One man’s opinion: Trump’s Big Beautiful Bust

Former U S House Speaker Kevin McCarthy R-CA won that position as the th House Speaker on the th ballot during January This was after House Republicans won a narrow majority during President Joe Biden s midterm elections McCarthy a well-regarded House member since and solid fundraising event from California made a fatal concession in cobbling his majority together by allowing a change in House rules that any one dissatisfied member of the body could move to Vacate the Office of Speaker opening a new contest for the job When the body has members keeping everybody happy is no easy task While wrangling over raising the U S debt ceiling again in McCarthy had to make concessions to House Democrats to put together a passing vote on the House floor GOP budget hawks pounced and by October of McCarthy was out as Speaker with the third shortest tenure in U S history It s telling that President Donald Trump demanded a substantial increase in the current U S debt ceiling before even beginning discussions about his Big Beautiful Budget Bill Unfortunately for him and the Trump agenda did not occur While running on fiscal conservatism DOGE and shrinking the size of the federal governing body the Big Beautiful Bill a budget by continuing resolution does not truly do that Yes there are massive grant reductions spending cuts and federal ruling body layoffs but those are offset by deep and permanent tax cuts a shrinking of Medicare rolls and our social safety net substantial cuts in therapeutic research and R D spending as well as specific ideologically-driven budget hikes such as -billion move for Immigration Adjustment and Perimeter Safeguard The great Golden Dome Space Shield is not even a part of this act I am not here to debate the merits of the bill more its structure and the process After the departure of McCarthy House and Senate Republicans agreed that the American people and even their own colleagues deserved more budget transparency To return to fiscal sanity the budget should be divided up into large segments such as healthcare national defense spending discretionary domestic spending etc This would better allow the committee structures on the Hill to scrutinize and review existing efficiencies and waste as well as perhaps reduce the nearly automatic annual increases in agency spending which tend to exceed inflation That also didn t happen Current House Speaker Mike Johnson a five-term incumbent from Louisiana was elected to succeed McCarthy in part based on an agenda of latest up the massive federal budget into chunks and passing those across the program of the calendar and fiscal years versus the seemingly endless mad rush to the cliffs of omnibus Reconciliation Bills or again raising the U S debt ceiling which unfailingly seem to occur at the th hour and just make it to the President s desk before another prospective bond rating downgrade Yet despite the work of DOGE and after passing the U S House with only one vote to spare the Senate version of the Big Beautiful Bill is estimated by the Congressional Budget Office to add an additional trillion in debt trillion total over the next decade to the U S budget It remains challenging to wrap my brain around the concept of trillion but to put that in understandable terms all federal cabinet spending from until the first term of President Ronald Reagan added up to ONE trillion We are now forecast with the current budget to have a deficit of roughly trillion for just the next fiscal year This spending path is not sustainable The Senate bill will likely receive a vote by week s end and on track to meet Trump s agenda and Reconciliation Budget deadline of July th I am certain the D C fireworks budget will be spectacular But the Senate version will need to return to the House due to several substantial revisions and - House members including specific strong and vocal Trump allies are wavering Former First Bro Elon Musk is again population calling the monster reconciliation bill including numerous non-budget items political suicide Perhaps it will be for future White House visits by Musk This President takes his arm twisting and enemies list pretty seriously And with one of the largest budget gaps forecasts in history things are about to get pretty ugly around that one Big Beautiful Bill The post One man s opinion Trump s Big Beautiful Bust appeared first on Rough Draft Atlanta