As Americans across the country fired up their grills and celebrated Independence Day, a different celebration took place on the South Lawn at the White House.
President Donald Trump signed into law a massive tax and spending package on July 4. The legislation, nicknamed by Trump as the "One Big Beautiful Bill," narrowly passed the House of Representatives in a 218–214 vote, mostly along party lines.
The budget bill extends Trump's 2017 tax cuts, eliminates taxes on tips and overtime, and allocates approximately $170 billion to support the administration's border and immigration objectives. In addition, the federal debt ceiling will be raised by $5 trillion by the legislation, with the Congressional Budget Office estimating that a potential $3.4 trillion increase to the deficit over the next 10 years.
Over 1,200 pages long, the bill is certainly big. What is currently unclear is what direct impact it will have on residents of Long Island's North Shore. Republican elected officials Legislator Samantha Goetz, State Senator Jack Martins, and Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman did not respond to an inquiry by time of press.
U.S. Rep. Tom Suozzi wrote that he supported the bill's increased funding for border security and the $10,000 to $40,000 increase for the state and local tax deduction, known as SALT, for households earning $500,000 or less over the next five years, starting in 2025. He described it as “a partial victory,” but vowed to push for the full restoration of the increase, which is set to expire in 2030.
The Long Island Democrat raised several issues with the legislation, including environmental concerns and a continued deficit increase to “pay for unnecessary tax breaks for some of the wealthiest Americans while cutting health insurance and food benefits.”
In addition, despite his support for increased border security funding, Suozzi called for a more permanent solution to the country’s immigration issues. “We also need a bipartisan fix to the broken asylum system,” Suozzi wrote. “To legalize millions of agricultural, hospitality, healthcare and other essential workers who have been here a decade or more with no criminal record.”
In a written statement, Nassau County Minority Leader Delia DeRiggi-Whitton, a Democrat, expressed her worry for the economic outlook for the next generation of Long Islanders as a result of the projected increase in spending. "I'm very concerned about the amount we will be adding to the debt for future generations to have to contend with. Raising the debt ceiling and adding trillions to our debt is not something that I consider financially prudent at all."
In contrast, Republican Assemblyman Jake Blumencranz asserted that the bill creates positive changes to the tax code to help small businesses and seniors. He emphasized the benefits of the increasing SALT cap for homeowners on Long Island.
Town of Oyster Bay Supervisor Joe Salandino expressed similar praise for the increase, writing that he applauded “Congress for restoring the SALT tax deductions that are so important to Long Island homeowners, providing much-needed property tax relief,” also writing his support for the “commitment to funding stronger public safety measures to protect communities.”
Blumencranz added that the removal of taxes on tips and overtime "helps real Americans" and is a "genuine tax cut for hard-working, working-class people on Long Island." While he added that he had problems with the bill in its entirety, Blumencranz admitted that he supported the economic portions of the legislation
Assemblyman Charles Lavine said that he supported the elimination of taxes on tips and overtime, as well as the SALT deduction increase; however, he had far more criticism than praise for the bill.
To offset the cost, the bill slashes nearly $1 trillion from Medicaid and reduces food assistance and clean energy incentives. In addition, it imposes 80‑hour‑per‑month work requirements on many adults receiving Medicaid and applies existing SNAP work rules to additional beneficiaries.
"The soup might look good, but there's a dead rat in it," said Lavine. "There's always something relatively good in every disgusting piece of legislation. It's not worth parsing it out just like it's not worth eating the soup that had the dead rat in it."
Nearly 1.5 million New Yorkers are expected to lose their healthcare coverage as a result of the cuts to the program, according to the New York Healthcare Association. Roughly 308,000 Nassau County residents rely on Medicaid, according to the state Department of Health.
“Two-thirds of people in nursing homes rely on Medicaid as do 10 percent of all veterans,” Suozzi wrote. “Some of the folks on Medicaid are single parents with disabled children and people facing some of the bleakest circumstances imaginable.”
The bill contains wide-ranging cuts for environmental protections and clean-energy incentives for wind and solar.
Blumencranz argued that the bill gives New York a chance to "actually create affordable energy" as well as an opportunity to reanalyze the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act, which requires the state to reduce economy-wide greenhouse gas emissions by 40 percent by 2030 and no less than 85 percent by 2050 from 1990 levels.
He also touted the close relationship between Long Island and Lee Zedlin, the administrator for the Environmental Protection Agency, describing him as "someone who has completely spent his life understanding comprehensively the issues surrounding the environment and the concerns Long Islanders have surrounding the environment right here in our home."
Increases in air pollution due to the bill's cuts will also lead to hundreds more deaths per year, according to Energy Innovation Policy & Technology LLC, meaning situations such as the Canadian smog cloud that blanketed New York City and Long Island in June 2023 will become more common and potentially more deadly.
"The Trump administration is like the proverbial ostrich," Lavine said. "It is sticking its head in the sand and just waiting until it thinks that the (environmental) crisis is over, but the crisis is not going to be over. It's going to get worse."
