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When The Republicans Say "Fiscal Responsibility," They Mean You And Your Family Pay

Trump's Billionaires First Agenda: Austerity For Us, Yachts For Them



Maybe you read yesterday that while Congress and Trump are dithering away with their big ugly bill to cut taxes on the rich and cut Medicaid and other parts of the social safety net for everyone else, as well as which sites in Iran to bomb and who to deport and which forms of corruption are now OK, their incompetence has led to Social Security being on track to run out of money by 2034.


Julie Weil reported that “The trust funds for Social Security and Medicare will run out of money in less than a decade, according to a report released Wednesday, as the programs’ trustees warned that the funds’ depletion date is significantly closer than predicted a year ago. If Congress does not overhaul the programs’ financing, automatic cuts will slash Social Security benefits by 23 percent and Medicare hospital benefits by 11 percent in 2033, the report said.


While Republicans stage culture war pageants and Democrats tiptoe around billionaire donors, the clock is ticking on the two programs that have kept tens of millions of Americans out of poverty and premature death. These aren’t just line items in a spreadsheet; they are the last lifelines for aging workers, disabled citizens, widows and the most vulnerable in our society. And yet, Washington continues to grovel before the ultra-wealthy, shoveling more tax cuts into the gaping maw of corporate greed, while ignoring the economic time bomb they’ve armed with decades of cowardice, corruption, and calculated neglect.


This crisis was engineered by conservatives, and not inevitable. Had Bernie won the 2016 nomination instead of the corporate Democrat, Trump would still be doing Apprentice episodes and Social Security and Medicare would be expanded and healthy. Instead, every time Congress voted to cap payroll taxes for the rich, or raided trust funds to finance wars and giveaways to Wall Street, they were chiseling away at the very foundation of the American social contract. Now, with the trust funds circling the drain, we’re told “there’s no money” for grandma’s medicine or a disabled worker’s grocery bill. But there’s always money for defense contractors. Always money for subsidies to Big Oil. Always money for tax havens and golden parachutes. The truth is, Social Security and Medicare are being slowly assassinated— not because we can’t afford them, but because the people who control the purse strings have decided the rich deserve more and the rest of us deserve less. Voters always need to keep that at the time of their minds when they go to the polls.


Siobhan Hughes and Richard Rubin reported that over in the Senate, the GOP’s deepening Medicaid cuts are creating a new roadblock for Trump’s big ugly bill, both ends of the party grousing about how the bill isn’t something they’re willing to support, either because it takes away too much from working families or not enough. “The tax and health portions of the measure, unveiled late Monday, would make it harder for states to shift Medicaid costs onto the U.S. government, but also give clean-energy companies more favorable tax treatment than under the bill that barely got through the House last month. Taken together, those changes caused friction within the party, pointing to the need for more revisions— or arm twisting from Trump— for Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) to drive the bill through his narrow 53-47 majority on schedule starting next week. The bill would then need to pass the GOP’s narrowly controlled House as well… ‘The cost of government is just too high,’ said Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL). Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) said the bill doesn’t do enough to address the country’s fiscal challenges. ‘It just simply doesn’t meet the moment,’ he said, adding that there was no way to fix the legislation by July 4.” 


