This commentary is by Peter Macia of Charlotte.
If you spent the week of July 4 wondering why the sunsets were orange and the smell of cow manure seemed particularly strong, don’t blame our local hard-working farmers or the Canadian forests. The soon-to-be decimated National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration had observed a powerful jet stream flowing north up the eastern seaboard, carrying with it a thick, toxic cloud of BS particulate from Washington, D.C., all the way up to Vermont.
The passing wind of the “One Big, Beautiful Bill” act stunk so heavily of this BS that it still feels like it may never go away, but as many Vermonters know, the stench is actually a reminder that we must again plant our seeds and tend to our fields.
With this bill and various actions since Jan. 20, Donald Trump, the Republican-controlled Congress, and the deeply conservative Supreme Court have exposed the lies they told to gain power and left Vermont (and most other states) alone to fend for itself. The federal government has abdicated its role as our state’s partner.
It is estimated that 45,000 of us will lose health care due to cuts in Medicaid. A full quarter of Vermonters rely on Medicaid. Of those, three-in-10 are children, three-in-five live in rural areas. How many thousands more will be impacted by the $1 trillion in cuts to Medicaid, in addition to restrictions on Medicare and Obamacare, that are in this bill? Trump and the GOP promised not to touch these programs, and now they have gutted them because they do not care about us. We are now left alone to care for ourselves.
More than 65,000 Vermonters, most whom are children or people with disabilities, receive SNAP food assistance. 13,000 could lose those benefits from this bill. Their parents and caretakers will have to stretch every penny just to put food on the table and in lunch boxes. We have been left alone to feed our most needy.
Vermonters have enthusiastically embraced solar power and electric vehicles. It has made our state more energy independent, our air cleaner, and allowed us to spend less of our paychecks to keep our lights on and our vehicles running. It has provided jobs to hundreds of Vermonters as they build, install and support this move toward more sustainable and cleaner energy. Trump and the GOP have eliminated all meaningful incentives and tax credits that made solar and EVs affordable for most Vermonters. We are alone to figure out how to keep going.
Vermont’s schools have long been the envy of the rest of the country. Trump and the GOP have taken back $26 million in appropriated funds for Vermont’s schools, eliminated food assistance for Vermont’s children, and made it harder for Vermont’s trans kids to be free. All this while attempting to silence our teachers when they talk about civil rights and factual American history. We are alone to protect our children’s future.
Vermont has welcomed thousands of recent immigrants, both as refugees and agricultural workers. They have kept Vermont working and vibrant. Trump and the GOP promised they would only deport criminals, but only a rare few of these targeted Vermonters have committed any crime at all (being undocumented is a civil not criminal offense).
Trump and the GOP have also stripped the protective status of many Vermonters who came here seeking asylum. They have prosecuted immigrants from other states in Vermont’s courts and detained them in our state.
This bill will divert hundreds of billions of dollars from programs that help people to fund ICE and Homeland Security. They are leaving Vermont alone to support our immigrant neighbors, but they are also leaving American-born Vermonters alone by stripping critical federal funds from programs and organizations that make our state stronger, safer, and more solvent, all to pay for aggression and militarization, both here and abroad.
Trump and the GOP claimed that making the 2017 tax cuts permanent would magically make everyone wealthier, in the same breath saying that everyone has felt poorer since 2020. By changing nothing they claim something will change. Vermont will be left alone to shoulder its share of the $5 trillion that this bill will add to the deficit.
Meanwhile, Trump and the GOP have set a ticking time bomb with blanket, economically onerous tariffs that will be passed on to us, the consumers. Building supplies, food, solar panels, toys for children and adults, skis and snowboards, our beloved Volvos and Toyotas and Subarus, all of it will become more expensive. Not if, but when. We are left alone to watch the clock as pre-tariff inventories run low.
So, we Vermonters are alone because Trump and the GOP chose to lie to gain power and use that power to try and take everything we care about away from us. But the good news is that finally it should be clear that all of us — Democrats, Republicans, independents, socialists, capitalists, progressives and conservatives — are in this mess together and only together will we get out.
If you voted for them, please see the truth now. If you did not vote for them, please keep faith in the truth. It, and each other, are all we’ve got.
