How much Green New Scam spending will survive the One Big Beautiful Bill?

Germany’s first chancellor Otto von Bismarck famously said, “Laws are like sausages. It is best not to see them being made.” That description fits President Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act — with one major exception.

Unlike most legislation, the OBBB deserves a close look. But the media would rather focus on headline fodder like the SALT deduction fight and proposed Medicaid work requirements. What the media has mostly ignored is far more significant: the dismantling of the so-called Inflation Reduction Act’s climate spending, or what Trump rightly calls the “Green New Scam.”

The OBBB isn’t perfect — but it’s the best shot conservatives have to kill the Green New Scam, lock in Trump’s tax cuts, and put America’s fiscal house on firmer ground.

Rep. Brett Guthrie (R-Ky.) recently claimed in a Wall Street Journal op-ed that the OBBB rolls back “the most reckless parts of the engorged climate spending,” reclaiming $6.5 billion in unspent funds. But that figure barely scratches the surface.

Goldman Sachs estimated the total value of the Inflation Reduction Act’s climate spending at a whopping $1.2 trillion. According to Grok, X’s artificial intelligence tool, the initial OBBB version would have left most of it intact.

Roughly $140 billion of that $1.2 trillion had already been spent in 2024 — much of it used to grease the palms of red-state politicians, as I’ve discussed elsewhere. Another $140 billion has been committed but not yet disbursed. The Trump administration is currently fighting in court to block that money from being spent.

But here’s the kicker: Grok’s analysis projected that between $700 billion and $900 billion of the Green New Scam funds would remain untouched under the original OBBB draft. That’s not a rounding error. That’s two orders of magnitude away from Guthrie’s $6.5 billion figure.

Fortunately, the House Freedom Caucus didn’t back down.

Led by Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), the caucus demanded a bill that honored Trump’s campaign pledge to kill the Green New Scam. Roy wrote on X, “Rather than just subsidizing $350B for states with high taxes — we should pass a OBBB that FULLY terminates the Green New Scam and FULLY ends the Medicaid money laundering scam abused to hurt the vulnerable.”

He followed with this: “Writing a deficit-backed blank check (SALT) is easier than cutting spending (DOGE, Green New Scam, Post-COVID spending). Congress/swamp will always choose the easy route, but we can’t afford it.”

Roy was right. And though not completely successful, the Freedom Caucus scored a major win.

The House passed the OBBB on May 22 by a single vote, 215-214. Thanks to the Freedom Caucus, the bill cuts about $500 billion in wasteful Green New Scam spending. Half of the unspent funds have now been stripped out. The bill is now with the Senate, where its fate remains unclear.

RELATED: The Senate’s Romney-Ryan tax ideas collide with a Trump-Vance world

Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images

One strategic advantage of the OBBB lies in how it’s being passed. Like the Inflation Reduction Act before it, the OBBB uses budget reconciliation — a tool that bypasses the filibuster and requires only a simple majority. In this case, what was once a Democrat-only spending spree may now be repealed with a Republican-only rollback.

Call it poetic justice. Call it the only viable option. Either way, reconciliation makes this repeal possible — despite the fondness many subsidy-happy Republicans still have for the Green New Scam.

But the most important part of the OBBB isn’t about repealing waste. It’s about preserving growth.

The bill makes Trump’s 2017 tax cuts permanent. That alone carries a projected value of $4 trillion over the next decade and prevents a $1,700 annual tax hike on the average American family.

Republicans who block the OBBB over narrow interests risk handing Democrats a tax increase — and possibly their own walking papers in the 2026 midterms. That includes swing-district moderates who demand Green New Scam subsidies and fiscal hawks who balk at anything short of a full repeal.

The key difference? The pro-subsidy Republicans didn’t vote for those climate programs in the first place. Yet, now they’re willing to tank the whole bill to preserve them.

One Freedom Caucus member told me he remains hopeful the Senate can claw back more of the Green New Scam funds. Maybe so. But I wouldn’t bet on it.

Which brings us back to Bismarck. Lawmaking may resemble sausage-making, but at least sausages leave a good taste behind. When done right, so can legislation.

The OBBB isn’t perfect — but it’s the best shot conservatives have to kill the Green New Scam, lock in Trump’s tax cuts, and put America’s fiscal house on firmer ground.