Bureaucrats, Betrayal, and the Big Beautiful Bill
The total disgust that many Americans feel over how “business” is conducted by the bureaucrats in Washington is well deserved. The latest act in what looked more like a circus than serious governing was the race to pass President Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill (BBB) (or deep six it if you are a Democrat or member of the media hellbent on obstructing Trump’s agenda by any means available). The betrayal of the American people is a daily occurrence. We are subjected to lies, conflicting analyses, and fearmongering that make it impossible to seriously evaluate the implications of the Bill and make an informed judgment about whether we support it or not. Political agendas have replaced service to the people and the endless jockeying for power deprives us of the factual information we need to accurately and constructively understand real policy differences. The media plays the role of mouthpiece for the Democrats and relentlessly pounds opposition to the Bill. The pollsters then step in to “survey” the public and the media reports that the American people overwhelmingly oppose the Bill. Our dilemma? Bombarded with lies and misinformation from all directions, we are left with only our own best judgment to decide where we stand.
When it Comes to Politics, Hypocrisy has no Limits
On July 4, President Trump signed the Big Beautiful Bill into law. When seemingly endless hours of debate and negotiating ended, Republicans in both Houses of Congress united to deliver Trump the tool he says he needs to keep his promises to the American people. Not a single Democrat voted for the Bill.
Spending during Joe Biden’s Presidency increased by $4.7 trillion between 2021 and 2024. Key drivers were skyrocketing interest due to inflation, Medicaid expansion, student debt actions, “green new deal” spending, support for Ukraine and COVID relief (A post COVID analysis conducted by LexisNexis, a large global risk management firm, concluded that total US taxpayer loss to fraud in COVID relief payments is at least $1 trillion). Democrats and the media hailed Biden as the most consequential president in our lifetime for passing behemoth spending packages as Democrats unified around his agenda.
The tune has changed in the era of Trump. Throughout the process of passing the BBB the media and the Democrats decried the Republicans coming together to move the legislation forward as spinelessly abandoning their principles and knuckling under to Trump. Hypocrisy has no limits when it comes to politics.
What is the Big Beautiful Bill?
The “One Big Beautiful Bill Act of 2025” is what is known as a reconciliation bill for the 119th Congress which runs for 2 years; 2025 – 2026. It uses a special process to expedite the passage of budget related matters and will make changes to spending, taxes and the federal debt limit. The Bill sets targets for overall revenue and spending and now that it has passed, Congressional Committees will draft specific legislation to meet those targets. Key provisions in this Bill are tax cuts, spending cuts and border security.
The Bill is massive – more than 900 pages long. It is doubtful many, if any, of the legislators who voted on it have actually read it in its entirety and unlikely any everyday citizen who had the stamina to read it would actually understand what it says. President Trump was insistent the legislation be “one big beautiful bill”, well aware that he will face vicious opposition to everything he does throughout his Presidency. He wants to get as much done as fast as possible, knowing governing is not going to get any easier for him.
There is no Escaping Political Bias
A reasonable person might wonder how it is possible that we are inundated with so many “facts” about what this Bill will do that directly contradict themselves. Beyond blatant lying, the answer lies in the many assumptions that are made when an analysis is done. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) is described as the nonpartisan federal agency that provides Congress with independent analyses of budgetary and economic issues. However, we know from our personal experience that we are so deeply divided as a country about what it means to live free it has become increasingly rare for any entity to operate without political bias. We see it in the courts, the Federal Reserve, and throughout the agencies of government. Decision makers with integrity would acknowledge their own biases and conduct their analyses using a variety of assumptions that produce different results. Too often decision makers cherry-pick the “facts” that produce the result they favor. Projecting some future impact from decisions made in the present is always speculative. Too often it is presented as absolute truth by people who know they are lying.
A sampling of the assumptions that are greatly influencing the CBO analysis of the Big Beautiful Bill follows.
The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is the market value of all of the goods and services produced in a year. Between 2015 and 2024 average annual growth in the US GDP was 2.5%. The rate of GDP growth used to analyze the impact of the BBB matters a lot. Higher GDP means higher employment, increased spending, improved government finance from increased tax revenue and reduced deficits, and increased business investment. The GDP of the US is about $28 trillion. Each 1% increase in the GDP equates to $280 billion.
