'The emperor has no clothes': Rand Paul rips into Trump's 'big, beautiful bill'
David Edwards
May 25, 2025
Fox News/screen grab
Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) tore into President Donald Trump's "big, beautiful" budget bill for failing to make significant spending cuts.
In a Sunday interview on Fox News, host Shannon Bream noted that millions could lose access to health care and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) if the Senate passed the bill recently approved by House Republicans.
"Well, see, on the one hand, you can offer people free stuff," Paul opined. "And people are, oh, thank you for free health care. But what you don't tell them is we're borrowing the money from China to pay for your health care... I think it's the greatest threat to our national security."
"We bring in about $5 trillion in revenue, and we spend $7 trillion," he continued. "The $5 trillion is consumed by Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, and other welfare programs. So the people say, well, we're taking this off the table, and we're not going to touch any of those programs. Well, they're just not frankly serious."
Paul predicted there would be "very disappointed conservatives" unless welfare programs were cut.
"Somebody has to stand up and yell, the emperor has no clothes, and everybody's falling in lockstep on this, passed the big, beautiful bill, don't question anything," he said of the budget bill. "This is a problem we've been facing for decades now, and if we don't stand up on it, I really fear the direction the country is going."
Watch the video below from Fox News or at the link.
May 25, 2025
RAW STORY
Fox News/screen grab
Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) tore into President Donald Trump's "big, beautiful" budget bill for failing to make significant spending cuts.
In a Sunday interview on Fox News, host Shannon Bream noted that millions could lose access to health care and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) if the Senate passed the bill recently approved by House Republicans.
"Well, see, on the one hand, you can offer people free stuff," Paul opined. "And people are, oh, thank you for free health care. But what you don't tell them is we're borrowing the money from China to pay for your health care... I think it's the greatest threat to our national security."
"We bring in about $5 trillion in revenue, and we spend $7 trillion," he continued. "The $5 trillion is consumed by Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, and other welfare programs. So the people say, well, we're taking this off the table, and we're not going to touch any of those programs. Well, they're just not frankly serious."
Paul predicted there would be "very disappointed conservatives" unless welfare programs were cut.
"Somebody has to stand up and yell, the emperor has no clothes, and everybody's falling in lockstep on this, passed the big, beautiful bill, don't question anything," he said of the budget bill. "This is a problem we've been facing for decades now, and if we don't stand up on it, I really fear the direction the country is going."
Watch the video below from Fox News or at the link.
There's a hidden provision in that big ugly bill that makes Trump king
Robert Reich
May 22, 2025
Phony Time magazine cover with Donald Trump wearing a crown. (The White House)
I’ve been following with a mixture of dismay and disgust Trump’s One Big Ugly Bill, soon to head to the Senate. I’ll report back to you on it
But I want to alert you to one detail inside it that’s especially alarming. With one stroke, it would allow Trump to crown himself king.
As you know, Trump has been trying to neuter the courts by ignoring them.
The Supreme Court has told Trump to “facilitate” the return of Abrego Garcia, a legal resident of the United States whom even the Trump regime admits was erroneously sent to a brutal prison in El Salvador. Trump has essentially thumbed his nose at the Court by doing nothing.
Lower federal courts have told him to stop deporting migrants without giving them a chance to know the charges against them and have the charges and evidence reviewed by a neutral judge or magistrate (the minimum of due process). Again, nothing.
Judge James Boasberg, Chief Judge of the federal district court for the District of Columbia, issued a temporary restraining order preventing the Trump regime from flying individuals to the prison in El Salvador without due process.
Judge Boasberg has found that the Trump regime has willfully disregarded his order.
What can the courts do in response to Trump’s open defiance of the judges and justices?
The courts have one power to make their orders stick: holding federal officials in contempt and enforcing such contempt citations against them.
Enforcing a contempt citation means fining or jailing the Trump lawyers who argue before them, and possibly invoking contempt all the way up the line to Trump.
Boasberg said that if Trump’s legal team does not give the dozens of Venezuelan men sent to the Salvadorian prison a chance to legally challenge their removal, he’ll begin contempt proceedings against the administration.
In a separate case, U.S. District Court Judge Paula Xinis has demanded that the Trump administration explain why it is not complying with the Supreme Court order to “facilitate” the release of Abrego Garcia.
