What’s In the Big Beautiful Bill? Trump Populism, $4 TRILLION Debt Hike & America’s Welfare State

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our big fat, huge welfare state. You thought I was going to say big, beautiful bill, didn’t you? No. Well, we’re going to talk about that big, beautiful bill. I often talk about, you know, just kind of understanding reality. You have to deal with reality. You might not like it. You have to deal with it. I talk about the train and actually dealing with the train at hand.

And I guess I’ve just, I’ve kind of come to grips with the fact, I’ve been thinking about it a lot, that we are a welfare state. Last week, I talked about some of Donald Trump’s socialist tendencies and hopefully he gets away from them. Because again, socialist tendencies are not going to bode well for economic growth that we’re going to need to have to fuel

our welfare state. I’ve lamented against the welfare state for a long time, written columns about it, one entitled drug pusher, using all sorts of data from the Cato Institute, going back to all of the Lyndon Johnson’s great society programs and what it’s done to society. And none of it good. actually, basically equating a lot of those welfare programs to

drug use, same type of societal pathologies. The issues that society has with drugs, it’s the same thing with welfare as well. Another one I wrote, it’s entitled My Big Fat Greek Epiphany. It’s at the Greek National Museum having a conversation with my wife’s cousin and just kind of recognizing that where we were headed as a country, and this is back

in the Obama years. We’re at the point right now, and I’m sorry, again, this is kind of an epiphany, another big fat Markowski epiphany that we are a welfare state. We are going the way of Europe, we’re going the way of Scandinavia, and there’s just no way around it at this point in time. This big, beautiful bill, they released it 380,

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nine pages. Again, it’s Trump is telling everybody out there urging all the lawmakers to get behind this bill, we must win. We’re going to do all these great things. A big beautiful bill just got much bigger and better golden age of America is going to be upon us. Now you can kind of decide what the golden age means to you.

I think that, again, we’ve gotten to the point where, yeah, I think the majority of Americans want a welfare state. And I think Trump understands this. is a populist. Again, we could take a look at what’s in this bill. They’re going to be raising some money, most certainly some things that I like, 5 % remittance tax on international money.

transfers, they’re going to try to use that money to help fund border security getting rid of a lot of the clean energy tax credits, I don’t have any problem with that. This income tax deduction for qualified tips over time compensation that only lasts until 2028. It does exclude high earners service sector owners and non traditional tipping industries looking to get rid of loopholes there.

Okay, he ran on that. 2017 Trump tax law, including the higher estate and gift tax exemptions, gonna stay the same. The SALT tax deduction is going to change according to this. But again, you got a lot of Republicans that are very much going to push back blue state Republicans, modifying that to $30,000, if that’s for couples.

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raises the debt limit by $4 trillion. $4 trillion. The House bill does not have the new millionaire tax bracket, but I’m thinking that that’s eventually going to be added to this. I do. I think it’s going to be added. I think they’ll add that. think they’ll raise the SALT tax deduction.

other little things here and there.

you know, some things to help businesses out increases the qualified business income tax and some other tidbits. Now they have this new idea and I happen to like this idea. I was my suggestion a long time ago was better than a baby bonus. In essence, it is it’s a new account for babies born here in the United States. Government’s going to put $1,000 into an S &P 500 fund.

getting people involved in the economy, maybe teaching them about money, they’re gonna hash that out. We’ll see what happens with that moving forward. The reality is, the reality is, is that they really are not doing much to cut anything at all. Again, another $4 trillion increase in the debt ceiling. Ron Johnson put some numbers out today. I want you to get your arms around this. And fiscal 2019.

Federal outlays total $4.45 trillion. That’s 20.6 % of gross domestic product. According to CBO, January 2025 projection total outlays will be 7.03 trillion, 23.3 % of GDP. That’s a 58 % increase over six years.

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The CBO projects federal outlays will be 89.3 trillion across fiscal 26 to fiscal 35. Wow. Yeah, yeah, I understand pandemic spending, but the pandemic is over. And quite frankly, that’s a lie. I didn’t really understand pandemic spending. I railed against all of the pandemic spending. Congress can’t even find a way to reduce 1.5 trillion.

over 10 years. That’s a 1.68 % cut. They can’t even find the money to do that. They’re increasing everything.

