PARKER: Urgently calling on the U.S. Senate to pass ‘One Big Beautiful Bill’

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The U.S. House of Representatives passed the One Big Beautiful Bill by a margin of one vote.

Well-deserved kudos have been conveyed to the masterful leadership of Speaker Mike Johnson, who navigated through a minefield to do what needed to be done.

Now it’s up to the Senate.

It’s impossible not to think now of the admonition to not let the “perfect be the enemy of the good.”

In this massive 1,000-plus-page piece of legislation, there is something to bother everybody.

This is a horrible way to do business. Stuffing complex tax considerations, complex spending considerations, and complex entitlement reforms together into one massive bill is just not what the American people deserve.

Congress is supposed to be a deliberative body, and legislation like this cannot in any way be viewed as deliberative. To me, the notion that the ways of Washington are being changed, that the swamp is being drained, is just not credible.

That said, I implore the U.S. Senate to step up and get this bill passed. The costs of not doing it far outweigh any benefit of derailing the effort because of opposition to one or two perceived problems.

As I have noted previously, if one needs to write a book to comment on a piece of legislation, we’re on the wrong track.

But this is what we have. There are things in this bill I like very much. There are things that I do not like. But for me, there are two pillars defining this initiative that are enough to say get it done.

One, preventing the expiration of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 and making those tax provisions permanent.

There are many different estimates, as is always the case, about what the implications will be on the economy going forward with passage of this legislation. But more pressing to me is what the implications are if it doesn’t pass.

Without renewal of these tax provisions, we will have an automatic massive tax increase. It is a nightmare to consider the implications of a massive tax increase, particularly at an economically fragile time such as we are now in.

Anyone who recalls consumer sentiment after the passage of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, until COVID upset everything in 2020, will recall it as a time of economic exuberance.

America’s unemployment rate in January 2020 was down to 3.6%. This was the lowest unemployment rate in more than half a century.

Consumer sentiment in February 2020, just before the COVID shock, was 101, per Statista.com. This compares to February 2025 where it stood at 64.7.

The 2017 Tax and Jobs Act defines our current reality and allowing this to expire would be a horrible mistake.

Second, this legislation does what we have been waiting for four years. It shuts down taxpayer funds going to abortion providers. Planned Parenthood, a $2-billion conglomerate that performed 400,000-plus abortions last year, is off the public dole.

To this I say, Hallelujah.

The extent to which abortion is accepted and legal in our nation is a blight on our national soul.

And there are practical implications. The culture of life defines our culture of family and children. The unravelling of our culture of family and children has profound economic implications for our economy.

Here’s what the Congressional Budget Office says: “The size and the age profile of the population affect the U.S. economy and the federal budget. For instance, the population’s size and age structure largely determine the number of people in the labour force and thus affect gross domestic product (GDP) and federal tax revenues. Those demographic factors also affect federal spending — for example, the size of the population age 65 or older influences the number of beneficiaries of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.”

Dear senators, please pass this bill.

Star Parker is founder of the Center for Urban Renewal and Education