Xinis questions whether the administration intends to comply with the order at all, citing a statement from U.S. Department of Homeland Security chief Kristi Noem that Abrego Garcia "will never be allowed to return to the United States." According to Xinis, "That sounds to me like an admission. That's about as clear as it can get."
So what’s next? Will the Supreme Court and lower courts hold the administration in contempt and enforce contempt citations?
Not if the Big Ugly Bill is enacted with the following provision, now hidden in the bill:
“No court of the United States may use appropriated funds to enforce a contempt citation for failure to comply with an injunction or temporary restraining order if no security was given when the injunction or order was issued….”
Translated: No federal court may enforce a contempt citation.
Obviously, courts need appropriated funds to do anything because Congress appropriates money to enable the courts to function. To require a security or bond to be given in civil proceedings seeking to stop alleged abuses by the federal government would effectively immunize such conduct from judicial review because those seeking such court orders generally don’t have the resources to post a bond.
Hence, with a stroke, the provision removes the judiciary’s capacity to hold officials in contempt.
As U.C. Berkeley School of Law Dean and Distinguished Professor of Law Erwin Chemerinsky notes, this provision would eliminate any restraint on Trump.
‘Without the contempt power, judicial orders are meaningless and can be ignored. There is no way to understand this except as a way to keep the Trump administration from being restrained when it violates the Constitution or otherwise breaks the law. …
‘This would be a stunning restriction on the power of the federal courts. The Supreme Court has long recognized that the contempt power is integral to the authority of the federal courts. Without the ability to enforce judicial orders, they are rendered mere advisory opinions which parties are free to disregard.”
With this single provision, in other words, Trump will have crowned himself king. No congress and no court could stop him. Even if a future Congress were to try to stop him, it could not do so without the power of the courts to enforce their hearings, investigations, subpoenas, and laws.
What can you do? To begin with, call your members of Congress and tell them not to pass Trump’s One Big Ugly Bill.
Robert Reich is a professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/
Robert Reich
May 22, 2025
RAW STORY
Phony Time magazine cover with Donald Trump wearing a crown. (The White House)
I’ve been following with a mixture of dismay and disgust Trump’s One Big Ugly Bill, soon to head to the Senate. I’ll report back to you on it
But I want to alert you to one detail inside it that’s especially alarming. With one stroke, it would allow Trump to crown himself king.
As you know, Trump has been trying to neuter the courts by ignoring them.
The Supreme Court has told Trump to “facilitate” the return of Abrego Garcia, a legal resident of the United States whom even the Trump regime admits was erroneously sent to a brutal prison in El Salvador. Trump has essentially thumbed his nose at the Court by doing nothing.
Lower federal courts have told him to stop deporting migrants without giving them a chance to know the charges against them and have the charges and evidence reviewed by a neutral judge or magistrate (the minimum of due process). Again, nothing.
Judge James Boasberg, Chief Judge of the federal district court for the District of Columbia, issued a temporary restraining order preventing the Trump regime from flying individuals to the prison in El Salvador without due process.
Judge Boasberg has found that the Trump regime has willfully disregarded his order.
What can the courts do in response to Trump’s open defiance of the judges and justices?
The courts have one power to make their orders stick: holding federal officials in contempt and enforcing such contempt citations against them.
Enforcing a contempt citation means fining or jailing the Trump lawyers who argue before them, and possibly invoking contempt all the way up the line to Trump.
Boasberg said that if Trump’s legal team does not give the dozens of Venezuelan men sent to the Salvadorian prison a chance to legally challenge their removal, he’ll begin contempt proceedings against the administration.
In a separate case, U.S. District Court Judge Paula Xinis has demanded that the Trump administration explain why it is not complying with the Supreme Court order to “facilitate” the release of Abrego Garcia.
Xinis questions whether the administration intends to comply with the order at all, citing a statement from U.S. Department of Homeland Security chief Kristi Noem that Abrego Garcia "will never be allowed to return to the United States." According to Xinis, "That sounds to me like an admission. That's about as clear as it can get."
So what’s next? Will the Supreme Court and lower courts hold the administration in contempt and enforce contempt citations?
