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The struggle between Republicans and Democrats passed Donald Trump's second term agenda in Congress; so far, the minority party has no real role. Instead, it was a battle between the House and Senate Republicans, moderates and hardliners, and the most prominent struggle between Republicans and reality.
Any direct accountant points to the conclusion that the president's "a big, beautiful bill" (the Republicans insist on formally calling it) will make the country's fiscal situation worse. It will cut taxes in the coming years, and while it will cut some budgets, they are not far enough to make up for the difference. The bill is expected to increase the deficit by trillions of dollars; the only real difference between analysts is about how many trillions of dollars. However, Republican leaders have been trying to pretend to be other ways.
There have been a series of activities on the bill over the past few days. The House Budget Committee failed to introduce the bill Friday after Republican fiscal hawks voted against it. Representative Chip Roy noted that the plan relies on large upfront spending and ruling cuts based on future actions unlikely to be taken by Congress. “We didn’t come here to claim that we were going to reform things and then not do it, right?” he said last week.
Late Friday, credit rating agency Moody's lowered the U.S. rating from top AAA to AA1, with a negative outlook and citing, um, greater federal spending without a bigger tax to pay for it. "In the next decade, as rights spending rises, we expect a larger deficit, while government revenue remains flat. In turn, the ongoing large fiscal deficit will make the government's debt and interest burden higher," Moody's said in a statement.
Republican leaders' reaction to the relegation is denied. exist See the media"I think Moody's is a lag indicator. I think that's what everyone thinks about credit institutions." Even in the case of fact, why is it aggravated the existing issues Moody's is paying attention to? "This bond downgrade is another serious blow, showing that the United States needs to be organized. We start doing this in this bill." That's OK, Moody's is responding to the bill's attitude.
White House budget chief Russell Vought made a tormenting argument that since the bill cuts more than the balanced Budget Act agreement in 1997, it must be fiscally conservative, as if the substantial reduction in revenue contained in the bill was irrelevant. Vought also noted that Republican accounting is based on “assuming economic growth of $2.5 trillion,” in other words, crossing fingers for the most corrupt results. Among other things, the bill would extend the tax cuts passed in Trump’s first term, which doesn’t fit the Republican predictions they paid for themselves.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt took a simple up-and-down approach. When asked this morning if Trump was OK to increase the deficit against the bill, she said blankly: "The bill does not increase the deficit."
The Budget Committee voted again yesterday, this time introducing the bill, an unusual weekend vote in which four hard-core people agreed to vote “now” rather than “no.” There are few details about the exact changes that satisfy or at least appease them, committee chairman Jodey Arrington said the negotiations remain open.
However, none of the structural contradictions in the bill disappeared. In fact, they are the nature of the bill. Republicans are determined to extend Trump's tax cuts (most of which expired in his first term by the end of 2025), but they are reluctant to raise other taxes despite the president's flirting with millionaires. They are also unwilling to really cut spending: Although they plan to cut Medicaid, they realize that attacking Medicare and Social Security is politically toxic. Friction is Medicaid cuts, and it is also unpopular. The only way to dress up bills is to predict very optimistic about future growth. And, this doesn't even touch on all other rotten Easter eggs, such as preventing federal courts from enforcing contempt rulings against federal officials.
The Republican bill has a long way to go before it passes through the House, let alone the Senate. The fact that Republicans arranged for a Rules Committee vote at 1 a.m. on Wednesday does not imply that there is confidence in the substance or feasibility of the bill. When the market opened this morning, stocks sank, the dollar fell, and yields on fiscal bonds rose, a sign of confidence in the U.S. government. (The market recovered a little in the afternoon.) Congress is trying to argue about the issue, while Trump's tariffs have greatly increased the chances of a recession, a fact that many of his aides refuse to admit. Reality can be denied, but it always gets the last sentence.
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How Colin Jost is making jokes
Michael Tedder
When Jost first served as co-host of “Weekend Update” in 2014, he was like a arrogant preparatory school kid who was destined to discover that the rest of the world didn’t share his high opinion of himself. Some armchair critics and social media users sigh certainly Lorne Michaels handed over the show’s most prestigious work to another “bland white man,” indicating that the most hidden in such an institution cannot adapt to a changing world. But in the end, Jost seems to find that he can win public goodwill by disdain. The inclination to his impossible makes Jost have a unique comedic energy, which is fun and makes him more likable.
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PS
As I recently wrote, there is a lot of laughs needed at the moment, but I radiated a few loud jokes and read the recent dispatch from Christopher Hooks from Greenland New Republic. Like Molly Ivins, Hooks is a very interesting Texan with a sharp view of politics. He remembered the desolation of the Arctic ice sheet and the bleakness of the imperialist ambitions of the current government. He wrote: "From the American psychology and pathology, the habit of thought and action, Trump's efforts to annex the islands are the best understanding. "The rich things that Greenland has nothing, and are nothingness of the biblical ones." ”
- David
Stephanie Bai contributed to the newsletter.
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