MY TURN: Russ Fulcher sells out working families for big beautiful lies

Russ Fulcher is bragging. After seven years in Congress, collecting over a million dollars in taxpayer-funded salary, paying nearly $7 million to his staff, and enjoying free health care and travel at public expense, he is finally close to passing a single bill. He is touting the so-called KEEP Act, a “no tax on tips” provision tucked into what he calls the “Big Beautiful Bill.” But here’s the truth: Whatever small relief that measure might offer is completely wiped out by the bill’s larger impact, increased taxes, gutted safety nets and skyrocketing costs for working families. For everyday Idahoans, there is nothing beautiful about it.

Let’s cut through the smoke and mirrors. This bill is a giveaway to the wealthiest Americans and the largest corporations, paid for by gutting the very programs that hold up our rural communities, including Medicaid, food assistance, veterans services, public schools and essential infrastructure. While this bill offers some beneficial tax credits, like crumbs from a banquet table, the heart of the bill raises taxes and cost of living for everyday families, slashing support for those who need it most while delivering massive tax cuts to those who need it least.

Let’s be clear: This bill increases the deficit by at least $5 trillion over the next decade compared to the Biden Administration’s baseline. That’s not a typo. That’s at least $5 trillion added to the national debt, while stripping out investments in job creation, clean manufacturing, rural development and working-class tax relief. It's economic malpractice dressed up as reform. Russ Fulcher has spent his entire tenure making our national deficit his top priority, but immediately sold out fiscal responsibility for political maneuvering.

For 50 years, we’ve watched the same playbook unfold: Cut taxes for monopolized industries and the 1%, promise it’ll “trickle down,” and then watch as jobs disappear, wages stagnate and corporations pocket billions through stock buybacks and executive bonuses. It doesn’t build economies, it has destroyed the American Dream.

In Idaho, where families rely on Medicaid to access basic health care, this bill threatens that lifeline. It undermines nutrition programs that help rural children stay fed. It makes our schools poorer, our roads rougher and our communities weaker. If the cruelty isn't insulting enough, the absurdity is staggering. This bill includes a tax break for tanning beds. Yes, tanning beds. While veterans fight for care, educators fight for supplies and working families fight to make ends meet, tanning salons get a carve-out. Who does Russ Fulcher work for?

Let’s stop pretending this bill is about fiscal responsibility. If it were, it wouldn’t balloon the deficit. It wouldn’t reward billionaires while punishing the people who build this country with their hands, backs and hearts.

The “Big Beautiful Bill” is a betrayal of Idaho families, rural America and the very ideals that once made our economy strong. We need policy that prioritizes the people who do the work, raise the kids and grow the food.

• • •

Kaylee Peterson is a Eagle resident.