I’ve said it before and I’ll keep saying it - when talking about federal budget, we should never use the words “trillion” or “million”, but just “$1,000 billion” and “$.001 billion”. (Just like we should always use decimals and never fractions.)
Since Friday, agencies terminated 242 wasteful contracts with a ceiling value of $646M and savings of $200M, including a $118k USDA contract for the “Democratic Republic of Congo youth climate corps coordinator”, and a $23.5k USAID contract for the “garden landscaping and pool services at official mission director’s residence” of South Africa.
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Contract Update!
Since Friday, agencies terminated 242 wasteful contracts with a ceiling value of $0.646 billion and savings of $0.2 billion, including a $0.000118 billion USDA contract for the “Democratic Republic of Congo youth climate corps coordinator”, and a $0.0000235 billion USAID contract for the “garden landscaping and pool services at official mission director’s residence” of South Africa.
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Yeah, checks out, definitely makes it clearer what's going on here (I am, to be clear, not at all sarcastic).
I think my favorite way to express numbers like this is in per citizen units, e.g. “this will add $20,000 to the debt owed by each and every US citizen” or whatever
I'd probably also standardize on either "stock" or "flow" as well. $20k of debt vs. $20k annualized cash flow per citizen are very different and people confuse them frequently. Federal budget in particular seems bad at this as numbers are usually quoted over a time-frame so not really either.
The current federal debt is around $350,000 per working taxpayer, already essentially unpayable. We're basically in a game of musical chairs with each successive administration as to who gets blamed when the music stops. Until then it's a spending party in DC.
Unlike a mortgage though, we aren't required to pay it down within a specific 30 year period. It's totally fine if it takes centuries, and it doesn't actually have to reach 0 at any specific moment - just be trustworthy that every bit of it eventually gets paid.
It's difficult, with our country's aging population to both grow the economy and pay down the "mortgage", meanwhile paying a trillion in interest every year (about $3K per taxpayer?). However, you're right, there might be hope. Social Security and Medicare are big chunks of the debt. Tax all income above the current top SS tier at 7 percent and put a third or so of SS into the stock market (it's been all T-bills since inception, not very smart). Medicare, suck it up up and make it Medicare for All and drive pricing down (eliminate Obamacare, Medicaid, most private insurance, auto and workman's comp medical, and thousands of state and county healthcare programs, not to mention reducing HR departments in industry).
The problem is, people predicted calamity so many times in the past for debt levels that now seem quite modest in retrospect, and nothing happened. Also conservatives would lament high debt levels and then go on tax-cutting sprees that were never matched by spending cuts, thus increasing deficits and debt, and only complaining about debt when liberals were in charge. Liberals would try to get deficits down without spending cuts, but could never muster the will to get tax increases sufficient close the deficit (at least not since Clinton, and that might have been business cycle good luck). Debt keeps rising, no one really gets punished for it, so it keeps rising.
The magic number is 130 percent (of GDP I think)... we're at 122 percent after Biden (et al since Clinton). At 130 percent, historically, troubles traditionally infiltrate the economy. But hey Japan has managed to kick that can down the road for quite awhile so who knows?
“When you’re doing pure political position-taking, it’s smart to just say popular stuff. But when you’re actually governing, you need to try to do things that make sense.”
Remember what PJ O’Rourke said? “The Republicans are the party that says government doesn't work and then they get elected and prove it.”
When "the government can't do anything right" is a major part of your sales pitch, it's in your interest to make sure the government does things badly.
I think the fact we have a major party that positions itself as opposed to government as a concept (albeit while favoring plenty of government overreach in practice) is underrated as an explanation for American governmental dysfunction.
Don't forget an extremely broad preemption of state AI regulation -- banning them from enforcing AI regulation of any kind for *ten years*, including existing law -- while defending this with a vague "of course we need safeguards, but they should be federal" and then not proposing any federal safeguards! (Luckily, the parliamentarians will probably block them from doing this in a budget reconciliation bill, but IMO this portends very bad things for AI policy.)
First... I thought they were all about states rights?!
Joking aside though, this seems utterly insane to me considering how AI has been used to ruin people's lives, reputation and just seems like a poorly written law. People have been using AI to mimic voices, create AI generated porn, etc. This seems like a poorly thought-out inclusion for no reason.
Additionally, like you said it shouldn't be included in a reconciliation bill at all. But these people aren't exactly known for following the rules.
I don't think that you'd need to use AI regulation specifically to stop people from defrauding people or making revenge porn of them. And the horse is already out of the barn there. My understanding of "AI regulation" is that it's about what you are and aren't allowed to do in terms of developing frontier models.
Yeah if it is only about developing frontier models I don't necessarily care as long as they give protections around the data being absorbed or used to create these new models. However, the way they wrote the text seems nebulous at best to me, doesn't protect people, shouldn't be part of the reconciliation bill at all, and finally to say for 10 years they won't regulate seems short sighted.
Right, I think it would still be illegal in some states to disseminate sexual deepfakes but they can’t impose liability on models or make them attach digital provenance.
100% agreed, but I have an issue with models being able to do certain things if they are in fact used to support an illegal activity, or people of all age groups have access to them. The language they used around it seems somewhat nebulous to me.
There are tons of AI bills being proposed at the state level; some of them are about fraud, others are about non-consensual deepfakes, lots are about regulating the use of AI in e.g. hiring or healthcare, and a handful are about developing frontier models.
Some kind of preemption for all of these probably makes sense; it's common for Congress to set floors and ceilings for state regulation so companies can do more interstate business. If there were a bill that said, "You can't require algorithmic impact statements, you can't restrict the use of AI in such-and-such cases, you can't make AI companies liable for such-and-such, but also here are some basic requirements for frontier model risk assessment and reporting and security," that would probably be great, depending on the details. What we have instead is a blanket ban on AI policymaking with no proposed federal alternative.
The bill language around this is probably unconstitutional. In Murphy vs NCAA in 2018, the Supreme Court said that the federal government cannot regulate state lawmaking. What Republicans are trying to do here with AI regulation seems very similar, so would imagine it would also get struck down.
Ok but state-level regulation of AI is bad, actually. Patch-work regulations slow down innovation, which is bad for a lot of reasons, especially including that it sets us back relative to foreign adversaries.