Johnson writes, since 1948, government has steadily grown and spending as a percentage of GDP has more than doubled. Again, nothing. The founders had, this wasn’t what they had envisioned at all by any stretch of the imagination. In 1930, prior to the New Deal, federal outlays were 3.5 % of GDP, while state and local expenditures were 9.1. That was basically a foundational

premise I’ve basically talked about, you know, the 10th Amendment and the need to make the 10th Amendment great. Again, limiting federal government power to local communities and states. But now, no, we don’t have that anymore. And quite frankly, I don’t think we’ll ever get it back.

I’m being honest, at this point in time, I just don’t think it’s gonna happen. It’s gonna happen. Should we be able to get back to pre-pandemic spending? Yeah, I don’t think that’s that impossible to do. But it’s not. Again, you take a look, you take a look at the increases and outlays for…

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Pentagon and defense. I’ve talked about this here on the program. And obviously the the 10,000 pound gorillas in the room that we continue to fail to deal with and that’s Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. We missed the opportunity to reform Social Security under George W. Bush’s second term. Didn’t do it. Again, we were wasting too much time and political capital.

on Iraq at that point in time, so nothing got done. This Medicare, Medicare thing is it’s amazing to me. Again, I don’t have any problem at all. And I talked about this. I don’t have any problem with social safety nets. But but it used to be a bit of a tenant of the Republican Party. And honestly, I’ve talked about here, I think it’s the right thing is you judge

social welfare programs based upon the ability to get people off social welfare programs. Not to keep them on forever, not to make them multi-generational, because that’s what they become. They become multi-generational. Used to be, you know, going all the way back to Bill Clinton. Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich contract with America used to be a part of the

You want to call it the Republican orthodoxy would be to people receiving government benefits should also have to work.

novel concept.

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The bill that they put forward required that able-bodied adults on Medicaid without dependents work roughly 20 hours a week. And actually, school and volunteering count.

Okay, they put that in, but you know what’s funny? It doesn’t kick in until 2029.

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What? Which basically says is that it’s never going to kick in at all. They will eliminate it. They’re putting it in. It’s how pathetic these Republicans are. They’re putting it in there like they’ve actually done something. They’ve done nothing. 2029, that’s when that kicks in. The bill also sets up a waiver process, which states have long abused to evade work rules and food stamps.

They improve on checks on Medicaid eligibility, including rolling back Biden administration rules that prevent states from frequently revisiting their roles. Again, novel concept, benefits should go to those who qualify. But again, it doesn’t end any sort of bias whatsoever toward prime age men who can work.

The feds pay 90 % of the cost of able-bodied adults eligible for Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, Obamacare. But only 50 to 77%, depending on the state, for pregnant women, the blind, and so on.

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Again, 10 states right now have not participated in this Obamacare deal with Medicaid. But because of this, they’re going to face greater scrutiny to start taking the money. this well, again, they’re not even factoring this in, but it’s estimated to cost an additional $670 billion over 10 years. the big beautiful bill once all these other states jump on because again,

going to take the feds money. You’re going to put millions of more able bodied adults on Medicaid.

Republicans don’t want to be bothered. They don’t want to be bothered. know, I said, I’ve been watching this happen.

throughout my life, crying out loud, and most certainly has gone parabolic since the Obama years, without a doubt, even during COVID. Even during COVID, all these so-called flag waving, Trump support, conservatives, yeah, would be emailing, would go on radio shows, their free money, wanting their checks, give me, give me, give give me, give me.

Josh Hawley. Okay, Josh Hawley, man, calls himself a Republican from Missouri. Talking about how Republicans, says, yeah, Democrats are in trouble, but Republicans are having an identity crisis of our own. And he can see it in President Trump’s one big beautiful bill. Will Republicans be a majority party of working people or a permanent minority speaking only for the C-suite?

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Again, this is.

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Bernie Sanders. mean, Bernie Sanders could have written Josh Hawley’s editorial in the New York Times. yeah, Republicans are ordered just for rich people, just for the C-suite. No, Josh, it’s actually not about.

You you truly want to help people. You don’t just continually hand them out things. You have a process where you’re actually looking to get them to improve on their lives. He says, Mr. Trump has promised working class tax cuts and protection for working class social insurance such as Medicaid. But now a noisy contingent of corporatist Republicans call it the party’s Wall Street wing. Again, this is, know, AOC could have wrote this.

