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For Trump, the problem at the NSF is the problem in the entire government. Do the agencies carry out the president's directives?For Trump, the problem at the NSF is the problem in the entire government. Do the agencies carry out the president's directives?Appropriations talk, executive orders walk: The great MAGA budget betrayal
Money talks. Everything else is just BS. That is true in all areas of life, but it’s especially true in politics.
Trump is now repeating the modus operandi of his first term, in which he proclaims bold cuts, reforms, and changes to federal policies, programs, and agency spending levels in the form of executive orders. He summarily ignores his own policies by lobbying Republicans in Congress to pass annual appropriations bills that fund pretty much every spending level and most policies of his predecessor — so much so that most of these bills garner support from all but the most radical Democrats in Congress.
This bill is the crown jewel budget bill of the GOP trifecta at the peak of Trump’s power, and yet Democrats have no concerns voting for it.
Unfortunately, it is the government funding that matters when attempting to secure permanent change to federal agencies, not ephemeral executive orders or press releases.
On Friday, House Republicans passed a minibus bill with all but the 64 most progressive of the 213 Democrats voting yes. The fact that the 24 most conservative Republicans opposed it despite pressure from the administration should tell you that it does not reflect Trump’s campaign promises.
This minibus included Defense, Homeland Security, Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, Transportation, and Housing and Urban Development. Trump has proposed hundreds of policies throughout those departments that are extremely offensive to Democrats, yet they had no problem supporting the budget bill. Why?
They feel they dodged a bullet in this funding bill, especially while being out of power. The statement from Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), the ranking member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, says it all:
These bills invest in working people across the country and utterly reject President Trump’s plan to defund our kids’ education, evict millions of families, and slash lifesaving medical research nearly in half. The message to President Trump is: America will continue to fund cancer research, we are going to keep investing in affordable housing and tackling homelessness, Congress will not abolish the Department of Education, and the people’s representatives will have the final say on how taxpayer dollars get spent.
...
While there’s a whole lot more I wish these bills would have addressed, these compromise bills protect critical investments in the American people, reject truly heartless cuts that would have undone decades of progress — and they are a significantly better outcome than another yearlong CR. I look forward to ensuring they get signed into law.
This bill is the crown jewel budget bill of the GOP trifecta at the peak of Trump’s power, and yet Democrats not only have no concerns voting for it but enthusiastically support it. What gives?
The DOGE appears to be a fossil from a hundred years ago. The $1.25 trillion “minibus” bill reversed all the DOGE cuts to agencies like the NIH and CDC. Overall, spending will increase slightly over Biden’s final year — a year that was notorious for biblical levels of spending.
Here are some of the top concerns with the FY 2026 budget bill.
- It fully funds the Department of Education. Even as Trump “abolished” the entire department, this bill funds the department at Biden’s level of $78.7 billion. Worse, Democrats secured a provision prohibiting the administration from transferring Education Department funds to other agencies, which had been a point of contention in negotiations. Once again, appropriations talk, executive orders walk.
- According to a Democrat summary of the bill, the total funding for the Labor-HHS-Education portion of the bill is $224 billion, a slight increase in current levels. This is simply astounding given that Republicans never believed in even having these departments at the federal level. If we can’t cut from these agencies, then where will we cut?
- Section 8 galore! Well, what’s worse than locking in Biden’s education and health spending? Increasing Biden’s HUD spending by nearly $8 billion! If there was ever a department conservatives wanted to abolish, it was always HUD. This is something that should be determined at the local level. Once again, Trump promised to cut the department in half, yet increased spending for every program he planned to trim or eliminate.
The bill provides $38.4 billion in tenant-based Section 8 vouchers and a $2.4 billion increase from fiscal 2025. It also provides $18.5 billion for project-based rental assistance, a $1.7 billion increase from last year.
The bill also provides $1.25 billion for HUD’s HOME Investment Partnerships Program, after the Trump administration budget request and the original Republican House Transportation-HUD appropriations bill promised to eliminate the program. These programs provide grants to state and local governments and local NGOs to essentially seed red states with liberal voters and ruin the character of rural communities.
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The bill also provides nearly $7 billion for the Community Development Block Grant Program and the Economic Development Initiatives for housing-related activities and $86 million for fair housing programs. Trump promised for years to eliminate the program altogether.
The only point of contention in the bill is the DHS portion, which Democrats are now threatening to oppose. But let’s be clear: Before the fatal shooting in Minneapolis, they were even willing to pass Trump’s DHS bill and did not perceive it as much of a threat.