Not if the Big Ugly Bill is enacted with the following provision, now hidden in the bill:
“No court of the United States may use appropriated funds to enforce a contempt citation for failure to comply with an injunction or temporary restraining order if no security was given when the injunction or order was issued….”
Translated: No federal court may enforce a contempt citation.
Obviously, courts need appropriated funds to do anything because Congress appropriates money to enable the courts to function. To require a security or bond to be given in civil proceedings seeking to stop alleged abuses by the federal government would effectively immunize such conduct from judicial review because those seeking such court orders generally don’t have the resources to post a bond.
Hence, with a stroke, the provision removes the judiciary’s capacity to hold officials in contempt.
As U.C. Berkeley School of Law Dean and Distinguished Professor of Law Erwin Chemerinsky notes, this provision would eliminate any restraint on Trump.
‘Without the contempt power, judicial orders are meaningless and can be ignored. There is no way to understand this except as a way to keep the Trump administration from being restrained when it violates the Constitution or otherwise breaks the law. …
‘This would be a stunning restriction on the power of the federal courts. The Supreme Court has long recognized that the contempt power is integral to the authority of the federal courts. Without the ability to enforce judicial orders, they are rendered mere advisory opinions which parties are free to disregard.”
With this single provision, in other words, Trump will have crowned himself king. No congress and no court could stop him. Even if a future Congress were to try to stop him, it could not do so without the power of the courts to enforce their hearings, investigations, subpoenas, and laws.
What can you do? To begin with, call your members of Congress and tell them not to pass Trump’s One Big Ugly Bill.
Robert Reich is a professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/
Op-Ed:
Antiquarians and economic illiterates rejoice! The Big Suicidal Bill is here.
ByPaul Wallis
DIGITAL JOURNAL
May 25, 2025
The US Treasury Department said the budget deficit rose in fiscal year 2024, hitting the third-largest on record. — © AFP/File SAUL LOEB
Analyses of the Big Beautiful Bozo Bill are swarming the headlines. Even allowing for the total inadequacy of the astonishingly outdated US revenue system, this bill is direct from prehistory. Nobody living in a tree would believe it or trust it.
This is the definitive version of wealth inequality. Bernie Sanders has been calling it a massive upward redistribution of wealth for many years. You have to admire his tact. It’s an atrocity in progress. The total management failure that this budget enshrines can’t work on any level.
It’s the epitome of an ultra-dogmatic senile conservative wish list. It’s largely about tax breaks and political lip service to populist policies that won’t work either. It addresses absolutely none of America’s chronic domestic disasters on any level. It will make many of the Main Street catastrophes much worse through added costs alone.
Put it this way – If you can’t read a balance sheet and don’t know how to check your numbers, it looks great. It’s terrible basic accountancy at best, and likely to be fatal at worst. The Penn-Wharton House Reconciliation Bill seems like a surprisingly polite funeral oration.
Let’s start with the obvious:
America is in a terminal debt cycle and just lost its last AAA rating. That makes everything more expensive.
The Federal debt is systemic and a massive burden on net revenue.
This bill raises the debt by $4 trillion. The new debt ceiling is likely to be reached by late 2026. That means more borrowing will be required in one year.
The costs of immigration policies and similar obsessions have yet to be quantified, but there’s an allowance of $150 billion in the budget.
There are no simple but informative “revenue minus spending” projections like you’d expect from a first-year business student or a moderately educated house brick.
Inflation and real added costs like imports and exports apparently aren’t factors in calculations.
America doesn’t have a national VAT, unlike the rest of the Western world. That makes raising revenue even more cumbersome and very much more inefficient.
Red states are totally dependent on blue states to pay the revenue that keeps the red states alive.
People who never pay taxes are getting tax cuts while the poor pay more taxes.
Corporate taxes aren’t an issue. Why not?
America doesn’t have free healthcare, unlike the rest of the Western world. About 325,000 Americans go bankrupt per year with medical costs. Everyone else just goes progressively broke.
The bill includes increases in real spending based on the various mutterings from the White House. The Golden Dome, invading Greenland, annexing Canada, ridiculous tantrum-based trade-destroying tariffs, and obscene and insane foreign relations aren’t in the budget.
