The blush is off the rose, or, rather, the orange. The erstwhile“First Buddy”and born-again fiscal hawk Elon Muskrecently saidhe was “disappointed” by Donald Trump’s spendthrift budget currently under debate in the US Senate.Squeaking throughthe House of Representatives thanks tothe capitulationof several Republican deficit hardliners, this“big, beautiful bill”certainly increases the federal debtbigly– bynearly $4tnover the next decade.
Equally disappointed are those who have been busy burnishing Trump’s populist veneer. Steve Bannon hadrepeatedly promisedhigher taxes for millionaires, buthe has confessedhe’s “very upset”. That’s because the bill wouldcut taxes by over $600bnfor the top 1% of wage-earners, also known as millionaires. It amounts tothe largest upward transfer of wealthin American history.
Yet this double betrayal will do nothing to impede the sundry Maga apparatchiks’ breathless support for their dear leader. Musk hasalready tweetedhis gratitude to the president for the opportunity to lead Doge (that is,slash fundingfor cancer research). So this bill has once again proven Republicans’ willingness to relinquish their convictions as long as they can keep their grasp on power. And for Trump, it has reaffirmed that hispledged golden ageis really just a windfall for the uber-wealthy like him. Now there can be no mistaking that Republicans’ governing philosophy is neither conservatism nor populism but unabashed hypocrisy.
Expecting the self-proclaimedKing of Debtto balance the budget – or hoping workers would be protected by the billionaire whose personal motto is“You’re fired”– was always imaginative thinking at best. In his first term, Trumpadded $8tnto the national deficit. Even excluding Covid relief spending, that’stwice as much debtas Joe Biden racked up during his four years in the White House. Almost $2tn of that tab came from Trump’s vaunted tax cut, which deliveredthree times more wealthto the top 5% of wage earners than it did to the bottom 60%. Nor did its benefits trickle down, with incomes remaining flat for workers who earn less than $114,000.
Trump’s disingenuousness on the deficit continues a hallowed Republican tradition. All four Republican presidents since 1980have increasedthe federal debt. By combining reckless militarism with rampant corporatism, George W Bush managed toballoon it by 1,204%. When Bush’s treasury secretary Paul O’Neill expressed concern about that spending, Dick Cheney, the then-vice president, reportedlyretorted: “Deficits don’t matter.”
Except, of course, when a Democrat occupies the Oval Office. During his campaign for the US Senate in 2022, JD VancederidedBiden’s signature $1tn infrastructure package as a “huge mistake” that would waste money on “really crazy stuff”. Like improving almost200,000 miles of roadsand repairing over 11,000 bridges across the country.
Apparently less crazy, but certainly more callous, are the vertiginous cuts to the social safety net proposed in Trump’s current budget bill. Its$1tn eviscerationof Medicaid and Snap would leave 8 million Americans uninsured and potentially end food assistance for 11 million people, including 4 million children. When the Democratic Representative Ro Khannaintroduced an amendmentto maintain coverage for the 38 million kids who receive their healthcare through Medicaid, Republicans blocked it from even receiving a vote.
But for all the budget’s austerity, it alsoprovides $20bnin tax credits to establish a national school voucher program. And equally outrageous are its provisions that have nothing to do with the pecuniary, fromeasing regulationson gun silencers tohamstringing the power of courtsto enforce injunctions.
Perhaps most breathtaking of all, though, is how shamelessly the bill enriches the already mega-rich. In its first year, its tax breaks will grace Americans in the top 0.1% of the income bracket withan additional $400,000, while decreasing the earnings of people in the bottom 25% by $1,000. In other words, those who can least afford it are financing relief for those who least need it.
When the50% of working class Americanswho broke for Trump in last year’s election realize they voted for a pay cut, they might begin to feel a bit disillusioned with thecrypto trader-in-chief. They might even feel pulled to the authentically populist vision outlined by the progressives Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on their nationwideFighting Oligarchy Tour.
In the meantime, it is almost an inevitability that Republican senators will wring their hands before pressing the green button to vote “yea.” Josh Hawley hascalledthe budget bill “morally wrong and politically suicidal”, criticism which Trump haspreviously mockedas “grandstanding”. The insult contains a typically Trumpian flash of psychological insight, because Hawley and his colleagues will no doubt do exactly what their counterparts in the House have already done – cave.
Once Trump has scribbled his oversized signature onto the bill, his vision for the US will have become unmistakable. Try as they might, not even the spinmeisters at Fox News will be able to deny that he runs this country the way he ran hisAtlantic City casinos, leading working Americans to financial ruin while he emerges all the richer for it.
Katrina vanden Heuvel is editorial director and publisher of the Nation, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and a contributor to theWashington Post, the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times