I think some state AI bills are good, others are bad, a ton of conflicting ones would indeed be quite bad, and also blanket preempting them for 10 years with no realistic shot at a federal alternative is even worse.
The joke is that they will not mention this, at all, because it makes Trump and MAGA look ridiculous and The Free Press does not want Trump or MAGA to be seen as ridiculous.
IMO the key to understanding the GOP/GOP voter mindset on Medicaid and other government benefits for the poor is that they view being poor as a moral failing and using tax dollars to help them out is just enabling that. To them if you’re poor it’s because you’re lazy or made bad decisions in life. If you talk to GOP voters and mention that poor people might lose Medicaid coverage they’ll just tell you something along the lines of ‘good, then that means they have to work to get health insurance and earn money for food just like the rest of us’.
The problem with that is they never consider themselves poor or bad people. So, when these types of things affect them personally, they all seem to have a shocked Pikachu face.
Right - I had a very interesting discussion I’ve with someone like that. I said, “Anyone with an IQ below 70 gets SSI and typically ends up in some group home type situation. Do you think that’s good?” The answer was, “Of course.” So then I said, “what about 71? Does that suddenly mean you’re able to hold down a job that comes with healthcare and earns enough to eat?” “Well…no.”
I think both sides really have a problem with the 5% of the population that’s juuust this side of a group home.
People everywhere do not like to accept that complex and nuanced problems need more than simple answers and its frustrating because we live in an environment where people also want immediate gratification and to feel right and move on. It makes it very tough to make good policy.
I 100% agree with you. The current media environment dunks on people that do that though, or people get their feelings hurt when they have to learn something new or when they feel stupid, they get defensive. People like hot takes and quick action where they can then move on with their lives. Governing in real life is hard work...
If Trump got really Hawley-pilled and decided to get rid of the Medicaid cuts, increase top tax rates, get rid of carried interest deduction, etc., and do real economic populism + right wing culture war stuff, he (or his successor) would be on course towards Putin/Orban/Erdogan/Modi/FDR levels of political domination and entrenchment, right? So in that context… are we glad this budget sucks?
None of that will happen though because 80%+ of the GOP conference in the Senate is not so-pilled and they’re the ones who will be writing the actual bill.
TL;DR: the GOP screws over poor and working class people, the sun is hot, water is wet, etc.
But it’s perfectly understandable when working class voters continue to support the GOP, because those goddamn liberals are so condescending and elitist, and they let the country be overrun by illegal immigrants who get taxpayer-funded sex change surgery.
As an aside, I’m a bit surprised that Matt didn’t even mention the proposed NIH cuts, but I suppose that’s small potatoes compared with the rest of this fustercluck.
What is the logic of Republicans being against nuclear energy?
Re: you last point - Republicans love extractive energy and hate the environment. I don't think this even a reductive gloss as this point, I just think it's a factually accurate claim about the party.
The insanity of specifically Anglophone countries on climate change is directly related to how powerful people within the extractive industry are.
Look at the UK, Australia, the US, and Canada. Putting aside Canada, all of them have strong conservative media - hell, the Murdoch's own most Aussie newspapers.
But in the UK, Boris Johnson was to the left of many Democrat's on climate change, Canada's basically fine outside of the one province where they extract a lot and those people have money and political power, the Aussie's have issues but it's mostly just mining and the center-right voters even supported pro-climate mitigation independents, and the US is the US.
The true weirdness of American politics come from the fact that a lot of basically, randoms got extremely rich in the early 20th century due to finding stuff in the ground and some of those randoms were insane on politics.
Republicans don’t really think climate change is a hoax, they just want global warming to succeed and they’re afraid nuclear power will lower the amount of CO2 going into the atmosphere.
Waging war on the poor captures the essence of the Trump program.
In Republicans’ view poor Americans do not deserve health care but millionaires should continue to receive a massive tax cut. After all the upkeep on their yachts is expensive….
They almost certainly will. This kind of thing is the bread-and-butter of their opposition to Republicans. It fits extremely well with the public’s pre-existing, enduring view of the parties and as such it will be highly effective.
Recall the original TCJA in 2017. Democrats messaged and fought against that bill extremely well regardless of the fact that it passed. Its passage coincided with the lowest approval Trump has ever had, and the public was so against it that they believed they would be getting a tax increase out of it despite the fact that most taxpayers did see cuts (though obviously very small for people at the bottom end of the income distribution).
The more news coverage these tax and spending cut bills get, the worse things will get for Republicans.
These poisonous policies only gets passed because too many people vote based on cultural issues, and the Dems allow them to by not capturing the centre ground on these issues. Every sign about defunding the police makes it easier for Republicans to win power and throw people off health care.
Zach, as you probably know, the Trump tax cuts in 2017 overwhelmingly benefited the top 0.1% of taxpayers. Yes, the top 0.1%. Studies showed that the average family received a benefit of about $900...which was completely offset by the higher prices they had to pay to buy stuff because of ....Trump's tariffs. I think the same thing will happen this time.
Voters figured out that the 2017 tax cuts did not help them. The tax cuts were so unpopular that Republicans did not campaign on them, at all, in 2018 or 2020.
The change in the withholding and exemptions also probably burnt a lot of people who were used to getting refunds and/or breaking close to even and then suddenly owed a large tax bill in 2018. That could certainly feel like a "tax increase" if you're not used to owing and appearingly the same amount is coming out of your wages... and the correction is to withhold *more* taxes from your wages which is definitely not feeling like a tax cut despite what the end of year rate gets to.
I remember reading at the time this was by design by Paul Ryan to reduce the refunds people were getting and add some more "pain" into EOY filings so that people would become more supportive of tax cuts and "simplifications" like flat tax/deduction/credit reductions in particular (which usually end up being highly regressive). When people are getting large refund checks tax filing season is like a "bonus" (while yes, for many filers that's simply an interest free loan repayment from over-withholding). Owing money, especially unexpectedly, tends to bring out one's inner Republican ;p
Yeah I've never understood the logic of "we're in a deficit emergency so let's... cut taxes"?? That would never make much sense in any other budgetary situation in business or personal finances to reduce your income/revenue if you're already underwater. The solution is usually some combination of cutting spending/increasing income/revenue.
