The common room at the Activity and Recreation Center in Normal was buzzing Thursday afternoon, with members playing games and chatting with one another.
One thing they weren’t talking about: Congress passing the massive spending and tax cut bill.
Raymond Buckus of Champaign and Dawnja Armstrong from Bloomington were deep into a game of Battleship when the Republican megabill narrowly passed.
Armstrong's first reaction?
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said.
Buckus and Armstrong said they avoid talking about politics.
“Why worry?” Armstrong said.
Jan Handel lives in Normal and volunteers as a greeter at the ARC. She said she also was not aware of the “Big Beautiful Bill.”
“I don’t think I can say anything about that,” she said.
Buckus said he's stopped paying as much attention to politics as he's gotten older.
“When it takes 16 hours to read the bill, they obviously didn’t pay any attention to it—and neither did I,” he said.
Democrats expressed deep concern over cuts to the social safety net wrapped in the massive spending bill to pay for various tax cuts, including delivering President Trump’s campaign promises to provide tax relief on tips, car loans and overtime.
“They say that all the time,” Buckus said. “Any bill, if the Republicans do it, it’s a cut—they’re going to ‘destroy’ Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. If the Democrats do it, they’re going to fund it all but neither one of them do it. It’ll still be there.”
Rose Cook, a former Army National Guard member from Bloomington, said she'd heard very little about the bill, but she added that the government “needs help.”
“With being handicapped and being a vet, you see all kinds of little things that get looked over,” she said. “It’s like, ‘Excuse me?’ Hello?”
Joseph Alford of Bloomington said he wasn’t surprised about Thursday's vote.
“I wish it hadn’t passed,” he said. “There are so many other services that are going to go away because there’s no money.”
Among those services, Alford said he was worried about cuts to NPR. The House recently voted to claw back money previously appropriated to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which provides funding to NPR.
Buckus said politics have become “muddled.”
“I can’t tell who plays on what team,” he said. “They both want nothing more than to take all my money. If you’re a Democrat, you’re blaming the rich. If you’re a Republican, you’re blaming the rich. Who’s in Congress? The rich.”
