Thursday, October 1, 2026
Have you ever heard of the term “buyer’s remorse”? It’s been a while since I’ve heard those words, but lately I’ve been hearing them from some of my friends who are Republican members of Congress when they refer to President Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill. He wanted it passed by July Fourth, and he got his way. Now that it is law, some of the Republicans who voted for it are confessing to me that maybe it went a little too far in cutting agencies and programs.
Having served in the State Legislature, I can understand what happens when a member is confronted with having to support a bill that’s nearly a thousand pages long. You may know about some of the provisions, but it’s impossible to know every section when you only have a few hours before the final vote. One of the reasons why these bills are crafted to be so thick is because leadership knows that some parts of them couldn’t pass if they were presented as single bills.
My friends in Congress aren’t alone in their misgivings about the Big Beautiful Bill. Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley agonized for weeks over its deep Medicaid cuts, because hundreds of thousands of his state’s voters rely on Medicaid to survive. Hawley was agonizing on behalf of those hardworking citizens who don’t deserve to lose their benefits. Despite wringing his hands and suffering sleepless nights, he voted for the bill when it reached the Senate.
Two more cases in point are Maine Sen. Susan Collins and Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski. Both went public with their concerns about the cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, which provides food assistance to more than 40 million people nationally. For days on end, the two senators expressed their concerns about their constituents losing access to food stamps that are a life-or-death necessity. But when push came to shove, they both voted for the cuts.
Hawley must have had buyer’s remorse, because a few weeks after the bill became law, he introduced his own bill, which would restore many of the Medicaid cuts. Obviously Hawley’s upset was hypocritical, because you don’t vote for such far-reaching cuts and then introduce a bill restoring them. This was a good example of the lack of conscience surrounding the actions that were taken.
The SNAP program has for years been a target of conservatives who maintain that it and other safety-net programs like it are abused and unnecessary. And there is no doubt that some SNAP beneficiaries have used food stamps to buy beer instead of milk and bread. But the vast majority of people who get food stamps are the aged or have disabilities, and who meet the tests for approval. In the months and years ahead, it will be no consolation to those who lose their benefits that their representatives in Congress voted in favor of the Big Beautiful Bill and then had pangs of guilt about its impact.
There is also no doubt that there are some parts of the bill that are worthy of support, but mixing the good with the bad results in mostly bad for the needy and good for the people who won’t have any sleepless nights about the tragedies that will happen on the other end of the income spectrum. Few House members who voted for the bill will suffer at the ballot box. Many serve in districts that would elect Attila the Hun if he were nominated for the seat.
The problem for fair-minded House and Senate members is that the program cuts are not a secret, and will be publicized extensively next year at election time. The latest national polls show that the legislation has high negative numbers, which won’t fade from the minds of the people who are the victims of the cuts, or many other voters.
I was surprised that about a half-dozen members of Congress from New York and surrounding states expressed their unhappiness in the Big Beautiful Bill to me. Sadly, however, their buyer’s remorse may be too little, too late come November 2026.
