Friends, there are some great elements to the proposed "Big, Beautiful Bill" that incorporates many of Trump's priorities on taxes and spending. Alas, it leaves me wanting more...or rather less, since I view the spending cuts as totally insufficient. As you know, I'm very concerned about the deficit and the debt, and I appear to be about the only person alive who is! Oh well. That's my cross to bear.
The “Big, Beautiful Bill” May
Backfire
The process of
crafting and passing legislation has often been compared to
sausage-making, insofar as most people enjoy eating sausage, but
virtually no one wants to watch discarded animal parts getting ground
into a paste and stuffed in a tube. The process of proposing,
debating, and passing a federal budget is similar. The results may be
generally agreeable, but the process that creates them can be ugly in
the extreme.
Right
now, the Trump Administration and Republicans in Congress are in the
sausage-making stage of the budget process. Lofty aspirations and
bright ideas are, slowly and inexorably, being ground into a paste
made of compromise and mediocrity. Almost certainly, the final result
will be a budget that does not radically change the shape and extent
of the federal government, from one fiscal year to the next.
Republicans, conservatives, and Trumpers, however, have another
reason to expect a final federal budget that lets them, and the
country, down, and that's because President Trump's initial
budget request
was evasive and inadequate in addressing the most pressing problem
our nation faces: runaway and unsustainable federal spending, out of
line with revenues, and overly reliant on borrowing. And Trump's
initial request will, almost inevitably, be watered down by Congress,
which will, after much horse trading, spend even more than Trump
asked for.
At
first glance, President Trump's proposed budget for fiscal year 2026
looks like a dream-come-true for Republicans and conservatives. It
slashes
non-defense discretionary spending by 23%. When one digs into the
weeds further, though, much of the envisaged savings comes from
eliminating almost all “emergency” expenditures. In other words,
if one assumes that there won't be any natural disasters, fires,
pandemics, or other unforeseen calamities in 2026, then Trump's rosy
forecast might actually come true, but, life being the endless string
of surprise setbacks that it is, these savings are speculative, at
best. In fact, “base discretionary” spending, according to
Trump's initial request, would not decline at all. It would remain
flat.
But, you may be
saying to yourself, even holding federal spending level from one year
to the next is a HUGE accomplishment, no? Bully for Trump! Thanks,
Elon!
Hold
your horses, because the worst news is yet to come. Discretionary
spending, i.e. spending that isn't “automatic” and/or mandated by
previous legislation, represents
only 26%
of the federal budget as a whole. How is this possible? Because big
fiscal commitments like Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and
servicing the national debt are all...separate. They are
“non-discretionary” items that Trump and friends decided not to
mention in their request to Congress. We have no idea how much the
federal government will spend on these mandatory budget lines in the
year ahead, based on Trump's budget plan, but we have plenty of ideas
based on past trends. In short, these expenditures will go up...a
lot!
To
take Medicare as an example, since the year 2000, the growth in
federal spending on health care for seniors has averaged 6.5%
per year.
In no year since 2000 did the GDP grow as much as 6.5%, meaning that,
every single year, the burden of funding Medicare becomes harder and
harder for the nation to bear, and the percentage of the federal
budget that must go towards meeting these obligations goes up, up,
up! The same logic holds for Social Security and Medicaid, meaning
that, since Trump has proposed no major changes to these programs,
overall federal spending on these “non-discretionary” items will
rise significantly in 2026, as it does every year.
But,
you may be saying to yourself, the dastardly Dems keep telling me
that Orange Man Bad wants to cut
Medicaid
to the bone, and he wants every poor person to die in the gutter.
Well, that narrative may have been slightly oversold. The truth is
that Trump and Republicans are proposing reforms to Medicaid that
could reduce its rate of growth (gasp!), but the most important
changes are not supposed to take effect until...2027,
or maybe even 2029
(!), meaning that Congress will have plenty of time to walk them
back.
What,
then, have we learned in the course of this exploration of the
political debate over Trump's “big, beautiful” budget proposal?
The truth is that, by avoiding any immediate or meaningful cuts to
“mandated” spending on so-called “entitlement” programs like
Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, Trump has proposed a budget
that won't significantly reduce spending – and, once Congress is
done mashing it into fiscal sausage, probably won't reduce spending
at all, or might increase it. Meanwhile, Trump and Republicans are
proposing major tax cuts that, by themselves, could add
trillions to the deficit
and the national debt over the next ten years. The upshot, then, is
that, if these tax cuts ever materialize, ordinary Americans like you
and me should enjoy them while we can, because President Trump and
Republicans in Congress won't have altered our unsustainable fiscal
trajectory at all, unless, by “altered”, we mean “made it
marginally worse”.
The
“big, beautiful bill” has many excellent features, and it may –
it should – lead to higher
rates of economic growth.
What it won't do, unfortunately, is change the fact that this is a
country seemingly hell-bent on spending beyond its means, and which
presumably will keep on doing so until its creditors cry out, “No
more!”
Dr.
Nicholas L. Waddy is an Associate Professor of History at SUNY Alfred
and blogs at: www.waddyisright.com.
He appears on the Newsmakers show on WLEA/WYSL.
And here it is at the Olean Times Herald:
https://www.oleantimesherald.com/2025/05/28/the-big-beautiful-bill-could-backfire/
***
In other news, President Trump had a verbal clash with the president of South Africa today in the Oval Office. I feel conflicted on this issue, because I'm thrilled to see any world leader take seriously the plight of the "white man of Africa", who, by and large, was abandoned to his miserable fate, often including persecution and/or murder, decades ago, but on the other hand Trump and Musk are not always accurate in their claims about South Africa, and President Ramaphosa is right that black South Africans face much higher rates of violent crime than whites. The upshot of this dialogue, I suspect, will be that South Africa should feel obligated to dial down its racist policies, and the Trump Administration, sooner or later, will probably strike a deal with South Africa on trade. I hope so, as this outcome would be in the best interests of all concerned.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ce9vvljen0xo
Finally, a pal o' mine wrote this fine article, which argues that the cover-up of Joe Biden's mental (and physical) decline by the Dems and the establishment was a major scandal. I agree. The truth is that, if Joe Biden had (prudently) avoided a debate with Trump, he might still be president as we speak. That's a scary thought!
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/us/comment/2025/05/21/joe-biden-cognitive-decline-biggest-scandal-modern-history/