Of course the government budget is not your "kitchen table" budget fo rmany reasons, but still, If it's a true fiscal emergency then your first move will hardly be to cut revenue, maybe after you get some semblance of balance you can explore that but not as part of a supposed "emergency". Of course, if you use "Republican math" then tax cuts boost economic activity which theoretically makes up for the reduced flat revenue but that's a lot of "if's" if you're in a supposed emergency to rely on. The 2017 TCJA as I recall did not produce the magical revenue increases because the tax cut at that point was unnecessary stimulus on an economy already running at full steam. Businesses and wealthy just pocketed the savings and it didn't result in additional economic activity/tax activity that "Republican math" calculated into their projections. Especially if you're just moving marginal rates a few percentage points, the benchmark they've used from the Reagan era cuts were big double digit cuts from like top rate 75% to 35%. Of course that's going to have a much larger macro-economic effect then going from 35% to 32%. And still - the Reagan tax cuts blew up the deficit anyway!
I saw Jamelle Bouie referenced this essay in a recent Blsky tweet as well. And I think it's apt.
I sort of think we underestimate how much of a "Deep South" mindset has taken over the GOP and why Trump's appeal may be more understandable in this context. In fact, I may even call it a Confederate mindset. No that doesn't mean I think the GOP wants to reintroduce slavery. And no that doesn't mean I think we've made no racial progress in the last 30 years, let alone 150 years.
But I think there is a kind of "Lost Cause" mindset that has seeped into large parts of the American public. And it gets to that essay I linked to; in many ways the various distinctions that used to mark large parts of non urban America and the cultural of a lot of these places is basically just "deep south". The example Will gives is "Larry the Cable Guy". Listen to him talk and you'd think he's from some part of Tennessee or Georgia when in fact he's from Nebraska.
And I think this ends up bleeding into political beliefs. There is a very particular kind of mindset that developed whereby working class Southerners pre 1960s were willing to defend (often times violently) a political system that demonstrably made them worse off if it meant actively punishing those members of society deemed beneath them. And I don't think it's a mistake that the Deep South was essentially an Authoritarian dictatorship from 1877 to 1965*.
Look I don't want to take this analysis too far. I'm pretty sure if I spoke to a Trump fan with tons of flags all over his truck and asked if he wants a dictator he'd say "heck no! I voted for Trump because he's gonna stop those leftists from bringing a communist dictatory ship" (or something to that effect). And I'm also aware that in a nation of 330 million people there is going to be a wide variety of reasons of why anyone votes the way they do and that there are some perfectly banal (and if I'm being really charitable, understandable) reasons why someone voted for Trump.
But it's hard for me to look at this budget and not think "The cruelty is the point". Or to piggyback off my post, an attempt to actively harm those members of society deemed unworthy of dignity and respect.
For those of you who think I'm going too far with this. Look at all of Trump's executive orders, look at the Gestapo tactics with green card holders, look at his general behavior. And then look at the extremely muted GOP reaction. And look at this budget. Am I taking this too far?
The reality is that the "civil rights" frame in which Dems view the world has run its course because post 1965, immigration from other parts of the world reduced the salience of the black-white civil rights dichotomy. Now the GOP is increasingly winning large fractions of Asian and Latin American voters who either do not care about the ADOS+civil rights struggle in the USA or are actively hostile to it. Even increasingly large fractions of younger black Americans do not view the world from the civil rights prism of the commentariat that dominates the Dem party. The Dem project of folding in Asians and Hispanics into some kind of broad civil rights struggle through which black Americans can finally get justice seems to have failed. I think we need to reckon with this and figure out what genuine liberals who are massively outnumbered in the general population can do going forward.
I 100% agree with you. I have come to accept that there is a not insignificant portion of the population who is willing to be worse off as long as it means that they have a level of social power, or their hierarchy places them above people in society that they don't like or see as below them. Heck, they are willing to see themselves also be worse off if it means others may suffer more.
I think it was LBJ who was once quoted as saying - "If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you."
Again, I don't think the issue is black vs white anymore as much as it is about perceived class and the way we divide ourselves. But clearly there is also a huge nationalism element to it is as well.
Indeed. There are all kinds of dimensions to societal hierarchies and as America becomes more diverse it gives politicians new opportunities to exploit such pre-existing hierarchies and fragment the voter base.
I think you are missing the revenge aspect. A lot of this is "payback" against the Left for perceived (some real, some not) social and legal harms against the Right over the past few decades.
How do we address the revenge-whataboutism, though? It feels like half the articles about Trump defying court orders or selling meme coins have "but what about Biden's student loan forgiveness? What about Hunter Biden?" comments in the comment section, with an embedded assumption that turnabout is fairplay no matter the disparity in intensity. It's been really baffling to see so many people who don't want to engage with the concept of scale at all.
1) A lot of Rightists, especially the very-online, are so far down the revenge-hole that arguments and reason won't persuade them out of it, so it might not be worth engaging with them.
2) Once a norm or a rule becomes allowable to violate, everything that comes afterward is just haggling over price/extent of violation, so best not to violate said norm or rule to begin with. If one has regrets about violating and norm/rule, stop violating it and apologize.
3) Much of what the Right is angry about has more to do with the media than with the Democratic Party itself. The Right believes (not unreasonably) the Left's cultural march through the institutions, especially the media and academia, means that the Right can't ever get a fair hearing and gets treated differently than the Left and the Democratic Party in the public's eye. Although now, because of the Internet, legacy media is the least relevant and least powerful it has ever been, so I am not sure legacy media treating Republicans the same way it treats Democrats would actually calm the Right.
4) Similarly, another thing that the Right is angry about is what various Leftists publicly say they want to do rather than what the Democratic Party has actually done. A concrete example is that for decades, various Leftists have been threatening to take away tax-exemption from churches and accreditation from religious universities. None of these threats have actually been acted upon, but many churches and universities take these threats seriously and make long-term plans accordingly.
5) As for immigration, my suggestion is that Democrats actually enforce immigration law and keep in mind most people don't like criminals. If Keir Starmer and Mark Carney can do it, so can the Democratic Party.
6) Don't attack systemic procedures and checks on power (the Supreme Court, the filibuster, bicameralism, separation of powers) when in power only to hide behind them and even celebrate them when out of power.
7) Much if not all this whataboutism is downstream from competing lifestyle differences between the Left and Right. Developing a broad commitment to pluralism should be the goal rather than winning the unwinnable lifestyle war.
