Kull is founder and president of Voice of the People and serves as director of the Program for Public Consultation at University of Maryland. Thomas is director of external relations at Voice of the People.
By punting the debt ceiling issue to December and setting a Halloween deadline to pass the bipartisan infrastructure bill, Democrats have given themselves a short window of opportunity to hammer out the final shape of the reconciliation bill, which aims to increase federal spending on health care, the environment and clean energy, education, and other safety net programs.
But how will they decide what stays and what goes from the original $3.5 trillion package? Instead of relying on lobbyists in Washington and campaign donors to dictate policy and spending priorities, congressional leaders should bring the voice of the people to the table.
As it becomes clearer that President Biden and most Democrats will not get everything they desire in the package due to the demands of Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, an analysis of public opinion on which provisions have the broadest support from voters could be a helpful roadmap for finalizing the final contours of the bill.
In a comprehensive analysis conducted by the University of Maryland's Program for Public Consultation, all 33 of the major policy proposals from the reconciliation bill garner support from large majorities of American voters. For every proposal, this includes majorities of Democrats and independents.
Among Republicans, majorities support 18 of the 33 proposals and pluralities support another three: lowering the Medicare eligibility age to 60, increasing investment in affordable housing and adopting a minimum corporate tax rate of 15 percent.
Clearly, there is far more common ground in the public than there is in Congress.
Nine out of the 18 proposals with Republican majority backing earn more than 60 percent support from voters of both parties. The proposals with the most bipartisan support are allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices directly with pharmaceutical companies, expanding home health care, extending energy-efficiency improvement tax credits, creating federal environmental jobs programs, funding to fix and build public school buildings, taxing corporations' foreign earnings, supporting sector-based job training specifically in cybersecurity and the energy industry, and bolstering apprenticeships through tax credits. In terms of public support, these proposals are the lowest hanging fruit for inclusion in the reconciliation bill.
Nine other proposals garner between 51 and 60 percent support among Republicans as well as robust support among Democrats and independents: providing health insurance to low-income families in states that haven't expanded Medicaid, raising the income cut-off for Affordable Care Act subsidies, establishing energy requirements for all electric companies, tax credits for clean energy equipment and production, increasing the number of electric buses, providing financial assistance for first-time homebuyers, funding the repair of public housing, increasing the size of collegiate Pell Grants, and providing most undocumented immigrants with lawful permanent status and a path to citizenship. In regards to the final proposal, the path to citizenship for DACA-eligible immigrants garners even more support among Republicans (69 percent).
On five proposals, a majority of Republicans are fully opposed: increasing the IRS' budget for tax enforcement, providing additional SNAP benefits to families with children during the summer, making community college tuition-free, providing tax credits for the purchase of electric cars, and increasing funding for minority-serving higher education institutions. Furthermore, a plurality of Republicans are opposed to increasing ACA subsidies for low-income people.
On two proposals, raising taxes on corporations and extending the child tax credits, Republicans' views are divided. Republican views vary according to the presentation of four proposals: increasing taxes on income over $400,000, guaranteeing paid family and medical leave for all, subsidizing child care for low- and middle-income families, and free universal preschool programs.
More than half of the provisions included in the report were tested using the Program for Public Consultation's in-depth survey method that provides thousands of respondents with briefings on policy proposals and expert-reviewed pro and con arguments before recommendations are made. Standard polls included in the analysis were conducted by Morning Consult, Pew, Ipsos and others.
The common ground of the American people demonstrated in the Program for Public Consultation's report can be a foundation on which elected officials can build compromise, without having to abandon their bases. Research shows that elected officials and staffers misread the attitudes of their constituents. As policymakers finalize the reconciliation package, they could benefit by putting policies that lack broad support onto the cutting block.
If our leaders turn to the American people, they will find common ground with the people acting as an arbiter to help break the impasse among factions within the parties and across the aisle.
A golden tray sits on the Resolute Desk as President Donald Trump speaks during an announcement on American nuclear innovation in the Oval Office at the White House on July 24, 2026, in Washington, D.C. Trump is signing multiple executive orders targeting the nuclear energy sector and easing rules for new reactors and nuclear fuel supply chains.