This guy’s a Republican. AOC could have wrote this. Bernie could have wrote this. Urging Congress to ignore all that and get back to the old time religion, corporate giveaways, preferences for capital, and deep cuts to social insurance. The wing of the party wants Republicans to build our big beautiful bill around slashing health insurance for the working poor, but that argument is both morally wrong and politically suicidal. Gany talks about

the fact that Medicaid serves 70 million Americans, over 1 million in the state of Missouri where he represents and, you know, again, gives a couple anecdotal things here and constituents that are getting it. And again, the constituents that you’re getting that are getting it, quite frankly, they wouldn’t lose it based upon the cuts that they want to make here. He basically says that Donald Trump

Donald Trump says we’re doing absolutely nothing to hurt Medicare, Medicaid or Social Security, nothing at all. And for good reason. The president understands who his voters are. This is recent polling. I’m not just, I’m going to take his word on this. 64 % of Republicans hold a favorable view of Medicaid. About one in six have personally been on the program. 80 % of Americans oppose

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significant cuts to Medicaid and over half have a personal or family connection to the Medicaid program. He’s talking about the Trump coalition not pulling the lever for Medicaid cuts. Mike Johnson just woke up to this when he withdrew his support for one of the most aggressive reductions to Medicaid on the table. Again, he says Republicans need to open their eyes. Our voters support social insurance programs more than that.

Our voters depend on those programs and there’s a reason for that. This that Republicans will do well to ponder our economy is increasingly unfriendly to working people and their families for the better part of 50 years. Working wages have been flat in real terms. Working people cannot afford to get married when they want to have the number of children they want to or raise those children as they would like these days. They can barely afford to put a roof over their kids heads to say nothing of health care and

You know, they say pieces, both Democrats and Republicans share the blame for this. So I guess we’re going to keep doing what we’re doing, right, Josh? We’re going to keep the government, the size of government growing out of control, keep spending on things that we can’t afford, not reducing budget deficits, not growing the economy like we could be doing, and just going to hand out welfare. I guess that’s the solution.

That is, that’s where we’re at at this point in time. And again, it’s, makes me sad.

It really does. It makes me sad. And you know, the funny thing is, the same people that are, you know, applauding these tariffs and talking about the wonders of these tariffs that we’ve gone off on. And the reality of the situation is, Josh, do you think these tariffs are going to bother me? I got to pay a little bit more for something? No.

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No. Is it gonna hit the working class? Yes.

Um, it was interesting. It was interesting. Yeah. And what’s his name there? From the CNBC show. I’ll think of his name, but I can’t believe Mr. Wonderful. They call him. He’s the Canadian guy there. He’s on CNN a lot too. And he basically said, he said, where we’re going, this is for tariffs is a 10 and 10 reciprocal on everybody. Call it a vat.

consumption tax in America. But you can’t sell that to Congress so you call it a tariff. yeah, O’Leary’s, forgot about his name there.

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We have no choice.

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We have, we really don’t have much of a choice now. We decided we’re going to be this big welfare state. We already know that we’re going to have to do something when it comes to social security, because that’s automatically going to be cut in a very short period of time. My point when it came to raising taxes, and I don’t think it was unreasonable, is that I don’t want to raise the debt ceiling. I don’t want to run deficits. You need to balance

the budget, to balance the budget, then come and then raise people’s taxes. again, we see this everywhere. We’re all in a perpetual state of paying taxes. For quite a lot of, it wasn’t that long ago, they finally repealed the, it was a Spanish American war tax that you were paying on your cell phone bill. They embed taxes in everything. They call them syntax. They give it all these different things. And again, this 10 % tariff,

is tax. You’re not going to see it, but you’re going to pay it.

You’re going to pay it. mean, somebody’s going to have to pay for all of this. You see these stories. And again, this is this is the choice. Listen, I’m obviously in the minority. Obviously, we run a we want a republic here, and I’m obviously in the camp where I’m a minority. I, you know, I kind of wish back for the, you know, free market days. Reagan.

years, personal responsibility. I’ve always kind of believed in that my entire life. The American people don’t. It’s again, I’m in the minority here. I mentioned Omega Man yesterday. I didn’t realize just how, I guess, maybe how out of touch I am with the rest of society at this point. And most certainly the MAGA camp. Most certainly.

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The MAGA camp is all in on populism. They’re all in on big government. They’re all in on handouts and giveaways and tinkering and a myriad of different things. I’m going to tie this story in that I grabbed today. We’re living in two separate economies. Why young Americans feel stuck financially. For many millennials and Gen Zers, financial security remains out of reach, even as their net worths grow on paper.