To maybe address your point. I honestly I think the “revenge what aboutism” can’t be solved until Trump is fully off the stage. Given is complete lack of shame and repugnant character, the best case for getting out of this mess his poll numbers dropping.
It’s why as terrible as this sounds, I think for the sake of the Republic we need a recession.
I think the key for me is this “whataboutism” is mostly a crock and was never on the level. All an extremely transparent attempt to whitewash Trump’s blatant criminality and authoritarianism.
To me it’s a version of “he was no angel” retorts that would come out after a particularly heinous police shooting. An extremely lame and transparent attempt to justify particularly appalling behavior.
I don't think the Senate GOP has enough Senators to do that. My guess is Collins, Murkowski, Cocaine Mitch, and Grassley would all vote no, which does not give the GOP a majority.
That’s kind of the funny part here. Nothing in this bill actually matters because the Senate is going to toss it into the garbage next to the used Kleenex and write their own bill. It’s just due to a quirk of the Constitution that revenue/spending bills have to originate in the House so they have to write something to start with even though they all know it’s DOA in the other chamber.
"The bill contains an expansion of the Child Tax Credit that costs $229.5 billion but is structured so as to provide no benefits for low-income families — including low-income families with working parents and earned income."
Per the link Matt included the current structure is that you have to be working and earn at least 29k annually to earn the full credit, you start earning a partial credit at 2.5k. And you are still eligible until you make past 400k. So if that structure isn’t changed while the benefit is expanded, it would continue to be regressive. So maybe Matt’s words were a little off as it seems like we don’t know the structure yet, this is based on projecting out proposed changes under the current structure.
Note that 29k annually appears to be the minimum amount for a couple married filing jointly to file a tax return. Presumably below that number you're talking about people who don't pay federal income taxes.
There is the class just above Medicaid who faces very serious costs that those one step below face. A guy running his own drywall business is struggling to afford healthcare and his rival is u documented and pays nothing. That’s a problem in terms of persuadable voters .
I applaud Newsom for doing the politically palatable thing even as I am unsure if this move is optimal economically setting aside all humanitarian concerns.
If you removed all the undocumented, the wage level would rise and the dry wall business owner would have to pay people more to work for him unless he is a solo operator. So assuming he employs people, the undocumented subsidize his business and he pays some of that back as health insurance.
Also the reporting on this says that spending turned out to be higher than anticipated. Which means either there is extreme fraud or the true need was underestimated. If we assume the latter, then since these people are still around and they are using healthcare, they are simply going to use ER care and we are all paying for it indirectly via private sector premiums. The cost is simply shifted from the government balance sheet to the private sector.
In many cases people won’t seek treatment and when they get to the ED the cancer will be widespread and they will be referred to hospice. Or they will have a disabling injury that could be treated but will end up at home in care of their family as they aren’t eligible for disability.
Isn't hospice care one of the most expensive forms of care? I am no health expert but even if we all somehow agree that the level of suffering among the undocumented should rise, I am not sure it saves us money.
Fair enough, I remember back in the Obamacare days when FL representative Alan Grayson said that the GOP healthcare plan was "die quickly" and there was outrage from all sides.
Is free healthcare for undocumented migrants a normal thing in other countries? It seems pretty hard to justify. I get the compassionate grounds but it feels abnormal.
When I lived in China it was much worse. If you had official residency in a city, you got nearly free healthcare there. If you moved from the countryside and sought care, you paid full price. And acquiring city residency was an expensive, multi-year process.
> As I’ve said before, lots of right-of-center people have noticed that Trump is sloppy and ignorant when it comes to trade policy, but they should wake up to the fact that it’s not just trade.
I can easily edit profanity out of an excerpt when I post it with a link. No problem. But I can't edit profanity out of a shitty headline. And so I don't post excerpts from columns with shitty headlines. I'd appreciate it if you'd keep your headlines G rated.
Grandma & Grandpa die. Auntie Suzie can’t get dialysis. The kids don’t get breakfast or lunch at school so they fall asleep in class. The US Dollar shrinks more and to save paper they will be cut in half.
Well, you know, maybe the children will have two square meals instead of three meals. And everything happens for a reason, including lack of kidney function - who are we to question God's will? Also, more dollars out in the world sounds good, that's more America! And we could use a larger denomination bill with a new face on it, too.
I’ve said it before and I’ll keep saying it - when talking about federal budget, we should never use the words “trillion” or “million”, but just “$1,000 billion” and “$.001 billion”. (Just like we should always use decimals and never fractions.)
"...I’ve said it before and I’ll keep saying it ...."
Kenny, please -- you've already told us 0.00000001 billion times!
https://x.com/DOGE/status/1922092567526834397
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Contract Update!
Since Friday, agencies terminated 242 wasteful contracts with a ceiling value of $646M and savings of $200M, including a $118k USDA contract for the “Democratic Republic of Congo youth climate corps coordinator”, and a $23.5k USAID contract for the “garden landscaping and pool services at official mission director’s residence” of South Africa.
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Contract Update!
Since Friday, agencies terminated 242 wasteful contracts with a ceiling value of $0.646 billion and savings of $0.2 billion, including a $0.000118 billion USDA contract for the “Democratic Republic of Congo youth climate corps coordinator”, and a $0.0000235 billion USAID contract for the “garden landscaping and pool services at official mission director’s residence” of South Africa.
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Yeah, checks out, definitely makes it clearer what's going on here (I am, to be clear, not at all sarcastic).
These $0.646 billion in savings will help us offset our $6,200 billion in additional expenditures over the next 10 years.
The odds of those being real "savings" rounds to roughly zero. I'm shocked at this point anyone takes their proclamations seriously.
I think my favorite way to express numbers like this is in per citizen units, e.g. “this will add $20,000 to the debt owed by each and every US citizen” or whatever
I'd probably also standardize on either "stock" or "flow" as well. $20k of debt vs. $20k annualized cash flow per citizen are very different and people confuse them frequently. Federal budget in particular seems bad at this as numbers are usually quoted over a time-frame so not really either.
The current federal debt is around $350,000 per working taxpayer, already essentially unpayable. We're basically in a game of musical chairs with each successive administration as to who gets blamed when the music stops. Until then it's a spending party in DC.
That's a mortgage. It's not unpayable, but it takes time and it takes actually paying it down, not continuing to increase it.
