The “signature” undertakings of the “big, beautiful bill,” the looming federal budget reconciliation package sent to the U.S. Senate by the House, will disproportionately hurt people on low and middle incomes, older people and people living in rural areas.

Those categories capture many of us who live in Maine. It’s for that reason both our senators in D.C. must be absolute in their opposition to this legislation.

“We are preparing your tax cuts …” was the playful message on the White House website last week, complete with a self-enrichment progress bar illuminated part of the way in green. There was no mention of the fact that the tax cuts outlined by this sprawling bill will need to be offset by absolutely lacerating cuts to essential programs: to health care and food assistance; to the National Park Service, which Sen. Angus King questioned in spirited committee testimony last week; to research into disease and other investment in public health, with which Sen. Susan Collins expressed heartfelt displeasure last Tuesday; and much more.

Not only do our senators need to stay the course on this dogged interrogation, on this opposition, they need to deepen it and to — each in their own way — turn the volume up to the max. These funding cuts’ savings register as meaningless to the nauseating deficit (any remote reference to which was also conspicuous in its absence at whitehouse.gov) as they will be devastating to the vulnerable people and communities affected by them.

Analysis released last Thursday by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office put it plainly: “The changes would not be evenly distributed among households. The agency estimates that in general, resources would decrease for households toward the bottom of the income distribution, whereas resources would increase for households in the middle and top.”

Taking action that drives up the national debt by trillions of dollars will, by most economists’ accounts, have severe repercussions: pushing up interest rates, hampering businesses and gumming up chances for growth generally. This wildly misguided package stands to both take from Maine and to create conditions that prevent her from taking anything for herself.