Agreement among Maine leaders on the subject of President Trump’s sprawling domestic policy bill was broad and heartfelt last week.

Reps. Jared Golden (“deeply flawed”) and Chellie Pingree (“an all-out attack on working-class families”) opposed it. Sens. Susan Collins (“harmful impact”) and Angus King (“I call this the ‘Great Maine Robbery’”) opposed it. Gov. Janet Mills (“​​imperiling our state’s balanced budget and economy”) opposed it.

On top of that, Mainers were themselves firmly opposed to it. According to polling conducted by the University of New Hampshire Survey Center last month, fewer than one-third of respondents said they wanted the “big, beautiful bill” to pass.

You hardly need us to point out that unanimity like this is in short supply today. That’s how categorically bad the cuts in this bill are for our state, for our low-income families, rural residents and older residents, in particular. Safety nets that Maine relies on are destined to be shredded.

The cuts sought by the Trump administration are the product of its deep-seated antipathy for people who are out of work, have been left behind in rapidly emptying towns or have otherwise fallen on hard times. This style of austerity is being pursued without any concern for the economic damage it will invariably do.

At best, the proposal can be criticized for being far too big. At worst, it can be described using the same profanity that the usually loyal Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene — also opposed — blurted out during an interview with Steve Bannon last week.

How, then, did it get so far?

“I had made it clear weeks ago that I would have to see substantive, major, significant changes in the bill in order for me to support it,” Sen. Collins told the Press Herald last week, responding to suggestions that she hadn’t done or said enough, soon enough, to stop the bill. “I had made this clear to the White House, to (Republican leadership), to everybody.”

At the time of this editorial’s writing, with the July 4 deadline for enacting the bill looming, its terms were being squabbled over by House Republican “holdouts” — some of them interested in sending it back to the Senate, some of them fearful of that outcome.

Probably none more fearful than Speaker Mike Johnson, who tried to show little evidence of that in Wednesday afternoon remarks to the press. “Most of our agenda is wrapped up into this legislation,” he said. “So it must pass.”

After witnessing the will-they-won’t-they, stop-start nature of the negotiations and deliberations in recent weeks, with expressions of support and even yes votes swiftly followed by critique and misgivings — the tack taken by Sen. Lisa Murkowski stands out  — you’d be forgiven for thinking we didn’t see this expression of “the agenda” coming.

Of course, nothing could be further from the truth. The staggering shift of crippling costs to the states as envisaged by the legislation has been circulating for weeks. The shorthand “BBB” featured on Saturday-morning protest signage across America. The whole DOGE dogma is by now very well and very widely understood. If the civic, social and political ramifications of a nearly $1 trillion cut to Medicaid doesn’t get your attention, what will?

In a tweet last week, Elon Musk expressed something approaching remorse about the wielding of a chainsaw on stage at the Conservative Political Action Conference back in February, when the name of the game was strictly cut, cut, cut. “… I ran with it,” the billionaire and one-time lay and unelected cabinet member wrote, “but, in retrospect, it lacked empathy.”

Retrospect can indeed be powerful. And in moments as urgent and consequential as these, with so many organizations and people bracing for pain, it cannot be all we’ve got.

Editor’s note: In this space last Sunday (June 29), a pair of editorials by the Maine Trust for Local News editorial board — one about polluting paper mills in Maine, one about Maine basketballer Cooper Flagg — were published under an inaccurate headline. The headlines that ought to have been printed were “Hold Maine’s paper mills to higher standards,” and “It feels good to fly the Flagg.” We regret the error.