Unlike a mortgage though, we aren't required to pay it down within a specific 30 year period. It's totally fine if it takes centuries, and it doesn't actually have to reach 0 at any specific moment - just be trustworthy that every bit of it eventually gets paid.
It's difficult, with our country's aging population to both grow the economy and pay down the "mortgage", meanwhile paying a trillion in interest every year (about $3K per taxpayer?). However, you're right, there might be hope. Social Security and Medicare are big chunks of the debt. Tax all income above the current top SS tier at 7 percent and put a third or so of SS into the stock market (it's been all T-bills since inception, not very smart). Medicare, suck it up up and make it Medicare for All and drive pricing down (eliminate Obamacare, Medicaid, most private insurance, auto and workman's comp medical, and thousands of state and county healthcare programs, not to mention reducing HR departments in industry).
The problem is, people predicted calamity so many times in the past for debt levels that now seem quite modest in retrospect, and nothing happened. Also conservatives would lament high debt levels and then go on tax-cutting sprees that were never matched by spending cuts, thus increasing deficits and debt, and only complaining about debt when liberals were in charge. Liberals would try to get deficits down without spending cuts, but could never muster the will to get tax increases sufficient close the deficit (at least not since Clinton, and that might have been business cycle good luck). Debt keeps rising, no one really gets punished for it, so it keeps rising.
The magic number is 130 percent (of GDP I think)... we're at 122 percent after Biden (et al since Clinton). At 130 percent, historically, troubles traditionally infiltrate the economy. But hey Japan has managed to kick that can down the road for quite awhile so who knows?
the magic number is a glorified typo, see e.g. https://www.latimes.com/business/la-xpm-2013-apr-16-la-fi-mo-debt-excel-error-20130416-story.html
Time for the Democrats to unleash the power* of scientific notation!
*Of 10
For some historical/cultural context on people being terrible about writing down really big numbers
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_and_short_scales
“When you’re doing pure political position-taking, it’s smart to just say popular stuff. But when you’re actually governing, you need to try to do things that make sense.”
Remember what PJ O’Rourke said? “The Republicans are the party that says government doesn't work and then they get elected and prove it.”
Apparently, Mike Johnson is now proving it.
When "the government can't do anything right" is a major part of your sales pitch, it's in your interest to make sure the government does things badly.
I think the fact we have a major party that positions itself as opposed to government as a concept (albeit while favoring plenty of government overreach in practice) is underrated as an explanation for American governmental dysfunction.
Don't forget an extremely broad preemption of state AI regulation -- banning them from enforcing AI regulation of any kind for *ten years*, including existing law -- while defending this with a vague "of course we need safeguards, but they should be federal" and then not proposing any federal safeguards! (Luckily, the parliamentarians will probably block them from doing this in a budget reconciliation bill, but IMO this portends very bad things for AI policy.)
First... I thought they were all about states rights?!
Joking aside though, this seems utterly insane to me considering how AI has been used to ruin people's lives, reputation and just seems like a poorly written law. People have been using AI to mimic voices, create AI generated porn, etc. This seems like a poorly thought-out inclusion for no reason.
Additionally, like you said it shouldn't be included in a reconciliation bill at all. But these people aren't exactly known for following the rules.
I don't think that you'd need to use AI regulation specifically to stop people from defrauding people or making revenge porn of them. And the horse is already out of the barn there. My understanding of "AI regulation" is that it's about what you are and aren't allowed to do in terms of developing frontier models.
Yeah if it is only about developing frontier models I don't necessarily care as long as they give protections around the data being absorbed or used to create these new models. However, the way they wrote the text seems nebulous at best to me, doesn't protect people, shouldn't be part of the reconciliation bill at all, and finally to say for 10 years they won't regulate seems short sighted.
Right, I think it would still be illegal in some states to disseminate sexual deepfakes but they can’t impose liability on models or make them attach digital provenance.
100% agreed, but I have an issue with models being able to do certain things if they are in fact used to support an illegal activity, or people of all age groups have access to them. The language they used around it seems somewhat nebulous to me.
Well I think we can trust Ted Cruz and Senate Republicans to pass some sensible regulation. *eyeroll*
There are tons of AI bills being proposed at the state level; some of them are about fraud, others are about non-consensual deepfakes, lots are about regulating the use of AI in e.g. hiring or healthcare, and a handful are about developing frontier models.
Some kind of preemption for all of these probably makes sense; it's common for Congress to set floors and ceilings for state regulation so companies can do more interstate business. If there were a bill that said, "You can't require algorithmic impact statements, you can't restrict the use of AI in such-and-such cases, you can't make AI companies liable for such-and-such, but also here are some basic requirements for frontier model risk assessment and reporting and security," that would probably be great, depending on the details. What we have instead is a blanket ban on AI policymaking with no proposed federal alternative.
The bill language around this is probably unconstitutional. In Murphy vs NCAA in 2018, the Supreme Court said that the federal government cannot regulate state lawmaking. What Republicans are trying to do here with AI regulation seems very similar, so would imagine it would also get struck down.
Ok but state-level regulation of AI is bad, actually. Patch-work regulations slow down innovation, which is bad for a lot of reasons, especially including that it sets us back relative to foreign adversaries.
I think some state AI bills are good, others are bad, a ton of conflicting ones would indeed be quite bad, and also blanket preempting them for 10 years with no realistic shot at a federal alternative is even worse.
As someone who works with health care companies trying to scale nationally, I can’t imagine the mess 50 state AI regulations would create.
I’m looking forward to The Free Press’s detailed breakdown of this bill.
In an entertainment sense of "looking forward?" I'm curious what your expectations are.
The joke is that they will not mention this, at all, because it makes Trump and MAGA look ridiculous and The Free Press does not want Trump or MAGA to be seen as ridiculous.
I didn't realize The Free Press was so beholden to them. :( Don't they claim to be centrists?
Take a look at the comments section on any of their articles and it immediately becomes clear who their audience is.
Their stance has gotten more obsequious (and thus more incoherent).
IMO the key to understanding the GOP/GOP voter mindset on Medicaid and other government benefits for the poor is that they view being poor as a moral failing and using tax dollars to help them out is just enabling that. To them if you’re poor it’s because you’re lazy or made bad decisions in life. If you talk to GOP voters and mention that poor people might lose Medicaid coverage they’ll just tell you something along the lines of ‘good, then that means they have to work to get health insurance and earn money for food just like the rest of us’.
