“Republicans once talked seriously about aligning taxes and spending. They cared about economic distortion, simplicity, and broadening the tax base. Now, too many just want the sugar rush of tax cuts without fiscal discipline. Meanwhile, Democrats want to vastly expand the state and pretend that billionaires alone can foot the bill. Both sides are wrong. The math doesn’t work, and the morality of the reckless spending is worse.
Those who want to frame this bill as pro-growth are dreaming. They’re relying on unrealistic economic assumptions about a short-run bump to justify the consequences of long-term debt increases—and banking on cost-disguising budget gimmicks that nobody takes seriously.”
Although both parties have been fiscally irresponsible, the Republicans have been more irresponsible, despite talking about it more. The Democrats tend to offset some of their spending with taxes. Republicans just take on debt to pay for wars and tax cuts that mostly benefit the wealthy.
“The administration is using a process known as “rescission” to pursue the cuts, which allows the White House to ask Congress to claw back money it has already approved. The process has not been successfully used in over two decades, and the Senate rejected a rescission request in 2018, during Trump’s first term.
Lawmakers must approve the cuts within 45 days of the request — July 18 — or Trump is required by law to spend the money. The administration has said that this could be the first of several rescission requests.”
“House Republicans are aiming to slash funding for the nonpartisan watchdog for waste, fraud and abuse within the federal government by nearly half in the next fiscal year, according to spending bill text released Sunday night.”
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“GAO has served as the nation’s chief investigator of wrongdoing at federal agencies for more than a century, but has been fighting for months as Republicans in Congress and the Trump administration have attempted to undercut its legal conclusions and independence. Now, they are attempting to shrink the agency into submission as it pursues nearly 40 investigations into whether the White House is illegally withholding, or “impounding,” money Congress had previously approved.
Also tucked into the bill is a major policy change that would eliminate the GAO’s ability to bring civil action against the executive branch over impoundments of funds.
“GAO’s work makes it possible for the legislative branch to hold government accountable,” said Daniel Schuman, executive director of the American Governance Institute. “Congress needs independent expert advice, which is exactly what GAO provides.””
“In March, President Donald Trump stood before a joint session of Congress and vowed to “do what has not been done in 24 years: balance the federal budget.”
The first major legislative package of Trump’s second term, however, will throw the federal budget farther out of balance, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) concluded in an updated assessment of the bill.
The CBO estimates that the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which cleared the House late last month and is awaiting a vote in the Senate, will increase deficits by $2.4 trillion over the next 10 years. The bill will reduce tax collections by an estimated $3.75 trillion over that period, while reducing government spending by an estimated $1.3 trillion.”