Donald Trump is riding high; all his cabinet nominations may be confirmed ; corporate CEOs, relishing tax cuts, deregulation and perhaps exemptions from tariffs, are genuflecting at Mira-a-Lago; the Republican party now is the Trump party and foreign leaders are accepting the reality of his return.
With the cowardly capitulation of the Disney Co. on his defamation suit against ABC, Trump has the media intimidated. The resistance to Trump 2.0, much more threatening than the first time, is in disarray. Still there are storm clouds. The current threat of a government shutdown, engineered by Trump and Elon Musk, who acts like a co-President, is a harbinger. "This is the way it's going to be next year," Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell dourly noted. There are two related elements to Republicans' fiscal agenda, both ill-considered and likely to fail.. The budget/economic agenda of massive tax cuts, leaving Medicare and Social Security off the table, while reducing the deficits and imposing huge new tariffs that won't be inflationary. On all counts, it doesn't add up. The other is billionaires Musk/Vivek Ramaswamy's so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) that vows to slash regulations and cut "wasteful" federal spending by $2 trillion. They may achieve some success on regulations. On the spending side, it's blue smoke and mirrors. There clearly are savings and efficiencies in a $7 trillion federal budget. But to do it right will be a slog, something of little interest to the billionaire boys.
Entitlements and interest on the debt account for almost two-thirds of the federal budget. Of the discretionary spending, a big chunk is defense which Republican hawks insist must be increased. There are obvious targets like privatizing the Post Office. But that likely would curb service in rural areas where of Trump voters live.
The Brookings Institution's Elaine Kamarck, who working for Vice President Al Gore, initiated impressive savings and efficiencies, says Musk and Ramaswamy mistakenly approach government like a business: "A corporate CEO can say this division is not profitable enough so let's eliminate it. There are few things in government that can just be eliminated." The most knowledgeable experts on agencies are the bureaucrats that Musk & Co. belittle. "A lot of the things they are talking about will blow up in their face, " Kamarck predicts in an interview. As for Musk-Ramaswamy plan to drain the swamp of worthless federal workers, when Bob Rubin former CEO of Goldman Sachs, was Treasury Secretary, he told me the bureaucrats in that department were every bit as capable as the personnel at Goldman.
John DiIulio a professor at the University of Pennsylvania and former aide in the George W. Bush White House has written that the supposed deep state savings has three flaws: a.) the number of private contractors and consultants on the federal payroll are almost three times larger than fulltime government employes; b.) eliminating every federal worker wud reduce federal spending by less than 5%, and c.) the vast majority of federal bureaucrats work and live outside of Washington.
The fiscal ballgame for congressional Republicans is how they use reconciliation, a budget process that fast tracks legislation and precludes any Senate filibuster. They can use it twice, once as part of the current fiscal year, another for the next fiscal year.
The plan now reportedly is to focus, as early as January, on a border protection/immigration measure that would be an early victory. However, sources say they may also include cuts for Medicaid, the federal health care program for low income and disabled persons. l The bigger challenge will be extending the 2017 tax cuts, at an estimated revenue loss of more than $4 trillion. When the House GOP enacted these cuts, which disproportionately help the affluent, their majority was such they could lose as many as two dozen members and still win. In 2025 House Republicans only can lose two. Some on the right will demand deeper spending cuts while a handful of Republicans from states like New York and California will insist the $10,000 cap on deductions for state and local races be lifted.
The Republicans' biggest enemy, says Pennsylvania's Brendan Boyle the ranking Democrat on the House Budget Committee, "is math. Their promises and rhetoric don't add up." Republicans, who have railed against the deficits under President Biden, will have to rely on gimmicks, to camaflouge massive new red ink: claiming the tax cuts pay for themselves, or that Trump's tariffs will raise much more revenue than experts expect. These gambits will likely be rejected by the Congressional Budget office ,headed by a straight-shooting conservative. Trump & Co would have no reservations about ignoring the budget procedures but they have to worry a few conservatives might.
As these turbulent political waters approach, remember on every major spending bill in this Congress House Republicans tried to reach a consensus, failed and had to turn to Democrats to provide the votes for passage. That will give Hakeem Jeffries & Co, a lot of leverage and will drive Trump crazy.
The GOP'S inability (or unwillingness) to actually govern on behalf of ALL citizens does make their slim majority quite problematic. Guess we will,know where we truly are if and when GOP reps start falling out of windows like in Putin's world!
Musk and Ramaswamy will quickly grow bored and slither back to their union-busting ways. With them slinked away, who decides who's on the unemployment lines.
Moreover, the notion that the government will save mountains of money by eliminating federal jobs is largely a fallacy. The reason is that the government must pay each fired worker unemployment compensation. Maybe the DOGE ("woke")
boys will come clean about the net savings from firing people. And what an emotional toll for those who get laid off.
The more I write here, my anger grows until now I need a hot shower!
The GOP'S inability (or unwillingness) to actually govern on behalf of ALL citizens does make their slim majority quite problematic. Guess we will,know where we truly are if and when GOP reps start falling out of windows like in Putin's world!
Musk and Ramaswamy will quickly grow bored and slither back to their union-busting ways. With them slinked away, who decides who's on the unemployment lines.
Moreover, the notion that the government will save mountains of money by eliminating federal jobs is largely a fallacy. The reason is that the government must pay each fired worker unemployment compensation. Maybe the DOGE ("woke")
boys will come clean about the net savings from firing people. And what an emotional toll for those who get laid off.
The more I write here, my anger grows until now I need a hot shower!