Senate GOP leaders are in a bind. With all Democrats expected to be opposed, Republicans can lose only three votes and still pass the measure. Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) already appears dead set against any bill that contains a significant increase of the federal debt limit, which the Senate bill bumps up by $5 trillion. Moving the bill toward Collins and Hawley on Medicaid could cost votes on the Senate GOP’s right flank.
Anything the Senate does would still have to go back through the House, which passed the bill 215-214. The House factions mirror the Senate factions. Since the House vote, both edges of the House GOP have urged senators to pull the bill in their direction, with conservative Freedom Caucus members pushing for deeper spending cuts, fiscal hawks cautioning against expanding deficits beyond the House bill’s $2.4 trillion figure, and moderates warning that the bill they voted for went too far on cutting clean-energy credits. 
The House bill bans clean-energy projects from receiving certain tax credits unless they were under construction within 60 days of the measure’s enactment into law. The Senate version makes geothermal, hydropower and nuclear projects— whose reliability doesn’t fluctuate with the weather— eligible for the entirety of the tax credits if they start construction as late as 2033. Solar and wind companies would be eligible for the full tax credits this year, with the benefits phasing out starting in 2026. 
On top of that, there is an additional House faction— blue-state Republicans who insist on a higher cap for the state and local tax deduction— that has no parallel Senate group. The House bill bumped the cap to $40,000, while the Senate bill keeps it at the current $10,000, while acknowledging that is a starting point.
“No SALT, no deal,” wrote Rep. Nick LaLota (R-NY) on Twitter. “No, Nay, Never!” Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-NY.) posted.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) had been urging senators not to make many changes to the House bill, after it passed his chamber by just one vote. 
But the Senate Finance Committee’s text shows adjustments all over the place, creating a smaller but longer-lasting child tax credit expansion, a less generous extension of the tax deduction for closely held businesses, a gentler version of a retaliatory tax against some foreign governments and an extensive revision of the tax rules for U.S.-based multinational companies. 
The Finance Committee’s bill did address some particular issues that many senators had raised. 
A longer phaseout period for clean-energy tax breaks aided Sens. Thom Tillis (R-NC) and John Curtis (R-UT), who had both warned about the quick cutoffs in the House bill. Tillis also won the elimination of an import-tax provision affecting tobacco. 
A provision about tax deductions for meals provided on fishing vessels mirrored a bill from Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK). Another change from the House bill would expand a tax credit for families who pay for child and dependent care, a priority for Sen. Katie Britt (R-AL). Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) praised the bill’s repeal of taxes on certain rifles and shotguns. 
Sens. James Lankford (R-OK) and Steve Daines (R-MT) scored permanent extensions of business tax breaks, which looked in doubt at times over the past few weeks. Lankford also got a change to the Biden-era corporate minimum tax that will help oil-and-gas companies.

Josh Weil announced his campaign for the Florida seat that Rubio abandoned to become a Trump cabinet lackey. This morning, Weil told us that “Social Security is not on track to run out of money. The projections Rick Scott and his people use completely ignore all of the population data we have, and pretend there is a trajectory of continued increase in the number of new retirees year after year that keep pace with the greatest increase during the Baby Boomer generation. There is $2.7 trillion in the trust fund, it is more than enough to get through this period of time when the Boomer generation are the main group of people receiving from the system, and the actual numbers for Gen X and Millennials are so much lower that there is ZERO of risk Social Security running a deficit for 100 years after the Baby Boomers are gone. Republicans want to convince you it will fail so they can access the Trust Fund, and they're doing everything in their power to cripple the system so that it does. We cannot let them, we must protect Social Security. I'm running for U.S. Senate because the people of Florida rely on this system that they paid into their entire lives, and they deserve a Senator who will fight to protect it for them, and Ashley Moody refuses to be that person.”


Maybe the Trump regime and their Republican allies in Congress hoped to save a little money by defunding the LGBTQ suicide-prevention hotline for youth. That’s not going to do any good making up for the billions of dollars the Republicans are proposing be cut from hospitals.


Many voters— millions?— were persuaded to vote for Trump because of the great businessman image he and The Apprentice cultivated for him. The collapsing economy might make them wonder. But if the economy alone doesn't wake them up, maybe this will: Trump and his Republican lapdogs are marching toward one of the most brazen upward transfers of wealth in modern history, slashing Medicaid, gutting hospitals, and handing handouts to the fossil fuel industry, private equity vultures, and arms dealers— while crushing working families. This is what governing looks like when cruelty is the point and corruption is the process. The GOP isn’t legislating— they’re looting. And if the voters who bought the myth of Trump the tycoon don’t feel the sting of betrayal yet, they soon will— when the bill comes due and it’s their kids, their parents, and their jobs on the chopping block.

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