Donald Trump‘s “One Big Beautiful Bill” doesn’t look so beautiful to American voters. According to a new Wall Street Journal poll, more than half of respondents oppose the president’s landmark legislation.
Considering the bill gives huge tax breaks to the rich, kicks up to 15 million people off Medicaid and cuts its funding by $1 trillion, sends tons of money to immigration enforcement, and gives away billions to the fossil fuel industry and its wealthy executives, it’s no wonder it is unpopular. And those aspects of the law haven’t even taken effect yet.
Overall, 52 percent of poll respondents — 1500 registered voters — opposed the bill, while only 42 percent supported it. Almost all Democrats (94 percent) and the majority of independents (54 percent) were against it, compared to only 12 percent of Republicans who were opposed. Most respondents — 70 percent — agreed the legislation will help the wealthy, and more than half said it would hurt poor people and the working class, people collecting Social Security, the U.S. economy, the federal deficit, and recipients of Medicaid and nutrition assistance.
“Cutting Medicaid is unpopular. Cutting food assistance is unpopular,” Sen. Brian Schatz told the Journal. “Cutting those things in order to fund tax cuts for the very wealthy is unpopular, so it’s like it was designed in a lab to be unpopular.”
While respondents supported work requirements for able-bodied Medicaid recipients, the majority did not approve of taking away benefits from those who don’t comply.
In crafting the bill, Republicans designed it so the hardest hits will come after the midterm elections, an attempt to stave off a blue wave in 2026 that could put Democrats in power in one or more houses of Congress.
Some aspects of the bill polled positively, such as no taxes on tips or overtime pay, with majorities of respondents saying they were in favor.
Republicans, who literally wrote the legislation, meanwhile, are blaming the bill’s overall unpopularity on — you guessed it — the Democrats.
“Any of the negative polling is because of Democrats’ lies,” GOP Rep. Jason Smith, who leads the House Ways and Means Committee, told the paper.
