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One Big Beautiful Bill Act (PASSED)
HR 1
Dusty Wilson
May 21, 2025
What is this bill?
HR 1, sponsored by Jodey Arrington (R-TX-19)
This bill is 1,116 pages long. Some bits are very anodyne and boring. Others are about as fashy as you can get. It is so much information to dive into, so in the parts where I am out of my depth I’ll link to articles by smarter people than I to discuss the section. But Everything help me, I’m going to read the whole thing (and understand about 75%, if I’m lucky).
To make things easier I’m breaking up the bill into its particular chapters and sub-sections.
And finally, I want to stress I am not an attorney. I don’t have an expertise in law. So please, diversify your info via journalists who make each topic in this bill their specialty. There is already a swath of misinformation coming out about this bill, so please do your best to confirm anything that sounds particularly doom and gloom. And ignore any accounts on Bluesky or Twitter that have a habit of not citing the sources of their claims.
So, let’s dive in!
Title I - Committee on Agriculture
Sec 10001-10012: Thrifty Food Plan
The bulk of this section is devoted to redefining the math that decides how much SNAP benefits are worth per person. It also includes eligibility rules and who can receive SNAP without also meeting work requirements. In the latter, one change is that the moment someone ages out of work requirements would rise from 55 (if you have dependents) or 60 (if you don’t) to 65 (Sec 10008). Exemptions for parents would also lessen. The old rule included parents of children under 18. In this law all your children would have to be under 7 years old.
States would also see an increase in how much they pay into SNAP. Their share of benefit costs would go up from nothing to 5% and their share of admin costs go from 50% to 75%.
Sec 10012 revises a portion of the Food and Nutrition Act and revokes SNAP eligibility for immigrants:
who entered the country prior to June 30th, 1948, are not eligible for citizenship, but have lawfully been awarded permanent residence.
This would kick off seniors who previously qualified that are, at least, 76 years old.
who qualified for conditional entry as a refugee or asylee
who are lawfully present via the discretion of the US Attorney General
Sec 10101-10108: Investment in Rural America
This is a lot of pages, but doesn’t seem to include anything bad. Lots of regulation and updates to help farmers in particular. Money being put towards research, grants, crop losses, and one section for financial aid toward honeybee colony collapse
Definitely not my forte, but no obvious red flags. That said, these new initiatives do come at the cost of $300m in cuts to SNAP.
Title II - Committee on Armed Services
Sec 20001-20016
Nothing out of the ordinary here. Just your typical spending bonanza for the military. That is until-
Sec 20011: This part would send $5b to the military specifically for border defense. This section is fairly vague, but states that the funds would be allocated for “border operations, including deployment of military personnel, operations and maintenance, counter-narcotics and counter transnational criminal organization mission support, the operation of and construction in national defense areas, the temporary detention of migrants on Department of Defense installations, and the repatriation of persons in support of law enforcement activities…” This section seems to confirm the Trump administration’s plan to fully militarize the southern border.
Title III - Committee on Education and Workforce
Sec 30001-30061: Student loans and eligibility
This particular chapter kicks off with a dose of fash. Sec 30001 edits the Higher Education Act of 1965 to redefine what college students are eligible for federal loans and grants. The troubling change comes at (a)(5)(C)(iv) which states that international students that would not be allowed to immigrate here would be disqualified from student grants and loans.
The most likely reason to revoke or deny student grants and loans within 8 U.S. Code § 1182 is subsection (a)(3)(B)(ii). This states that the US Attorney General, US Secretary of Homeland Security, or a consular officer can deny immigration if they believe the person is likely to engage in terrorist activity. This can mean the person engaging in direct terrorism, but also counts if the person belongs to a group that “endorses or espouses terrorist activity.” In the case of Mahmood Khalil, his student visa was revoked due to his anti-genocide protest leadership. Or as Marco Rubio framed it, he hurt US foreign policy and was aligned with Hamas. Using this as precedent, any international student against the genocide in Palestine (or any US foreign policy for that matter) will be found ineligible for student grants or loans.
