Trump’s Time Bomb Budget Set in Congress
Tax breaks for people buying gun silencers, ten thousand new ICE agents, and empty stomachs for kids and seniors, loss of healthcare for millions of Americans, won’t make America great Again.
You may have heard by now that the Trump administration’s big beautiful budget bill was passed by the House of Representatives.
It’s a horrible piece of legislation, crafted through sleight of hand, backroom deals, and presidential pressure. Much of the content was crafted in overnight markups at the committee level, a rules committee hearing at 1am the day before 1,100 page text was released, and passed in the wee hours of Thursday by a 215-214 vote.
“When you wake up in the morning, you will realize that you voted to defund planned parenthood and take away health care from 13.7 million Americans and when this country wakes up there will be consequences to pay for this.” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
What the budget bill amounts to is a time bomb set to explode after the 2026 midterms. That’s when the deepest cuts to the social safety net will occur. In the meantime, Republicans will deny cuts to healthcare and food assistance, along with telling constituents that there will be no increase in the national debt, which will explode in 2028, just as Trump is (maybe) leaving office.
The taxpayer deductions for things like an increased personal deduction for over 65 taxpayers (in lieu of not taxing social security benefits), the ability to write off overtime, tips and the interest paid on loans for cars assembled in the US, and an increased child tax credit all expire before the next presidential election.
Cancelling the forecasted spending cuts and keeping the deductions in place would cost $4.8 trillion according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget projections – more than the government spent responding to the Covid pandemic.
Baked into the appropriations covered in the legislation are elements of the MAGA agenda that couldn’t wait.
Sec. 80121(h):
“No court shall have jurisdiction to review any action taken by the Secretary, the EPA Administrator, a State or municipal agency, or any other Federal agency […] to issue a lease, permit, biological opinion, or other approval.”
What it means:
- If the government approves drilling, mining, or development, even illegally, you can’t sue.
- It applies retroactively, killing lawsuits already in progress.
- Tribes, environmental groups, citizens, even states, lose the right to challenge these approvals in court. (h/t altnps.bsky.social)
Killing off a constitutionally based check on power might eventually get stopped in the Supreme Court, but the damage done in the meantime is incalculable.
A set-aside for $1.2 billion in lucrative private-public AI contracts with the Defense Department. It would also effectively bar states from regulating AI.
Tax-free “MAGA” savings accounts for children were renamed “Trump” accounts in the final draft, and a federal requirement that firearm suppressors must be registered was removed. (Can you imagine “Obama” medical savings accounts?)
Then there’s the abortion ban, namely language blocking payments for insurance plans on the ACA exchanges that cover abortion care.
Republicans in the Senate are hopeful that their version of a budget will get passed by July 4th. The reconciliation process caps debate in the Senate at 20 hours per provision, meaning that a Democratic filibuster will be limited in its effectiveness. However, any changes made in the Senate version will have to be approved in the House, which should prove to be more difficult on a second try.
At the New Republic, Timothy Noah says Republicans voting for the budget plan have touched a “third rail” in American politics, namely cutting a program (Medicaid) integral to enough people to endanger reelection chances.
A program that had only four million enrollees in 1966, and 22 million in 1980, today has 71.3 million enrollees—78.5 million if you include CHIP. That’s more than Medicare, which has 68.5 million enrollees. Let me say that again. More people are on Medicaid than on Medicare. And yes, most of these Medicaid enrollees—64 percent—have jobs. (The rest mostly attend school, take care of a family member, or are disabled.)
In a March poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation, a 53 percent majority reported that either they or a family member had received Medicaid coverage; when close friends were added in, that rose to 65 percent. Seventy-seven percent reported a favorable opinion of Medicaid, including 64 percent of Republicans. Among Republicans, only 33 percent favored a federal decrease in Medicaid spending, against 67 percent who wanted the spending level to rise or stay the same. “Medicaid, you gotta be careful,” Steve Bannon warned in February. “Because a lot of MAGAs are on Medicaid, I’m telling you.”
Passage of the Trump budget is not inevitable, provided that citizen opposition in every potential avenue is ongoing. Although the GOP has a 53-47 majority in the Senate, three Senators are already on record opposing aspects of the House legislation. Converting just one Senator could make a big difference.
Likewise, continuing pressure on House members endangers any return vote needed should the Senate make changes. Even MAGAts like Rep. Darrell Issa can be shamed by publicizing the numbers of East County residents negatively impacted by the proposed budget cuts.
It should be noted that, with minor exceptions, this is Trump’s baby. You could even say it’s a budget fit for a king, except that we don’t do kings in the United States. This is just one more reason to join in the (eleven) already announced “No Kings Day” protests on June 14.
Via Indivisible:
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There are a couple of wild cards worth mentioning in regard to the budget process.
First up is an expansion of Middle East conflict. Israel is reportedly ready to attack Iran’s nuclear infrastructure should the US/Iran peace talks flounder. Iran issued a warning today that any attacks would be met with a proportionate response and that the US would be considered behind any attack. The thing is that Israel reportedly lacks the weapons (bunker busters) needed to destroy deeply buried facilities, and Iran’s attempts at direct attacks have been failures, meaning that unorthodox military actions would be an attractive option.
Another concern will be higher interest rates on government issued bonds driven by foreign investor uncertainty over tariffs and the increase in the ratio of government debt to gross national product. One-half percent increase on long term notes could cost the US billions not accounted for in the workups for the budget bill.
If Justice Dept. Can’t Prosecute Trump’s Foes, It Will ‘Shame’ Them, Official Says by Glenn Thrush and Alan Feuer at the New York Times
In recent days, Ed Martin, the self-described “captain” of the Justice Department’s “weaponization” group, made a candid if unsurprising admission: He plans to use his authority to expose and discredit those he believes to be guilty, even if he cannot find sufficient evidence to prosecute them — weaponizing an institution he has been hired to de-weaponize, in the view of critics.
“If they can be charged, we’ll charge them,” Mr. Martin told reporters before stepping down as interim U.S. attorney in Washington. “But if they can’t be charged, we will name them. And we will name them, and in a culture that respects shame, they should be people that are ashamed.”
He added, “That’s the way things work.”
That is not the way things have worked. The cardinal rule of prosecutors is to speak only through evidence and court filings. The department is supposed to abide by the dictum of charging crimes, not people. Naming and shaming is antithetical to its mission of pursuing justice impartially. And Mr. Martin’s statement appears to violate the department’s ethical and procedural rule book, which mandates “fair, evenhanded” investigations to safeguard “the privacy and reputation interests of uncharged” investigative targets.
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White House says food, toxins among reasons for poor U.S. health by Lauren Weber, Fenit Nirappil, Caitlin Gilbert and Amudalat Ajasa at The Washington Post
Several sections of the report offer misleading representations of findings in scientific papers. In a section on childhood exposures to potential hazardous substances, for example, it claims that “virtually every breastmilk sample … tested in America contains some level of persistent organic pollutants.”
A citation next to the claim notes that detecting Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS) in breastmilk does “not indicate that adverse health effects will occur and should not be interpreted as a reason to not breastfeed.”
Many of the points in the environmental exposures, overmedicalization and corporate capture sections similarly overstate or misstate scientific findings. Kennedy has been accused of discussing scientific studies about vaccines this way.