We’re getting two separate economies. This is an economics content creator. I don’t even know what that is. Talks about the different financial realities between generations. The middle class, unfortunately, is dead for millennials and Gen Zers. Our best case scenario, the goalpost had just moved and it’s still obtainable, but you have to make over six figures to have that middle class life. Again, you got people saying might make enough to pay for basic living expenses and cover bills. But if one thing happens and they can get behind again,

This is nothing new. I was Gen Xer. I went through this. We all go through this. Meanwhile, costs keep rising. Housing, healthcare, insurance have become more expensive. Americans now bear more responsibility for funding their retirement. Listen.

You keep looking to Washington, you keep looking for handouts and giveaways and aid and yes, it inflates the cost of everything. That’s just the reality. I’m here to tell younger generations, again, behind this, you want this. The welfare, mean, you can go to welfare states, you can go to Europe, you can go to Europe, can go to Scandinavia. Again, Scandinavia is a bad example.

to some degree because it’s little bit insular and obviously population is a little bit smaller, much more communal than the United States. It’s different. Different. No, know, not, you know, we’re not gonna have, people are not gonna have more kids, okay? The population is gonna continue to drop here in the United States. That’s just the reality. Unless you have immigration, it’s not. It’s become very, very expensive to have children.

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You’re going to see lifestyle change. see more kids after college, after getting educated, staying at home with mom and dad for a longer period of time. This is what happens. This is how it is. This is how it is in Europe. And most kids, know, that they’re going to school if they can get into school, they’re like, school’s free there. No, school’s free there. If you get in, not everybody gets to go to college over there. You do. Guess what? You’re done.

You’re gonna move back in with mom and dad.

You’re not even you know, it’s like dorms forget about that. You’re living with mom and dad You might move out You might move out after you get married But even then, you know, you’re probably gonna stay at home with mom and dad cost of living Very very high not making as much money again a lot of Lots of safety nets lots of handouts lots of giveaway I I get all that

but it’s going to be a real change for the way we are gonna live here in this country. People are gonna have to get used to it.

They’re gonna have you, because you can’t have it all, people. Again, we’re $36 trillion in debt as a nation.

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And again, we’ve been living off the fact that other countries have continued to buy our debt. You take a look at the little money that was printed during COVID for all of the handouts and giveaways and cash that caused all of this inflation. I mean, they’re talking about the inflation numbers that came out today and they weren’t so bad. But let me ask you question. Has anything gone down?

in price. yeah, they’ll talk about a couple housing markets here and there. No, overall. Again, cost of education, cost of insurance. I can’t even believe what I pay for car insurance. It’s hard to get my arms around what I pay in car insurance with no tickets, no nothing.

Nothing. This is where we’re at. You you talk about this big, beautiful bill. We have become a big, to me, in my opinion, not so beautiful welfare state.

And that’s the terrain.

That is the terrain. And again, we’re starting to recognize it in college enrollment. Kids are starting to wisen up and say, I can’t go get myself into debt. I can’t go, unless you gotta go to college, you better have a reason for going to school.

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You better be able to acquire a skill that’s going to be able to get you a job. You better do a cost benefit analysis before you go to school.

The terrain has changed. Terrain has changed. There used to be, not what Josh Hawley said, Republicans just sticking up for the C-suite and the Wall Street wing. No, it used to be the party of personal responsibility, reliance upon oneself making your way in the world. Not that that’s not doable. It is.

It is. The issue is, that human beings, unfortunately, fortunately, like animals can be conditioned. And once you start conditioning people that, I don’t have to do it, government will help me out. I can get this hand out, I can get this, you can make people lazy.

You can. Again, I talk about that again, my column, drug pusher, which is available on Watchdog on Wall Street site, shows this, demonstrates this and what has happened over the years. But again, I’m in the minority. I’m in the minority. We have to be behind socialism. But again, I like to remind everybody, okay, the

Tinkering around the tinkering around with the know, the socialism out there that this administration’s trying to do picking doll how many dolls people can have tell all this stuff that has to go away That has to go away because you you most certainly you most certainly are going to need people to go out there and continue to build and create protect and teach to fund this welfare state And I’ve already basically

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come to grips with the fact that my taxes are gonna be going way up. Your taxes are gonna be going way up. Because it’s just not sustainable.

Where we’re at is just not sustainable. We cannot continue to grow the welfare state, grow the size of the military, and keep taxes where they are.

They don’t have people willing to make cuts in Washington DC. Like I said, they can’t even find $1.5 trillion in cuts over 10 years. And expenditures that outlays that are what I say over $86 trillion.

I’m not happy about it, not happy about it, but you know, again, I’m, instead of perform, not Mary Poppins, there’s no spoonful of sugar to make the medicine go down. This is the reality of the terrain. Watchdog on wallstreet.com.