Other non-fascist & not great parts of this chapter include terminating Stafford Loans for undergrads & ending federal direct plus loans given directly to all students (Sec 30011). It also seems to reduce loan forbearance for loans made after July 1st, 2025 from three years to nine months every two years (Sec 30022).
NOTE: There are some accounts on Bluesky and Twitter claiming that this bill will abolish the Department of Education. This is patently false. The Department is mentioned repeatedly in this section as the sole enforcer of the revised legislation.
Title IV - Energy and Commerce
Sec 41001-41009: Energy
Sec 41001: Rescind funds from nine programs created by the Inflation Reduction Act
Sec 41008: Spend $1.3b on petroleum products for the Strategic Petroleum Reserve
Sec 41009: Rescind funds from the following offices in the Department of Energy
Office of the Inspector General: $8.1m
Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations: $60.1m
Office for Human Capital: $77k
Federal Energy Management Programs: $53.4m
State and Community Energy Programs: $262.5m
Office of Minority Economic Impact: $2.7m
Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy: $401.8m
Office of General Counsel: $239k
Office of Indian Energy Policy and Programs: $44.7m
Office of Management: $5m
Office of the Secretary: $1m
Office of Public Affairs: $2.6m
Office of Policy: $692k
Sec 42101-42301: Environment
Repeals about a dozen programs that target air pollution
Repeals Environmental and Climate Justice Block Grants
Repeals rule that sets standards for car/truck fuel efficiency
Sec 43201: AI
Gives the Department of Commerce $500m to invest into AI
Sec 44101-44305: Health, Medicaid
This is one of the most contentious parts of the bill and for very good reason. It is a perfect encapsulation of the eugenics that guide the MAHA movement and the Department of Health and Human Services.
Reported changes include
Requiring able-bodied people to total 80 hours month (20 hours a week) of work, education, or public service. This of course is an issue for people in rural communities short on work or volunteer opportunities & people in the midst of applying for disability. The latter is especially sinister because, as the program/courts see it, if you can work or volunteer for 20 hours a week, then you don’t qualify. It can take between 1-3 years to get SSI/SSDI, which can be a life and death amount of time for a chronically ill person to wait for affordable care.
The American Prospect notes that when Arkansas implemented these same changes it only took seven months for 18k people to lose their insurance. The New England Journal of Medicine published a piece stating nearly all of these people were qualified, but were kicked out anyway.
Banning federal funding to states that offer Medicaid to undocumented immigrants
Exempting cost-sharing with states for primary care, mental health, and substance use services.
Requiring anyone whose income is above the poverty line ($15,650 for individuals, $21,150 for a two-person home) to pay higher premiums and co-pays. This is a reduction from $23,475 for individuals & $31,725 per household.
The Economic Policy Institute predicted that this bill “…will not just cause harm to individual families, they will cascade, leading to hospital closures in rural counties, higher medical debt, lower earnings from future workers who will suffer from poorer health decades from now, and could even put upward pressure on federal budget deficits in the long run. In the very near term, these cuts will make the [U.S.] economy far more vulnerable to any recessionary shock.”
UPDATE: An amendment to Sec 44125 would ban Medicaid & CHIP from covering gender affirming care for all ages. This would effect 152k people. As Matthew Cortland says “it’s eugenics and murder policy, all the way down.”
UPDATE 2: Sec 44201 bans insurance bought via the ACA exchange from covering transition care.
UPDATE 3: ACA exchange plans will not get federal funding if they offer insurance for abortion services
Very, very basically, this portion of the bill is designed to hurt the poor and especially the disabled. Or as they were called in 1930-40s Germany, the useless eaters.
Title V - Committee on Financial Services
Sec 50001-50005
Mostly a hodge podge of revisions to financial programs. It also rescinds funds to the Green and Resilient Retrofit Program for Multifamily Housing.