The likely outcome of this ungodly mess will be an automatic massive built-in rolling deficit with no revenue to balance the spending for years. The only way to pay for it will be through big borrowing.
There are no indications of how the states will respond to the sheer number of instant revenue shortfalls and loss of business.
Even the theory of this budget would get an instant F in grade school, and that’s flattery. What it won’t get is an atom of sympathy. This disaster is all self-inflicted. Nobody wants to do business with this degree of incompetence.
Now the good news, such as it is.
It’s highly unlikely that this absurdity or the next budget will survive the mid-terms.
The only available fix is to repeal this load of garbage, lose the morons responsible, and modernize the revenue system.
America will eventually stagger out of the rubble, but this is going to be extremely expensive.
This is a budget for necrophiles.
_________________________________________________
Disclaimer
The opinions expressed in this Op-Ed are those of the author. They do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of the Digital Journal or its members.
ByPaul Wallis
DIGITAL JOURNAL
May 25, 2025
The US Treasury Department said the budget deficit rose in fiscal year 2024, hitting the third-largest on record. — © AFP/File SAUL LOEB
Analyses of the Big Beautiful Bozo Bill are swarming the headlines. Even allowing for the total inadequacy of the astonishingly outdated US revenue system, this bill is direct from prehistory. Nobody living in a tree would believe it or trust it.
This is the definitive version of wealth inequality. Bernie Sanders has been calling it a massive upward redistribution of wealth for many years. You have to admire his tact. It’s an atrocity in progress. The total management failure that this budget enshrines can’t work on any level.
It’s the epitome of an ultra-dogmatic senile conservative wish list. It’s largely about tax breaks and political lip service to populist policies that won’t work either. It addresses absolutely none of America’s chronic domestic disasters on any level. It will make many of the Main Street catastrophes much worse through added costs alone.
Put it this way – If you can’t read a balance sheet and don’t know how to check your numbers, it looks great. It’s terrible basic accountancy at best, and likely to be fatal at worst. The Penn-Wharton House Reconciliation Bill seems like a surprisingly polite funeral oration.
Let’s start with the obvious:
America is in a terminal debt cycle and just lost its last AAA rating. That makes everything more expensive.
The Federal debt is systemic and a massive burden on net revenue.
This bill raises the debt by $4 trillion. The new debt ceiling is likely to be reached by late 2026. That means more borrowing will be required in one year.
The costs of immigration policies and similar obsessions have yet to be quantified, but there’s an allowance of $150 billion in the budget.
There are no simple but informative “revenue minus spending” projections like you’d expect from a first-year business student or a moderately educated house brick.
Inflation and real added costs like imports and exports apparently aren’t factors in calculations.
America doesn’t have a national VAT, unlike the rest of the Western world. That makes raising revenue even more cumbersome and very much more inefficient.
Red states are totally dependent on blue states to pay the revenue that keeps the red states alive.
People who never pay taxes are getting tax cuts while the poor pay more taxes.
Corporate taxes aren’t an issue. Why not?
America doesn’t have free healthcare, unlike the rest of the Western world. About 325,000 Americans go bankrupt per year with medical costs. Everyone else just goes progressively broke.
The bill includes increases in real spending based on the various mutterings from the White House. The Golden Dome, invading Greenland, annexing Canada, ridiculous tantrum-based trade-destroying tariffs, and obscene and insane foreign relations aren’t in the budget.
The likely outcome of this ungodly mess will be an automatic massive built-in rolling deficit with no revenue to balance the spending for years. The only way to pay for it will be through big borrowing.
There are no indications of how the states will respond to the sheer number of instant revenue shortfalls and loss of business.
Even the theory of this budget would get an instant F in grade school, and that’s flattery. What it won’t get is an atom of sympathy. This disaster is all self-inflicted. Nobody wants to do business with this degree of incompetence.
Now the good news, such as it is.
It’s highly unlikely that this absurdity or the next budget will survive the mid-terms.
The only available fix is to repeal this load of garbage, lose the morons responsible, and modernize the revenue system.
America will eventually stagger out of the rubble, but this is going to be extremely expensive.
This is a budget for necrophiles.
_________________________________________________
Disclaimer
The opinions expressed in this Op-Ed are those of the author. They do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of the Digital Journal or its members.
No comments:
Post a Comment