The CBO scored the BBB as adding $3.3 trillion to our debt over 10 years. The debt is currently more than $36 trillion. The CBO analysis assumed GDP will increase by an annual rate of just .5% from 2025 – 2034. Contrast that with the Council of Economic Advisers to the President who project an increase in annual GDP of 4.6 – 4.9% by 2028 then cooling to 2.4 – 2.7% by 2034. These vastly different assumptions result in conflicting predictions about the impact of the BBB. The actual economic growth will be the key determinant of the success of the Big Beautiful Bill. Will the Bill stimulate growth or suppress it? Who do we believe?
We know one of Trump’s highest priorities is a booming economy. Over the past 50 years millions of manufacturing jobs have been lost. Since his inauguration, Trump has secured more than $5 trillion in commitments to reinvest in manufacturing in the US. Companies that have announced significant manufacturing investment commitments include Apple, NVIDIA, TSMC, OpenAI, Oracle, Softbank, Stellantis, Johnson & Johnson, Roche, Hyundai, General Motors, and Kraft Heinz.
In addition to his commitment to jobs, Trump intends to rebalance the trade deficit. Tariffs are a key component of Trump’s trade strategy. As negotiations with our trading partners continue, it is impossible to know what the final tariffs will be but it is clear Trump views them as a permanent part of a fair-trade scenario. In the first 5 months of his Presidency, the US has taken in $69 billion in tariff revenue. Tariff revenue was not considered in the CBO analysis of the BBB.
Interest rates in the US are set by the Federal Reserve (“The Fed”). The Fed’s refusal to cut interest rates despite low, stable inflation has been a source of disagreement with the President. The current US target is 4.5% while the European Central Bank is at 2%, Japan is at .5% and Canada at 2.75%, as examples. This is critical to BBB analysis because with our huge interest payment on our $36 trillion debt, even a 1% decrease in the interest rate would translate into billions in reduced annual expense.
Spotlight on Medicaid
The Democrats and the media are going to make “Medicaid cuts” the rallying cry they hope will carry them through the midterm elections. They want the American people to believe that Trump has broken his promise to keep Medicaid intact and they want us to believe that children will be starving and without healthcare in favor of tax cuts for the rich. Only in Washington is slowing the rate of growth considered a cut. On June 24, the CBO issued a letter of clarification to the Chairs of the House Budget Committee. In it, the CBO refuted the Democrat’s claim that vulnerable Americans are being “kicked off” Medicaid and confirmed that the only people coming off of Medicaid under the BBB reforms are those who are ineligible, illegal, or able-bodied adults refusing to work. The letter also corrected the lie that Republicans are cutting the Medicaid program. By 2034, Federal Medicaid spending will increase by $204.6 billion, a 31.2% increase. The CBO projects enrollment in Medicaid in 2034 to be 79.5 million which is higher than the total number of people enrolled as of January 2025.
This clarification is highly unlikely to stifle the lying that is coming from the Democrats and the media on what they see as their best shot at generating opposition to the Bill that they hope will translate into Democratic votes in the midterm elections.
Time to Choose Sides. Who Do You Believe?
We know who the career politicians are. We know how they conduct business and what they accomplish for the American people. We see where the status quo has brought us and we elected Trump to bring serious disruption to how Washington works. I have no doubt the BBB is filled with things I won’t agree with and the questions I have about what the real impacts will be will only be answered in time. But as a freedom loving American, I am unwavering in my trust of Donald Trump’s leadership to navigate a future for our country that I want to be part of and I hope you are too.
We have all witnessed first-hand what Donald Trump has done in his first 5 months. He has been fully transparent in his plans to secure our border, bring peace through strength, get our economy roaring once again and return freedom and prosperity to the American people. He says he needs this Bill to implement his agenda and that’s good enough for me. I stand with Trump and will not support any elected politician who works against him. He is the only elected official who has ever earned my trust. He does what he says he is going to do.