The problem with that is they never consider themselves poor or bad people. So, when these types of things affect them personally, they all seem to have a shocked Pikachu face.
Leopards Eating People’s Faces Party
If someone supports Trump they are at least a somewhat transgressive person.
Right - I had a very interesting discussion I’ve with someone like that. I said, “Anyone with an IQ below 70 gets SSI and typically ends up in some group home type situation. Do you think that’s good?” The answer was, “Of course.” So then I said, “what about 71? Does that suddenly mean you’re able to hold down a job that comes with healthcare and earns enough to eat?” “Well…no.”
I think both sides really have a problem with the 5% of the population that’s juuust this side of a group home.
People everywhere do not like to accept that complex and nuanced problems need more than simple answers and its frustrating because we live in an environment where people also want immediate gratification and to feel right and move on. It makes it very tough to make good policy.
The thing is if you walk people through it makes sense to them.
I 100% agree with you. The current media environment dunks on people that do that though, or people get their feelings hurt when they have to learn something new or when they feel stupid, they get defensive. People like hot takes and quick action where they can then move on with their lives. Governing in real life is hard work...
If Trump got really Hawley-pilled and decided to get rid of the Medicaid cuts, increase top tax rates, get rid of carried interest deduction, etc., and do real economic populism + right wing culture war stuff, he (or his successor) would be on course towards Putin/Orban/Erdogan/Modi/FDR levels of political domination and entrenchment, right? So in that context… are we glad this budget sucks?
None of that will happen though because 80%+ of the GOP conference in the Senate is not so-pilled and they’re the ones who will be writing the actual bill.
Yes, except I would replace "real economic populism" with "real economic results", which may or may not involve doing populist things.
except he’s term limited
TL;DR: the GOP screws over poor and working class people, the sun is hot, water is wet, etc.
But it’s perfectly understandable when working class voters continue to support the GOP, because those goddamn liberals are so condescending and elitist, and they let the country be overrun by illegal immigrants who get taxpayer-funded sex change surgery.
As an aside, I’m a bit surprised that Matt didn’t even mention the proposed NIH cuts, but I suppose that’s small potatoes compared with the rest of this fustercluck.
What is the logic of Republicans being against nuclear energy?
Re: you last point - Republicans love extractive energy and hate the environment. I don't think this even a reductive gloss as this point, I just think it's a factually accurate claim about the party.
Nuclear is extractive though. You have to mine uranium. But I get what you're saying.
The insanity of specifically Anglophone countries on climate change is directly related to how powerful people within the extractive industry are.
Look at the UK, Australia, the US, and Canada. Putting aside Canada, all of them have strong conservative media - hell, the Murdoch's own most Aussie newspapers.
But in the UK, Boris Johnson was to the left of many Democrat's on climate change, Canada's basically fine outside of the one province where they extract a lot and those people have money and political power, the Aussie's have issues but it's mostly just mining and the center-right voters even supported pro-climate mitigation independents, and the US is the US.
The true weirdness of American politics come from the fact that a lot of basically, randoms got extremely rich in the early 20th century due to finding stuff in the ground and some of those randoms were insane on politics.
They keep claiming they are pro energy, while literally hating on any form of energy that isn't oil or gas...
It's only real energy if it makes libs cry. Doesn't matter if it also fucks the planet and their own grandchildren.
No they like coal too
Oil and gas donors don't like nuclear. Simple as that.
For some reason "the oilman" forms a part of conservative mythos that goes above and beyond the billions they spend on elections.
Republicans don’t really think climate change is a hoax, they just want global warming to succeed and they’re afraid nuclear power will lower the amount of CO2 going into the atmosphere.
Waging war on the poor captures the essence of the Trump program.
In Republicans’ view poor Americans do not deserve health care but millionaires should continue to receive a massive tax cut. After all the upkeep on their yachts is expensive….
I mean, if Democrats can’t make hay of this…
They almost certainly will. This kind of thing is the bread-and-butter of their opposition to Republicans. It fits extremely well with the public’s pre-existing, enduring view of the parties and as such it will be highly effective.
Recall the original TCJA in 2017. Democrats messaged and fought against that bill extremely well regardless of the fact that it passed. Its passage coincided with the lowest approval Trump has ever had, and the public was so against it that they believed they would be getting a tax increase out of it despite the fact that most taxpayers did see cuts (though obviously very small for people at the bottom end of the income distribution).
The more news coverage these tax and spending cut bills get, the worse things will get for Republicans.
These poisonous policies only gets passed because too many people vote based on cultural issues, and the Dems allow them to by not capturing the centre ground on these issues. Every sign about defunding the police makes it easier for Republicans to win power and throw people off health care.
I agree.
Zach, as you probably know, the Trump tax cuts in 2017 overwhelmingly benefited the top 0.1% of taxpayers. Yes, the top 0.1%. Studies showed that the average family received a benefit of about $900...which was completely offset by the higher prices they had to pay to buy stuff because of ....Trump's tariffs. I think the same thing will happen this time.
Voters figured out that the 2017 tax cuts did not help them. The tax cuts were so unpopular that Republicans did not campaign on them, at all, in 2018 or 2020.
The change in the withholding and exemptions also probably burnt a lot of people who were used to getting refunds and/or breaking close to even and then suddenly owed a large tax bill in 2018. That could certainly feel like a "tax increase" if you're not used to owing and appearingly the same amount is coming out of your wages... and the correction is to withhold *more* taxes from your wages which is definitely not feeling like a tax cut despite what the end of year rate gets to.
I remember reading at the time this was by design by Paul Ryan to reduce the refunds people were getting and add some more "pain" into EOY filings so that people would become more supportive of tax cuts and "simplifications" like flat tax/deduction/credit reductions in particular (which usually end up being highly regressive). When people are getting large refund checks tax filing season is like a "bonus" (while yes, for many filers that's simply an interest free loan repayment from over-withholding). Owing money, especially unexpectedly, tends to bring out one's inner Republican ;p
Very good point. That was diabolical of Paul Ryan. He was a false deficit hawk, preaching the need to cut social spending….and taxes.
Yeah I've never understood the logic of "we're in a deficit emergency so let's... cut taxes"?? That would never make much sense in any other budgetary situation in business or personal finances to reduce your income/revenue if you're already underwater. The solution is usually some combination of cutting spending/increasing income/revenue.
