The “One Big Beautiful Bill” has some real gems in it. You can find the list of 14 I took them from here, but here are 6 which caught my eye.
- Opens federal lands and waters to oil, gas, coal, and mineral leasing.
- Increases the endowment tax on large universities. The Senate version has a rate of 8%; we preferred the House’s 21%.
- Cancels Biden’s illegal, unfair student loan bailouts.
- Ends requirement that Venmo, PayPal, and others report transactions over $600 be reported to the IRS.
- Holds universities financially accountable to the government on defaulted federal student loans.
- Increases timber sales on federal lands. The Senate opens up 7 million acres v. the House’s 10 million.
Re: oil exploration on federal lands — Obama and Biden designated all kinds of previously explorable land as national monuments or parks with the specific, if not openly stated purpose, of keeping “big oil” off of them. It was deeply cynical and I’m glad Trump is reversing it. We have the most abundant energy resources of any country on earth, (yes, even more than the Saudis) and we should absolutely exploit them.
Re: the endowment tax — What a shame it didn’t stay at 21%…
Re: the student loan bailouts — I have no problem with the impulse to help kids manage their obscene student loans, but this was not the way. It was patently illegal, even extra-constitutional. There are ways to help them, and they should be helped, but this wasn’t it.
Re: the $600 reporting rule. Thank God that’s gone. How absolutely draconian.
Re: defaulted loans. Good! Maybe this will discourage these universities from offering stupid “gender studies” majors and every other stupid, useless major they offer to reel these kids in.
Re: timber sales. Just like with oil exploration, these lands were so designated to stop this kind of thing, so once again, good on the Republicans for opening them up. Side benefit? Good forestry management will tag along with it, and discourage the kinds of conflagrations we’ve seen.