At the time the bill was released, Senator Murray boasted that Democrats “defeated Republicans’ hard-fought push to give ICE an even bigger annual budget, successfully cut ICE’s detention budget and capacity, cut CBP’s budget by over $1 billion, and secured important, although still insufficient, new constraints on DHS.” She also lauded the rejection of "all Republican poison pill riders,” such as defunding sanctuary cities.
Democrats are, of course, forced to play to their base. However, on the specifics, this bill contains some horrendous provisions.
- Cheap foreign labor: It allows the secretary to double H-2B visas, going from 66,000 to 130,000 H-2B visas.
- Prohibits ICE from deporting illegal aliens who sponsorunaccompanied minors based on any information provided by HHS. So HHS is supposed to vet the sponsors, but if it determines they are here illegally and tells ICE that, ICE is prohibited from deporting them.
Why would we double foreign worker visas and make it harder to remove those literally engaged in trafficking children over the border by hiring cartel smugglers?
Well, despite all the rhetoric, press releases, tweets, and executive orders, good ol’ Joe Biden had it right when he proclaimed, "Don't tell me what you value. Show me your budget, and I'll tell you what you value." Evidently, we are now valuing almost everything all that he funded in his budget when he made that comment.
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For decades, Americans heard the same justification for high drug prices. Pharmaceutical executives insisted those prices were unavoidable. Research costs required them. Innovation depended on them. The United States, as the world’s most open market, had to pay more than everyone else.
Then Eli Lilly cut the monthly price of one of its flagship weight-loss drugs, Zepbound.
If lower prices matter, then incentives matter more than bureaucracy. Competition and consumer access drive real change.
Nothing about the drug changed. No new scientific breakthrough appeared. The only thing that changed was competition. Once real pressure entered the market, Lilly found room in its pricing model that executives had long claimed did not exist.
The market responded quickly. Novo Nordisk, Lilly’s primary rival, lowered its prices soon after. This did not reflect a sudden gain in efficiency. It reflected fear of losing ground to a competitor.
That is how functioning markets work. When one major player moves, others adjust. The correction happens faster than any federal agency could hope to manage.
The irony is hard to miss. For years, the industry claimed margins were fixed and untouchable. Executives warned that any shift would damage shareholders and undermine global health. Yet the moment one company blinked, others followed. Consumers saw relief not because regulators intervened, but because competition exposed the old narrative as hollow.
Another force reinforced that shift. On Nov. 6, the White House announced a pricing agreement with major drug manufacturers scheduled to take effect in 2026. The agreement aims to narrow the gap between U.S. prices and those in other advanced economies and establishes a purchasing framework that makes reductions easier to implement.
That move marked a break from Washington’s habit of passively accepting industry talking points. The administration did not override the market. It amplified momentum competition had already created. Companies that once refused to consider cuts began to bend once the political cost of rigidity became clear. The announcement accelerated the trend, but competition started it.
A larger reality deserves attention. Major pharmaceutical companies have posted enormous profits for years. They have spent billions on stock buybacks and shareholder payouts while executive compensation soared. Market valuations across the sector reached historic highs. Lilly even became the first pharmaceutical company to surpass a trillion-dollar valuation.
Profit itself is not the problem. But competition forcing these firms to behave more like the quasi-utilities they resemble marks a welcome change from a system long treated as untouchable.
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That system rests on a global arrangement in which Americans shoulder a disproportionate share of drug development costs. Wealthy nations negotiate prices or impose caps. The United States does not. The gap between what Americans pay and what others pay funds buybacks, dividends, and executive packages. Shareholders collect the upside.
The disparity speaks for itself. Drugs that cost hundreds of dollars overseas cost thousands here. The industry defended that gap by warning that research would collapse if prices fell. The current price cuts prove otherwise. Pipelines remain intact. Investment continues. Profitability holds. The model did not break when prices moved downward. It adjusted.
These developments expose a simple truth. Prices never reflected necessity. Incentives shaped them, reinforced by limited competition and political deference. Competition cracked open an inflexible model. The White House helped widen the opening.
Policymakers should learn from that sequence. If lower prices matter, then incentives matter more than bureaucracy. Competition and consumer access drive real change. The bloated regulatory machinery Washington favors often delays it. The market moved before Congress could even respond.
For Americans struggling to afford essential medication, that lesson matters most. Competition remains the strongest and most reliable force for bringing prices down.
It worked here. It can work again — if policymakers allow markets to function and pharmaceutical companies choose access over insulation.
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