Title VI - Committee on Homeland Security
Sec 60001-60005
This is a huge financial windfall for DHS. With how ICE & CBP have been acting, this whole section is just a fascism sweepstakes. This is very much a Spark Notes summary of spending, but the money goes as follows:
$46.5b to build finish the border wall and build infrastructure to maintain it
$5b to expand and improve CBP facilities and entry points
$8.2b for hiring and training agents/personnel
$6.2b for new tech and equipment
$300m for the Secret Service
$500m of grants for local/state officers to buy drones
$625m of grants for FIFA World Cup security
$1b of grants for Olympics security
$450m of grants for anything related to Operation Stonegarden
Title VII - Committee on the Judiciary
Sec 70001-70124: Immigration
This portion stands out to me as one of most ignored horrible parts of the bill. With Medicaid and tax issues getting the most attention I get how it’s easy to miss the introduction of expensive application fees for all immigrants.
The amount changes depending on whether someone is an asylee, refugee, unaccompanied minor, or someone seeking temporary protected status. But what is the same is that the bill only recommends a minimum cost to the fees (meaning they will be higher) and that the fees can’t be lowered or exempted for any reason.
The new fees are:
Asylum: Minimum of $1000
Juvenile seeking reunification: $500
Temporary protected status: $500
But those aren’t the only fees. Immigrants will also have to pay:
Work permit: $550
Permit is good for up to six months and must be renewed until naturalized. Each renewal costs at least $550
If you are an asylee who has their work permit revoked you have to pay $550
Parole: $1000
Granted to immigrants who need swift entry as a means to ensure they keep in contact with immigration and the courts. This is granted to people with an immediate medical emergency, a parent of an accompanying minor, or if they have a family member in America on the verge of death.
Parole is also granted to Cuban immigrants, anyone who qualifies for an immigrant visa, or anyone that the Secretary of State says is cool.
You have to get parole first to apply for a work permit.
Yearly asylum fee: $100
And then there’s Sec 70007. This section places a minimum $3,500 fee when a sponsor claims an unaccompanied minor. The fee is to pay the government back for taking care of said minor. It’s also, for a lot of people, a life changing amount of money. 28% of Americans don’t even have $1000 in savings, let alone more than three times that. Frankly, it seems to be a purposely large amount to discourage people from stepping forward and to give DHS an excuse to deport children.
Finally, we have Sec 70016, which adds a score of application fees for the Executive Office for Immigration Review. They are:
$1500 to apply for permanent residency
$1050 to file a waiver of inadmissibility
$500 to apply for temporary protected status
$900 to appeal a judge’s decision in immigration court
$900 to appeal a decision made by a DHS officer
$1325 to appeal a decision made by an adjudicating official
$900 to file a motion to reopen or reconsider
$600 to file for suspension of deportation
$600 to file for cancellation of removal
$1500 to file for a cancellation of removal of non-permanent residents
That said, we couldn’t get out of this section without also giving a dump-truck load of money to ICE, Border Patrol, & DHS. For the sake of space I can’t cover it all, so check out Sec 70101 for the full details. Some of the spending includes:
$45b to build and expand detention centers
$8.6b to hire 10k more ICE officers
$14.4b for deportations
$650m for the 287(g) program
$1.3b to the Office of the Principal Legal Advisor to represent DHS in removal proceedings
$3b to increase capacity to hold unaccompanied children
$40m to DHS and HHS to check to see if said children are members of any gangs
$100m to deport unaccompanied children
Another $1.2b to the Secret Service
Sec 70200-70201: Regulatory matters
Rules and reporting stuff. I’m truly too exhausted from the previous section to understand or care.
Sec 70300-70302: Other matters
Sec 70302 caught my eye, but I didn’t fully get it. Thankfully, Walter Olson recently wrote about this section and how it would strip federal judges from enforcing contempt of court.
I just realized I’m only half way through this thing. Enjoy a musical interlude from Chicago’s most kickass band.
Welcome back! Let’s keep getting sad.
Title VIII - Committee on Natural Resources
Sec 80101-80317: Drilling, mining, cutting trees, and selling land
There’s a ton here, so I’m going to link out to articles with solid summaries of this section.
