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The Big, Beautiful Bill—As Musk Suggests—Is Big, Not Beautiful
Once again, the House Republicans are lauding their passing of the Big, Beautiful Trump Bill. (Musk was asked in an interview what he thought of the bill–he said it could be big, or it could be beautiful, but not both.) Frankly, I am not only unimpressed by the bill, but I think they have betrayed their mission to act on behalf of the American people. They like to brag about all the great things they have passed: extending the 2017 tax deadline and stopping taxes on tips and overtime. But as Senators Ron Johnson and Rick Scott explain, they have decided to be loose and careless with our tax dollars.
What are these senators criticizing? Johnson has repeatedly recommended splitting the bill in two, to give the Senate more time to work on the deficit:
‘If we split this thing into two parts: border defense, take what spending cuts that we’ve already identified, bank those, extend current tax law, take an automatic tax increase off the table, increase the debt ceiling for about a year—by the way, that will be a shocking amount, about $2.5 trillion just to get us into March of 2026. That ought to tell people, we better fix this.’
He has also called for going back to pre-pandemic levels:
‘It’s been [an] unprecedented level of spending. There’s no justification for $4.4 to $7 trillion in just six years. Getting back to a reasonable pre-pandemic level, you do it line by line by line,’ he said.
But will the people in the Senate understand the importance of this approach?
I doubt it. All they know is that they want their pet projects and expect to get re-elected accordingly.
Rick Scott also opposed the House bill:
‘If we follow the path of the House bill, we’ll have close to, I think, $60 trillion worth of debt in 10 years,’ Scott said on ‘Mornings With Maria,’ Thursday. ‘What we’ve got to do is do what every family does: We’ve got to go through every line of the budget.’
Sen. Johnson echoed Scott’s proposal on ‘Sunday Morning Futures,’ saying he would trust Scott to oversee a line-by-line review to find areas to cut spending:
‘Rick Scott has the experience in Florida. Take a look at how successful he was at reducing spending, balancing his budget, and then giving tax cuts to Floridians,’ Johnson told host Maria Bartiromo. ‘He’d be great on a budget review panel, I propose that.’
Hello?? Did anyone see that debt amount?
The Senate has other grievances with the House bill:
Senators have signaled they’d like to make changes to a litany of House proposals, including reforms to Medicaid and the timeline for phasing out green energy tax credits, among others, and have grumbled about the hike to the state and local tax (SALT) deduction cap pushed for by moderate House Republicans.
What does this mean? Those “moderate Republicans” are prepared to pay off their constituents by increasing the SALT allowance:
The bill includes a proposal that would raise the cap for the state and local tax (SALT) deduction, which would allow taxpayers — especially those in higher-tax blue states — to deduct more of their regional taxes from their federal tax bill.
The measure calls for raising the current deduction cap to $40,000 for filers making less than $500,000.
The deal House GOP leadership struck with SALT Caucus Republicans was crucial in getting the bill passed. Several Republicans from high-tax blue states had threatened to tank the entire measure if the deduction cap wasn’t increased to their liking.
Not to their liking? We have an economy in crisis, and nobody is willing to bite the bullet. Insisting that adults without children work in order for them to keep Medicaid–remember when Medicaid was for the needy? And they want to take the Pentagon budget up to $1 trillion. How about an audit first?
And trust me—there’s much, much more to this irresponsible bill.
But no one wants to be responsible.
Published in Finance
Susan,
Amen.
I feel like I was duped by DOGE. It will be harder for Trump to fool me next time, and I think that applies to millions of Republicans who were willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.
If Musk is referring to this budget bill as being big and beautiful, perhaps that is because it increases the level of defense spending.
Here is some data from Feb 2025 regarding Musk and defense monies:
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/elon-musks-us-department-defense-contracts-2025-02-11/
And here is a prior report, focused primarily on Space X, which is a defense/NASA budget item:
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/elon-musks-us-department-defense-contracts-2025-02-11/
Although I consider myself a principled person, and one who wants much smaller budgets, I consider I might cave if the government had been giving me contracts worth 22 billion dollars.
Mark, to me, this isn’t about DOGE. I think Musk did what he was called to do. He did make a lot of people angry, but that is no surprise. The problem is that the bill they submit to Congress for his findings will probably be a fraction of his recommendations. I’m talking about the bill that originated in Congress. And they’ve done a despicable job.
I’ve heard Johnson speak on this (Tucker’s podcast) and he makes a very compelling case. Rand Paul is another go to guy with integrity who correctly claims the debt is a national security issue. The desire to extend the 2017 tax cuts is a noble one, but at what cost?
I wasn’t clear. I agree with you that Musk and DOGE did what they were called to do, or did their best, anyway.
I meant that Trump used DOGE to create the impression that he intended to get control of the spending and borrowing, and it is now it is beginning to seem that it was just more of the same old bluster.
