Not Perfect, But Better: Freedom Caucus Pares Down the Green New Scam in Big Beautiful Bill
By Steve Milloy
Excerpt:
Germany’s first chancellor Otto von Bismarck once said: “Laws are like sausages. It is best not to see them being made.” That certainly applies to President Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill (BBB) — with one key distinction.
Media coverage of the BBB debate has mostly centered around hot button controversies over the state and local tax (SALT) deduction, and work requirements and anti-fraud measures for Medicaid. Ignored by the media, but of major consequence, is the fate of the Inflation Reduction Act climate spending, which President Trump calls the Green New Scam.
Rep. Brett Guthrie touted in a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed that Green New Scam spending was being slashed: “The legislation would reverse the most reckless parts of the engorged climate spending in the misnamed Inflation Reduction Act, returning $6.5 billion in unspent funds.” The problem with Rep. Guthrie’s claim, however, is that the Inflation Reduction Act was estimated by Goldman Sachs to be worth $1.2 trillion in spending.
I had X’s artificial intelligence feature (Grok) analyze the initial version of the BBB for how much of that $1.2 trillion spending would have been left untouched. About $140 billion of the $1.2 trillion was spent by the Biden administration in 2024. Much of that money went to purchase red state politicians as discussed previously. Another $140 billion has been committed but has not yet been disbursed. The Trump administration is trying to stop that money from being spent and is involved in litigation over it.
Grok’s analysis indicated that $700 billion to $900 billion of the Green New Scam spending would have been left in place by the original BBB. That estimate was more than two orders of magnitude in the opposite direction from what Rep. Guthrie stated in his op-ed.
But the House Freedom Caucus fought as hard as practicably possible to stay true to President Trump’s campaign promise of terminating the Green New Scam. Caucus policy chairman Rep. Chip Roy (R-Tex.) posted on X: “Rather than just subsidizing $350B for states with high taxes – we should pass a BBB that FULLY terminates the Green New Scam and FULLY ends the Medicaid money laundering scam abused to hurt the vulnerable.” Roy followed that post up with: “Writing a deficit-backed blank check (SALT) is easier than cutting spending (DOGE, Green New Scam, Post-COVID spending). Congress/swamp will always choose the easy route but we can’t afford it.” And he is right but, unfortunately, only partly successful.
The BBB narrowly passed the House on May 22 by a vote of 215-214. The good news is that the House Freedom Caucus was able to knock down Green New Scam waste, fraud and abuse spending by about $500 billion. Only about one-half of the unspent Green New Scam funding remains. The bill now goes to the Senate where its fate is uncertain.
The beauty of the BBB is that it is being legislated through reconciliation, a special process that allows certain budget bills to be passed by simple majorities without the possibility of being filibustered. The IRA was enacted with only Democrat votes through the same reconciliation process. So the BBB is more than poetic justice, it is really the only way to get rid of the Green New Scam subsidies given how popular they seem to be with some subsidy-loving Republicans in Congress.