Trump’s hubris rivals the fallen heroes of ancient Greek mythology
In January, the New York Times asked President Donald Trump if there were any limits on his global powers.
“Yeah,” the president responded, “there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.”
That was eight months ago, but fortunately Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster adaptation of “The Odyssey” has made ancient Greek literature newly relevant. Before that window closes, I’d like to talk about hubris.
Today, the term mostly means excessive pride or arrogance. That’s part of what the Greeks meant by it too, but the meaning was a bit richer and more specific. Hubris was an insolent or outrageous act that offended the gods, often because the transgressor was claiming abilities or authorities that solely belonged to supreme beings.
Nolan renamed and slightly modified the concept of xenia for the film, calling it “Zeus’ law.” In the director’s telling, mortals should follow the rules laid out by the gods, specifically the requirement to treat strangers with respect lest they be gods in disguise.
In a sense, hubris is the opposite, or at least the rejection, of xenia. The hubris of the suitors, and at times Odysseus himself, invites punishment by the gods and their mortal instruments.
Which brings me back to Donald Trump. His claim that there are no constraints on his personal power to dictate events on the global stage was one of the greatest expressions of hubris ever uttered by a political leader.
Trump’s claim was obviously false when he made it.
He vowed that he could end the Russia-Ukraine war in 24 hours. He’s proved powerless to make that happen. If he had divine powers to work his will, why would he have balked at implementing his tariffs so often that Wall Street adopted the “TACO trade” term for his deals? “TACO” stands for “Trump always chickens out.”
And why would Trump have made so many embarrassing concessions to China — from rescinding tariffs on Chinese goods to allowing them to buy crucial and incredibly valuable computer chips?
But Trump saw his success at capturing Venezuelan strongman Nicolas Maduro as proof of his ability to launch missiles to the same effect as Zeus’ lightning bolts. Trump believed he was the most powerful man who ever lived.
This is no exaggeration. In March, when the Iran invasion seemed successful, Trump gave a document penned by“Presidential Historian David King” to New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan purporting to prove that Trump was “the most powerful person to have EVER walked this planet.” King was, in fact, a businessman and occasional caddy for legendary golfer Gary Player.
King compared Trump favorably to many of history’s most powerful, and often heinous, figures: Alexander the Great, Attila the Hun, William the Conqueror, Napoleon Bonaparte, Joseph Stalin, Genghis Khan, Mao Tse Tung, Adolf Hitler and Vladimir Lenin. Many of these men thought they were the most powerful person in the world, too. And many were defeated precisely because they believed it.
At least Napoleon and Hitler had a string of truly impressive victories before they learned the folly of hubris. The limits on Trump’s power have been exposed by far less august forces than the combined might of the allies in World War II or the fearsome Russian winter.
Iran is a comparatively middling power. But the regime’s ability to absorb punishment while imposing its will on the Strait of Hormuz has proved to be a greater constraint on Trump’s power than his morality or mind. We should note that, at least rhetorically, his morality has not proved much of a constraint. He has repeatedly promised to destroy Iranian “civilization” if the regime refuses to capitulate.
But they haven’t — and won’t anytime soon — because the regime’s tolerance for pain far outstrips Trump’s. The combined fear of skyrocketing oil prices, outrage of Gulf state potentates, diminishing weapon supplies and domestic unpopularity is doing the work that international law, congressional oversight and the collective opinion of foreign policy experts can’t or won’t do.
If I considered Trump more heroic than reason and facts could allow, I would say his Sisyphean predicament has the whiff of Greek tragedy to it. Trump is vexed by the fact that the Iranians won’t honor deals or ratify his countless premature claims of victory — giving new meaning to his vow that his presidency would make people tired of winning. It’s almost like they’re out-Trumping Trump.
Things might have gone better if he’d heeded that great Greek tragedian Sophocles: “For Zeus utterly abhors the boasts of a proud tongue.”
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Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.