by INDERJEET PARMAR
Presented as a ‘beautiful’ fix for growth and security, HR 1 actually funnels wealth to America’s richest, arms a $1?trillion war machine and thickens domestic repression, all with the aim of propping up a waning imperial hegemony.
The “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” (H.R. !), heralded as a transformative economic and security package for the United States, is less an economic stimulus than a manifesto for American supremacy. It weds two imperatives of the US ruling class: an upward transfer of wealth and a vast expansion of militarised power, thereby entrenching its domestic and global dominance. Cloaked in rhetoric about jobs, growth and border security, the Bill arrives at a moment when Washington’s hegemony is fraying thanks to rising multipolarity, domestic inequality is at an all time high fast – the top 1% hold 32% of wealth – and popular discontent is increasing.
Ruling elites secure dominance not merely through coercion but by manufacturing consent via ideological control over civil society—media, politics, and cultural institutions. The Big Brutal Bill, framed as a “beautiful” solution to economic and security challenges, exemplifies this process. Its proponents, including Republican leaders and sections of the corporate media, have deployed neoliberal and nationalist narratives to mask the legislation’s true aims: redistributing wealth upward, strengthening coercive state mechanisms and escalating militarism to sustain US global primacy. This demands the US power elites discipline both domestic and global populations.
The bill’s economic provisions constitute a brazen transfer of wealth from the working and middle classes to the ultra-rich. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that the bill reduces household resources for the poorest 10% by 4% ($940 annually) while boosting incomes for the richest 0.1% by $389,000 for those earning over $4.3 million. Extending the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which directed two-thirds of benefits to the top 20%, the bill amplifies a historical trend: since 1975, the top 1% have sapped $79 trillion from the bottom 90%. Cuts to Medicaid ($930 billion) and SNAP (affecting 4.5 million people) further impoverish the working class, with 15–16 million potentially losing healthcare.
This wealth transfer is not merely economic but ideological. Ruling elites, through Fox News and various well funded corporate think tanks, frame the bill as a universal economic boon, echoing neoliberal myths of “trickle-down” prosperity. Yet, the bill’s regressive tax structure and social cuts weaken the economic base of the working and middle classes, limiting their capacity for resistance. Such policies fragment the potential for a radical “historic bloc” – a unified working-class alliance capable of challenging capitalist dominance.
The bill’s economic impact aligns with America’s global imperial strategies. By prioritising corporate tax breaks, it mirrors US strategies in the Global South, where austerity and privatisation entrench elite power. This domestic imperialism treats the US working class as a colonised population, extracting wealth while offering ideological platitudes about “growth.”
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