordable Care Act , which was not popular at the time. We just need to go out and sell it to people! They don’t know how good it’s going to be for them!
Didn’t work. Democrats suffered massive House and Senate losses in the 2010 midterms — due largely to the unpopularity of the ACA.
Now, it’s worth noting that the ACA is now actually very popular! But it took years!
House and Senate Republicans don’t have that sort of time. They have less than 18 months before the midterms.
Which is why passing the OBBB is such a massive political risk. Even if it winds up being a very good thing for Trump’s legacy — as the ACA did for Barack Obama’s — it could well crush Republican majorities in the House (and maybe even the Senate) in 2026.
