Run for the Vomit Bag: Congress’ Tax Chiefs are Singing the Praises of their Big Beautiful Dumpster Fire
The heads of the Senate Finance Committee and the House Ways and Means Committee—Sen. Mike Crapo and Rep. Jason Smith—have the audacity to call the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” (OBBBA) of July 4, 2025, a triumph for working families. And they’re not alone. I’ve received an inbox full of self-congratulatory emails from members of Congress—stretching from Pennsylvania to South Dakota—parroting the same hollow message. They’re patting themselves on the back for, among other things, shielding tips and overtime from taxes, but let’s not kid ourselves. This 887-page monstrosity is a masterclass in legislative overreach and political pandering. It’s not reform; it’s chaos masquerading as relief, laced with special-interest giveaways, lip service to campaign promises, and zero regard for fiscal reality.
Much of the bill's headline-grabbing measures—targeting Social Security, overtime, increase in the childcare credit, and tips—had no place in a serious piece of tax legislation. These provisions weren’t pro-growth, didn’t simplify anything, picked winners and losers in a pandering way, and served only to bloat the deficit and further distort an already complex Internal Revenue Code. Take Social Security: instead of addressing long-term solvency or even the basic issue of taxability, lawmakers tinkered by adding an extra standard deduction. They offered a limited $6,000 deduction from 2025 to 2028—phased out for retirees earning over $75,000—while leaving the program’s structural challenges untouched. The move did nothing except blow another hole in the federal budget. Overtime relief? Crafted so narrowly it resembled a carve-out rather than meaningful policy. And the tip income deduction—touted as a win—expires after 2028, benefits a thin slice of the workforce, and adds a layer of recordkeeping complexity that no tipped worker asked for.
And let’s be clear: the core of this bill—the permanent extension of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act—was the only component worth doing. Yes, it carries a $3.6 trillion price tag, but extending pro-growth tax policy shouldn’t be controversial. What should be controversial is the thoughtless decision to pile on additional tax cuts like those for Social Security, overtime, and tips—none of which promote investment, work, or savings—along with a smorgasbord of newly expanded energy credits and other legislative clutter.
A series of new incompetent, mean-spirited and unnecessarily-complex tax increases buried into small provisions were added. Among them:
1. Gambling Losses- In a ridiculously complex way, losses on gambling, which always have been and should be deductible to the extent of winnings, now are limited so that taxes can be owed even if a person, on net, loses money.
2. Reduced Charitable Donation- The new law reduces charitable deductions by limiting these deductions to the amount donated in excess of one half of one percent of the taxpayer’s income.
3. Limiting Itemized Deductions- While eliminating the ludicrous Pease deduction which artificially took a chunk of our taxpayer’s itemized deduction, that was substituted by an equally misguided provision that in an equally complex way, limits the tax benefit to deductions of people in high tax brackets.
4. Excise Tax on Remittances- The new law creates for the first time a new excise tax on remittances that people give to their overseas friends and family members.
Legitimate, reasonable, and important deductions—like those for expenses incurred to earn income, alimony, and moving costs—were eliminated. This wasn’t a cleanup of the tax code. It was a scattershot attempt to please every special interest group imaginable, and the end result is a bloated, less coherent tax system.
Far from “nailing it” as congressional cheerleaders have boasted—it bent over backwards for the president’s campaign talking points, sacrificing growth, fiscal responsibility, and tax code simplicity to pander to select voter blocs. It’s a mess written for political optics, not policy results. Crapo and Smith didn’t just drop the ball—they lit it on fire and kicked it into the deficit.
They had a chance to deliver something meaningful—such as extending the 2017 law with the most aggressive, responsible cuts to federal spending possible to limit damage to the national balance sheet. Instead, they gave us more paperwork, more loopholes, and more headaches—topping it all off with a giant insult to every American who expects competence from Congress.