What is it about naming major pieces of legislation with titles that can be reduced to acronyms such as “BBB”?
Joe Biden called his signature budget and spending legislation “Build Back Better,” which built nothing back or better before it deteriorated into the spuriously named “Inflation Reduction Act,” or IRA.
Biden’s “IRA” didn’t build wealth; it destroyed wealth with the highest rates of inflation since 1980.
President Donald Trump has been trumpeting his “Big Beautiful Bill” (BBB) in a way only he could: making a massive tax and spending reconciliation bill in Congress affecting the allocation of tens of trillions of tax dollars over the next decade sound like he is ordering a cheeseburger Happy Meal at McDonald’s.
It is not that easy. Passing most important legislation in Congress is difficult at best ― passing a reconciliation bill of this magnitude and complexity takes the patience of Job, the wisdom of Solomon and the legislative wizardry of Henry Clay, none of which has been in abundant supply in Washington for decades.
Four Republicans on the House Budget Committee voted against the bill on May 16 but allowed it to go to the floor by voting present on final passage two days later.
Among their reasons was that it did not cut spending enough.
They were right. But what does that mean anyway? Based on the dismal performance of Republicans to be fiscal tightwads of the federal budget, cutting “any” spending would be a massive improvement over the past 25 years.
Every bill passed by Congress and signed into law by a U.S. president since 2000, regardless of political party, has added hundreds of billions in spending each year and $30 trillion more in national debt.
Gross national debt in 2000 was $3.6 trillion — peanuts by comparison.
The federal budget is the most dishonest shell game ever. Even when someone says something will “cut spending and kill millions of poor seniors and children!” — as Democrats are now doing with the Medicaid provisions of Trump’s BBB — spending will continue to grow by 5% or more annually, not shrink.
The con game suggests any reduction in the rate of growth of spending, say from 7% to 6% in next year’s expected increase, is a “cut,” when in reality, it is not. It is a smaller rate of increase, not an absolute real reduction.
On top of that, this BBB reconciliation bill contains the important extension of the 2017 Trump tax cuts, which are due to expire at the end of 2025. If the tax cuts are not extended, people will see their enormous personal deductions revert to pre-2017 levels, among other changes such as higher tax rates for most taxpayers. (“Taxpayers” are people who pay taxes on the income they earn. More than 50% of Americans who file tax returns pay zero income tax and only have payroll taxes deducted from their salary or self-employment, none of which will be affected by this bill.)
If the Trump tax cuts of 2017 are extended permanently, this Congress and this president have to find $5 trillion-plus in spending reductions from the baseline over the next decade just to keep our national debt on course to be $52 trillion in 2035 and not $57 trillion to $60 trillion or more.
This bill has not even done that. The Freedom Caucus guys have a point in their corner on this one. Republicans who vote to increase debt are as bad as those who like to raise taxes.
Perhaps the tax cuts, tariff revenue and trillions in investment from the Saudis, Qataris and Arab Emirates will spur economic growth to 10% annually in the U.S., and we can “grow our way out” of this Venus flytrap of debt that can eat us alive ― but probably not.
CBO estimates our growing national debt has cost us 1% in lost economic growth each year since 2001. Even if we survive a currency crisis, past decisions have dimmed the economic fortunes of all of our citizens.
Sometimes it is better to do nothing rather than something, as Biden’s “Build Back Better” folly shows.
If Trump’s BBB reduces the rate of growth in federal spending by just 1% ― just one penny out of every dollar ― each year over the next decade, that would truly be worth way more than nothing.
Not perfect as the Freedom Caucus guys say they want, but “big,” “beautiful” and “better” nonetheless.