I agree with all your points, Hoyacon. Although the tax cut extension is supposed to be a big deal.
Agree!! Why isn’t he pushing for the cuts??
Just the News with John Solomon has a two part podcast talking to Kevin Hassett, Ron Johnson, and several others about the bill. Johnson really isn’t a fan. I have to say I agree. I know politics is all about compromise, but why are we always the ones giving in, or so it seems.
I’d give it up if that’s what it takes to get spending back to pre-pandemic levels. But what I’d really like to do is get spending back to where it was before Obama’s shovel-ready spending blowout.
It does seem so. But this time it’s the Republicans fighting with each other. Hey folks, remember us lil ol’ citizens??
Works for me!
It has not been properly communicated, but I think this is the process:
1) this is budget bill that sets rules for “entitlement” spending and revenue and spending values for the next 10 years. Senate rules do not allow adjustments to current discretionary spending.
2) next will be a Rescission bill of cuts to current year discretionary spending proposed by the Executive and passed by a simple majority. DOGE comes in here.
3) next will a set of Appropriations (or an omnibus) for spending for the next fiscal year.
If that is the process, DOGE cuts come in step 2 and cannot come in step 1. If that is the process, the GOP has a poor job of explaining things. Maybe they don’t want to scare people, but the MAGA base is frustrated.
Here is how Grok summarizes the different types of bills:
Here’s a concise breakdown of the differences:
In short: A budget bill plans spending, an appropriations bill legally funds it, and a rescission bill cuts or cancels prior funding.
Key Notes:
So much of government spending, including “defense” spending, just goes into holes that accomplish nothing. A lot of the “programs” could very well be 100% grift.
On the other hand, SpaceX is at least doing things: launching rockets, launching satellites, etc. That costs money. That $22 Billion didn’t just go into Elon’s pocket. And SpaceX isn’t launching extra rockets/satellites for the government, that they aren’t being paid for. Conversely, if the government wanted fewer launches/satellites, then they would be paying less, and SpaceX would be SPENDING less, but their profits – at least those that go to Musk himself – might very well not change at all.
Ron Johnson calls out the President’s team on this.
Looks to me as though the GOP will again grab defeat from the jaws of victory, lose both houses in the midterms, and just generally muck around and achieve nothing. Wonder whom they will blame?
If that happens, I would blame the foolish voters.
Assuming that your handle on these details are correct, here is my query:
How come we have had this 3 step process for decades yet only now in 2025 is the process being explained to a wider group of people?
I agree with the Amen. But this isn’t the fault of DOGE. DOGE cannot write the budget. All they can do is present a list of recommendations to Congress and the President. I am not surprised that just as with all other post-Calvin Coolidge panels that had a similar mission, their recommendations are being almost completely ignored. It’s very much what I expected.
Mark clarifies his thought in comment #5.
I did not mean that DOGE was at fault. Sorry for the confusion.
Consistent w my understanding: there are limits as to what can be done within the constraints of this bill.
Here’s the actual bill. You can search for specific provisions & keywords with control-F. Also, here is an analysis of the bill by Perplexity.
In my view, the provisions for 100% bonus depreciation and the increased Section 179 expensing limits are key to accelerating economic growth, and that is also true for the provision allowing R&D costs to be expensed instead of depreciated.
For those of us who are economic novices, could you translate, David?
As a still part-time self-employed geezer-American, I would appreciate seeing the 2017 tax cuts extended, such as the deduction for a portion of gross profit from taxable income, the 100% write-off for self-employed health insurance costs, and especially the new exemption from tax for Social Security benefits as I still pay IN to Social Security over 15% of my profit while also being income-taxed on my benefits, BUT until there are also serious spending cuts, we are still the Titanic steaming full speed directly towards the massive debt iceberg. Talk about a mess.
The question is when you can deduct the cost of a business asset…a new machine tool or robotics system, say…from tax tax standpoint. If you pay $10MM for your new machine, do you get to deduct it all when you buy it, or do you have to spread out the deduction over several future years (depreciation). This means that you may be paying taxes on ‘profits’ that you have actually from a tax standpoint not yet made.
The requirement for R&D costs to be depreciated over 5 years rather than being expensed immediately was added IIRC in 2017, and has been very painful for many early-stage businesses.
Given Elon Musk’s recent comments, they haven’t even explained it to him. It seems Musk has been under the same impression as the public at large, that at least some massive cuts would be included in the current bill.
Sounds very Republican. Do the easy stuff now and work on the hard stuff later after all leverage to get it done is gone.
Thanks so much!
People like to criticize the relatively small amount of recommended cuts DOGE put forward. When you look at what’s being cut, you see a lot of leftist, woke, DEI garbage in the mix. Bravo, DOGE!