This article from UPI notes this section would expand oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico & Cook Inlet in Alaska, reinstate leases to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, lower fees to mine or drill by 4.1-5.5%, and increase the cutting of timber on federal land.
KAXE in Grand Rapids, MN points out that this section ends a mining ban on the Superior National Forest, which is a watershed for over 1m acres in northeast Minnesota. Also they found that the bill would exempt mining and oil companies from parts of judicial review and introduce a fee to expedite leases.
AP reported that a last minute addition to the bill authorized the sale of “…hundreds of thousands of acres of public lands in Nevada and Utah…”
UPDATE: The sale of these lands has been removed
Outdoor Life got into more specific detail, noting the bill approves of an all-season road in Alaska that would ruin migration routes & increase the odds of mining in the Gates of the Arctic National Park, allows mineral companies to pay 125% of the cost on an environmental review to just skip it, charges a fee to file an official protest to mining/drilling projects, rescinds funds to the Bureau of Land Management, the National Park Service, the Forest Service, & NOAA, and increases timber harvest on federal lands by 25%. Oh, and it also would allot $40m to create a statuary park in Washington, DC and $150m to celebrate America’s 250th anniversary.
Title IX - Committee on Oversight and Government Reform
Sec 90001-90006
This section is a huge push to give federal employees at-will status and makes changes to federal pensions. For better details I’d recommend checking out this article from FedSmith.
Title X - Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure
Sec 100001-100009
DHS, ICE, and the rest of the military got their funding already, so now it’s time for the Coast Guard to rake it in. The USCG gets $21.2b to upgrade their fleet and tech.
Air Traffic Control gets $12.5b for upgrading tech and hiring
Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts gets $242m for repairs
Title XI - Committee on Ways and Means (aka The One, Big, Beautiful Bill)
Sec 110000-110116: Taxes
Sec 110201-110214: Health
Sec 111001-111112: Taxes again
Sec 111201: Health again
Sec 112001-112032: Taxes once again
Sec 112101-112106: Taxes in regards to undocumented people
Sec 112201-112211: Fraud in taxes and health
This section is exhausting. Thankfully for the taxes bit, this primer from Forbes is excellent.
The most notable fascist tax changes are the taxing of university endowments (Forbes also provides a list of how much colleges might be taxed, noting that 21% is the ceiling) and the termination of tax-exempt status for “terrorist supporting organizations.” As stated previously, precedent has been set that this means any non-profit that is anti-genocide & whether an org is aligned will be at the discretion of the Secretary of State.
Some other fUn bits include
Sec 112204: Using AI to find improper Medicaid payments
Sec 112207: Terminating the Direct File program
Sec 113001: Increasing the debt limit by $4 trillion
And that’s the whole thing. I don’t doubt I’ve missed more than a few things, but I tried to mostly focus on the blatantly fascist things first. Please feel free to reach out onto Bluesky if I missed anything (and please cite your sources/section of the bill).
Which Dems voted for it?
House
No Dems voted for this bill.
There were two Republican no votes from Warren Davidson (OH-8) & Thomas Massie (KY-4), as well as a present vote from Andy Harris (MD-1).
Senate
No Dems voted for the final version of this bill
Susan Collins (ME), Rand Paul (KY), and Thom Tillis (NC) were the three Republicans that voted against it.
There was one attempted amendment from John Cornyn (R-TX) that qualified as fascist. Amendment 2705 would have banned Medicaid for undocumented immigrants and states would have lost Medicaid a percentage of funding if there were any accidental or purposeful payments.
This amendment failed 56-44 (60 votes were needed). Four Democrats voted yea for this amendment:
Catherine Cortez Masto (NV)
Maggie Hassan (NH)
Jon Ossoff (GA)
Raphael Warnock (GA)
House (with Amendments)
No Dems voted for this bill.
There were two Republican no votes from Brian Fitzpatrick (PA-1) & Thomas Massie (KY-4).
Did it pass?