Of course the government budget is not your "kitchen table" budget fo rmany reasons, but still, If it's a true fiscal emergency then your first move will hardly be to cut revenue, maybe after you get some semblance of balance you can explore that but not as part of a supposed "emergency". Of course, if you use "Republican math" then tax cuts boost economic activity which theoretically makes up for the reduced flat revenue but that's a lot of "if's" if you're in a supposed emergency to rely on. The 2017 TCJA as I recall did not produce the magical revenue increases because the tax cut at that point was unnecessary stimulus on an economy already running at full steam. Businesses and wealthy just pocketed the savings and it didn't result in additional economic activity/tax activity that "Republican math" calculated into their projections. Especially if you're just moving marginal rates a few percentage points, the benchmark they've used from the Reagan era cuts were big double digit cuts from like top rate 75% to 35%. Of course that's going to have a much larger macro-economic effect then going from 35% to 32%. And still - the Reagan tax cuts blew up the deficit anyway!
Reading this analysis of the House budget puts me in mind of this essay from Will Wilkinson https://modelcitizen.substack.com/p/the-density-divide-and-the-southernification
I saw Jamelle Bouie referenced this essay in a recent Blsky tweet as well. And I think it's apt.
I sort of think we underestimate how much of a "Deep South" mindset has taken over the GOP and why Trump's appeal may be more understandable in this context. In fact, I may even call it a Confederate mindset. No that doesn't mean I think the GOP wants to reintroduce slavery. And no that doesn't mean I think we've made no racial progress in the last 30 years, let alone 150 years.
But I think there is a kind of "Lost Cause" mindset that has seeped into large parts of the American public. And it gets to that essay I linked to; in many ways the various distinctions that used to mark large parts of non urban America and the cultural of a lot of these places is basically just "deep south". The example Will gives is "Larry the Cable Guy". Listen to him talk and you'd think he's from some part of Tennessee or Georgia when in fact he's from Nebraska.
And I think this ends up bleeding into political beliefs. There is a very particular kind of mindset that developed whereby working class Southerners pre 1960s were willing to defend (often times violently) a political system that demonstrably made them worse off if it meant actively punishing those members of society deemed beneath them. And I don't think it's a mistake that the Deep South was essentially an Authoritarian dictatorship from 1877 to 1965*.
Look I don't want to take this analysis too far. I'm pretty sure if I spoke to a Trump fan with tons of flags all over his truck and asked if he wants a dictator he'd say "heck no! I voted for Trump because he's gonna stop those leftists from bringing a communist dictatory ship" (or something to that effect). And I'm also aware that in a nation of 330 million people there is going to be a wide variety of reasons of why anyone votes the way they do and that there are some perfectly banal (and if I'm being really charitable, understandable) reasons why someone voted for Trump.
But it's hard for me to look at this budget and not think "The cruelty is the point". Or to piggyback off my post, an attempt to actively harm those members of society deemed unworthy of dignity and respect.
For those of you who think I'm going too far with this. Look at all of Trump's executive orders, look at the Gestapo tactics with green card holders, look at his general behavior. And then look at the extremely muted GOP reaction. And look at this budget. Am I taking this too far?
The reality is that the "civil rights" frame in which Dems view the world has run its course because post 1965, immigration from other parts of the world reduced the salience of the black-white civil rights dichotomy. Now the GOP is increasingly winning large fractions of Asian and Latin American voters who either do not care about the ADOS+civil rights struggle in the USA or are actively hostile to it. Even increasingly large fractions of younger black Americans do not view the world from the civil rights prism of the commentariat that dominates the Dem party. The Dem project of folding in Asians and Hispanics into some kind of broad civil rights struggle through which black Americans can finally get justice seems to have failed. I think we need to reckon with this and figure out what genuine liberals who are massively outnumbered in the general population can do going forward.
I 100% agree with you. I have come to accept that there is a not insignificant portion of the population who is willing to be worse off as long as it means that they have a level of social power, or their hierarchy places them above people in society that they don't like or see as below them. Heck, they are willing to see themselves also be worse off if it means others may suffer more.
I think it was LBJ who was once quoted as saying - "If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you."
Again, I don't think the issue is black vs white anymore as much as it is about perceived class and the way we divide ourselves. But clearly there is also a huge nationalism element to it is as well.
Indeed. There are all kinds of dimensions to societal hierarchies and as America becomes more diverse it gives politicians new opportunities to exploit such pre-existing hierarchies and fragment the voter base.
I think you are missing the revenge aspect. A lot of this is "payback" against the Left for perceived (some real, some not) social and legal harms against the Right over the past few decades.
https://x.com/politicalmath/status/1912852839082184785
How do we address the revenge-whataboutism, though? It feels like half the articles about Trump defying court orders or selling meme coins have "but what about Biden's student loan forgiveness? What about Hunter Biden?" comments in the comment section, with an embedded assumption that turnabout is fairplay no matter the disparity in intensity. It's been really baffling to see so many people who don't want to engage with the concept of scale at all.
A few things:
1) A lot of Rightists, especially the very-online, are so far down the revenge-hole that arguments and reason won't persuade them out of it, so it might not be worth engaging with them.
2) Once a norm or a rule becomes allowable to violate, everything that comes afterward is just haggling over price/extent of violation, so best not to violate said norm or rule to begin with. If one has regrets about violating and norm/rule, stop violating it and apologize.
3) Much of what the Right is angry about has more to do with the media than with the Democratic Party itself. The Right believes (not unreasonably) the Left's cultural march through the institutions, especially the media and academia, means that the Right can't ever get a fair hearing and gets treated differently than the Left and the Democratic Party in the public's eye. Although now, because of the Internet, legacy media is the least relevant and least powerful it has ever been, so I am not sure legacy media treating Republicans the same way it treats Democrats would actually calm the Right.
4) Similarly, another thing that the Right is angry about is what various Leftists publicly say they want to do rather than what the Democratic Party has actually done. A concrete example is that for decades, various Leftists have been threatening to take away tax-exemption from churches and accreditation from religious universities. None of these threats have actually been acted upon, but many churches and universities take these threats seriously and make long-term plans accordingly.
5) As for immigration, my suggestion is that Democrats actually enforce immigration law and keep in mind most people don't like criminals. If Keir Starmer and Mark Carney can do it, so can the Democratic Party.
