Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” Beats Up Batteries as South Carolina Gambles on EV Jobs
- CUBNSC
- 5 days ago
- 5 min read
By Javar Juarez | Columbia Urban Broadcast Network
In what some are calling the most self-defeating move of the year, Congressional Republicans — under the chaotic sway of Donald Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” — have just passed legislation that could gut the very industries their own states are betting the farm on.
South Carolina, for example, has poured hundreds of millions into wooing Scout Motors, a massive electric vehicle manufacturing plant being built in Richland County. The site, pitched as a crown jewel of the state’s next-generation economy, was meant to anchor thousands of high-paying jobs and place the Palmetto State squarely in the clean energy driver’s seat.
But the so-called “Big Beautiful Bill” — sold by Trump as a populist win — does the opposite: it punches holes in clean energy incentives, slashes federal support for renewable investments, and throws into limbo billions in battery production subsidies. The move comes at the worst possible moment, just as Scout Motors nears completion of its massive new facility and local leaders work to defend the largest industrial investment in the county’s history. Yet while Republican lawmakers celebrated on the House floor with chants of “USA, USA, USA!” after forcing the bill through, their constituents back home have begun to tally the real cost.
Healthcare Cut at the Knees
Beyond gutting clean energy jobs, the bill delivers a ruthless blow to the very social safety net that millions of ordinary Americans — mostly working-class white families — quietly rely on to survive. In South Carolina alone, more than 200,000 people — now stand to lose Medicaid coverage as stricter work requirements and budget cuts take hold. SNAP benefits are next in line, an alarming one-two punch for low-income households already squeezed by rising prices and stagnant wages.
Nationally, the fallout could be staggering: millions risk losing life-saving healthcare and food assistance that, contrary to popular myth, goes mostly to U.S.-born citizens — and disproportionately to white families in rural, Republican-led states like South Carolina.
Yet while back home families brace for cuts, the bill’s supporters spin it as fiscal discipline — even as the Congressional Budget Office warns it will actually add more than $3 trillion to the national debt. That irony isn’t lost on so-called deficit hawks now forced to explain how ballooning debt fits into their “America First” brand.
A Collision Course with Musk
Perhaps the strangest twist in all this is how it deepens the rift between Trump and one of his biggest megaphone boosters: Elon Musk. Tesla’s business model relies on tax incentives, domestic battery production, and a steady market for EVs — all of which are threatened by this new legislation. By gutting renewable tax credits and stifling investment in battery supply chains, Republicans have directly kneecapped Tesla’s American expansion just as global competitors ramp up.
The irony: the bill’s clean energy gut-punch comes right as states like South Carolina brag about becoming EV leaders. Without those federal backstops, local taxpayers could be left holding the bag for massive subsidies and infrastructure upgrades that may never pay off.
Weaponizing ICE While Cheering Cuts
Adding insult to injury, the so-called “Big Beautiful Bill” ramps up funding for ICE and Homeland Security — agencies Trump has openly promised to wield as blunt instruments against so-called “undesirables.” That language has already sent chills through immigrant communities and civil liberties advocates alike. While Speaker Johnson soaked up chants of “USA, USA, USA!” on the House floor, the reality is that millions of working people — many of them documented, lawful residents — now stand to lose healthcare and food assistance even as they watch an emboldened deportation force grow in their own neighborhoods.
This isn’t just about deportations — it’s about building a machine to suppress dissent and entrench power. First, you fund ICE and Homeland Security to target communities under the guise of “security.” Then, you expand that force’s mission: deploy the National Guard or Marines to quash protests, grab people off the streets, toss them into detention camps, and arrest anyone who dares challenge you — turning civic participation and free speech into acts of risk and punishment. Once people are too afraid to speak up, voting becomes meaningless.
The bigger plan is venomous: consolidate executive power by flooding the government with loyalists while gutting the institutions that make democracy work. Fire career experts at agencies like the CDC, FEMA, and civil services so basic protections crumble — making people desperate enough to depend on those in power for survival. Neutralize Congress by rendering it irrelevant and ignore court rulings until the judiciary is powerless. Attack legitimate media, flood the airwaves with propaganda, and drown out facts until the public trusts only the “truth” you invent.
Meanwhile, blame someone for the chaos: immigrants, people of color, women, children — whoever is easiest to vilify. Keep people fighting each other instead of fighting for their country. Encourage private violence, embolden vigilantes, militarize local police. And when fear and poverty do their work, democracy becomes the final casualty. A silenced, exhausted public stops voting — or finds their vote doesn’t count. Power is locked away, and the people who seized it have no intention of ever giving it back.
Will Voters Let It Stand?
Republicans have made what could be a fatal miscalculation. Many remain so disconnected from everyday life that they don’t grasp the full scale of the industries, businesses, and good-paying jobs they are stifling — jobs for actual Americans, not “illegals” or “aliens,” but the working people they claim to champion. Renewable energy is no fringe experiment; it’s the backbone of the global economy’s next phase. While America wavers, China’s BYD is surging worldwide, taking its automotive industry to levels that threaten to leave us behind.
South Carolina is now squarely in the crosshairs of this self-inflicted wound. The statehouse — ruled by a Republican majority that’s surrendered to far-right extremism — was quick to claim credit for Scout Motors, but it was Richland County’s local leadership that did the heavy lifting to make it happen. These jobs are not abstract; they’re tied directly to the Biden-era clean energy push, the Infrastructure Act, the Jobs and Chips Act — each one a lifeline to communities desperate for economic growth.
For all the chest-thumping and flag-waving in Washington, Republicans may have handed Democrats the strongest election-year argument they’ve had in years. South Carolina’s fragile bet on an EV future is now tangled in the fallout of a bill that could gut the very jobs it promised — all while yanking healthcare and food assistance from the same working families they asked to build it. If the battery lines go dark and thousands lose Medicaid and SNAP, voters will ask local leaders why they gambled the region’s economic future on a party so determined to sabotage it.
Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” might thrill the far-right’s loudest culture warriors — but for working families in red states like South Carolina, it’s looking more and more like a betrayal too big to spin away.
Sources: South Carolina Department of Health and Human Services, Congressional Budget Office, statements from Senator Lisa Murkowski’s office.
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