6) Don't attack systemic procedures and checks on power (the Supreme Court, the filibuster, bicameralism, separation of powers) when in power only to hide behind them and even celebrate them when out of power.
7) Much if not all this whataboutism is downstream from competing lifestyle differences between the Left and Right. Developing a broad commitment to pluralism should be the goal rather than winning the unwinnable lifestyle war.
There’s a decent amount I agree with here but I’ll just say I’m getting to the point of asking if Kier Starmer’s middle name is Neville.
If it keeps Nigel Farage out of 10 Downing Street....
Sometimes public opinion just isn't on your side.
To maybe address your point. I honestly I think the “revenge what aboutism” can’t be solved until Trump is fully off the stage. Given is complete lack of shame and repugnant character, the best case for getting out of this mess his poll numbers dropping.
It’s why as terrible as this sounds, I think for the sake of the Republic we need a recession.
I think the key for me is this “whataboutism” is mostly a crock and was never on the level. All an extremely transparent attempt to whitewash Trump’s blatant criminality and authoritarianism.
To me it’s a version of “he was no angel” retorts that would come out after a particularly heinous police shooting. An extremely lame and transparent attempt to justify particularly appalling behavior.
Lots of seemingly Byrd rule ineligible stuff in there…
I’m wondering if the GOP just stuffs the parliamentarian into a locker
I don't think the Senate GOP has enough Senators to do that. My guess is Collins, Murkowski, Cocaine Mitch, and Grassley would all vote no, which does not give the GOP a majority.
That’s kind of the funny part here. Nothing in this bill actually matters because the Senate is going to toss it into the garbage next to the used Kleenex and write their own bill. It’s just due to a quirk of the Constitution that revenue/spending bills have to originate in the House so they have to write something to start with even though they all know it’s DOA in the other chamber.
So is there actually little to no point in us talking about this bill?
It will be great for Democratic attack ads.
There absolutely is since it’s a statement of beliefs and priorities for House Rs and a bunch of them are going to vote for it.
It’s not a quirk (spending bills originating in the House), it actually would make sense if the House were anything like normal.
"The bill contains an expansion of the Child Tax Credit that costs $229.5 billion but is structured so as to provide no benefits for low-income families — including low-income families with working parents and earned income."
How do you even write a policy that does this?
Probably it doesn't give you a credit only a tax deduction would be my guess. So if you don't pay taxes already you get no extra money
Per the link Matt included the current structure is that you have to be working and earn at least 29k annually to earn the full credit, you start earning a partial credit at 2.5k. And you are still eligible until you make past 400k. So if that structure isn’t changed while the benefit is expanded, it would continue to be regressive. So maybe Matt’s words were a little off as it seems like we don’t know the structure yet, this is based on projecting out proposed changes under the current structure.
Note that 29k annually appears to be the minimum amount for a couple married filing jointly to file a tax return. Presumably below that number you're talking about people who don't pay federal income taxes.
https://www.irs.gov/individuals/check-if-you-need-to-file-a-tax-return
Also I'm not sure you can call the policy regressive in view of the phase-out. "Middle-weighted," maybe?
One thing to keep in mind in all this:
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-05-14/newsom-walks-back-free-healthcare-for-undocumented-immigrants
There is the class just above Medicaid who faces very serious costs that those one step below face. A guy running his own drywall business is struggling to afford healthcare and his rival is u documented and pays nothing. That’s a problem in terms of persuadable voters .
I applaud Newsom for doing the politically palatable thing even as I am unsure if this move is optimal economically setting aside all humanitarian concerns.
If you removed all the undocumented, the wage level would rise and the dry wall business owner would have to pay people more to work for him unless he is a solo operator. So assuming he employs people, the undocumented subsidize his business and he pays some of that back as health insurance.
Also the reporting on this says that spending turned out to be higher than anticipated. Which means either there is extreme fraud or the true need was underestimated. If we assume the latter, then since these people are still around and they are using healthcare, they are simply going to use ER care and we are all paying for it indirectly via private sector premiums. The cost is simply shifted from the government balance sheet to the private sector.
In many cases people won’t seek treatment and when they get to the ED the cancer will be widespread and they will be referred to hospice. Or they will have a disabling injury that could be treated but will end up at home in care of their family as they aren’t eligible for disability.
Isn't hospice care one of the most expensive forms of care? I am no health expert but even if we all somehow agree that the level of suffering among the undocumented should rise, I am not sure it saves us money.
Not at all:
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8550821/
With hospice it’s all palliative care which is much cheaper than heroic (but futile) inpatient care with scans and surgery and chemo and biopsies etc.
"With hospice it’s all palliative care ...."
But it's okay -- they use the special, Republican-approved fentanyl, not the bad, smuggled-from-Canada-in-the-maple-syrup fentanyl.
Fair enough, I remember back in the Obamacare days when FL representative Alan Grayson said that the GOP healthcare plan was "die quickly" and there was outrage from all sides.
Is free healthcare for undocumented migrants a normal thing in other countries? It seems pretty hard to justify. I get the compassionate grounds but it feels abnormal.
When I lived in China it was much worse. If you had official residency in a city, you got nearly free healthcare there. If you moved from the countryside and sought care, you paid full price. And acquiring city residency was an expensive, multi-year process.
> As I’ve said before, lots of right-of-center people have noticed that Trump is sloppy and ignorant when it comes to trade policy, but they should wake up to the fact that it’s not just trade.
It's not just Trump, either.
The bond market freaked out a little bit over Trump's tariffs. I wonder if it will freak out over this bill?
It's hard to freak out when this isn't anywhere close to a bill that will get voted on or pass either chamber.
Hey Matt.
I can easily edit profanity out of an excerpt when I post it with a link. No problem. But I can't edit profanity out of a shitty headline. And so I don't post excerpts from columns with shitty headlines. I'd appreciate it if you'd keep your headlines G rated.
Thanks for your consideration.
Grandma & Grandpa die. Auntie Suzie can’t get dialysis. The kids don’t get breakfast or lunch at school so they fall asleep in class. The US Dollar shrinks more and to save paper they will be cut in half.
Well, you know, maybe the children will have two square meals instead of three meals. And everything happens for a reason, including lack of kidney function - who are we to question God's will? Also, more dollars out in the world sounds good, that's more America! And we could use a larger denomination bill with a new face on it, too.