One big, beautiful bill — one big, back-loaded disaster



Republicans have a bad habit of passing major legislation without thinking through the consequences. The “one big, beautiful bill” suffers from one big, ugly dose of shortsightedness. It’s an ambitious package loaded with short-term tax cuts and spending increases, followed by a cliff’s-edge drop into fiscal and political chaos just three years down the road.

That’s right. The expiration dates baked into the bill all but guarantee a showdown with Democrats during the 2028 election season, with Trump still in the White House, handing them enormous leverage and setting up Republicans for another round of fiscal self-sabotage.

Another fiscal cliff in the making

To keep the bill’s official price tag under control, drafters built in a series of sunset provisions. The goal: Limit the Congressional Budget Office’s estimate to just three years of deficits, even though they fully intend to extend those policies later. That gimmick allows Republicans to pretend the bill adds “only” $3 trillion to the national debt.

Republicans just built a bomb — and they are poised to hand over the detonator to their political enemies at the worst possible time.

But the policies don’t just disappear in 2028. If history is any guide — see the Bush and Trump tax cuts — most of the expiring provisions will be renewed. And when that time comes, Republicans will argue that these are now “current law” and therefore don’t count as new spending. It’s baseline budgeting sleight of hand, and everyone in Washington knows it.

Let’s look at what’s on the chopping block at the end of 2028:

  • $320 billion in extra defense and immigration spending
  • A larger standard deduction for all taxpayers
  • A $500-per-child bonus tax credit
  • A deduction for auto loan interest
  • $1,000 “Trump accounts” for newborns
  • A higher standard deduction for seniors
  • Exemptions from tax on overtime and tips
  • Immediate expensing for business structures

On top of that, several key business tax provisions — 100% bonus depreciation, enhanced interest deductions, and the R&D credit — will expire in 2029. That timing coincides with the possibility of a Democrat retaking the presidency, leaving Republicans with even less control over what happens next.

According to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, extending the 2028-2029 provisions would add another $2 trillion to the national debt. That would push total costs above the original Trump tax cuts. And it would come just as the U.S. confronts mounting interest payments and an economy likely in no condition to absorb more debt.

A perfect storm in ’28

The timing couldn’t be worse. Democrats are already poised to take back the House in 2027. The GOP’s majority is razor-thin, and Democrats sit just a few seats away from regaining control. If recent special elections offer any clues, the midterms won’t be kind to Republicans.

That means Trump will likely face a Democrat-controlled House in 2028, as his administration scrambles to extend the bill’s most popular provisions: child tax credits, overtime and tip exemptions, baby accounts, business deductions, and elevated defense and homeland security spending — all of it set to disappear just as voters head to the polls.

Trump won’t want to campaign on tax hikes or cuts to defense and border security. He’ll push to renew the provisions — and Democrats will know it. They may agree with many of these policies, but they’ll still demand concessions, knowing Trump has no choice but to deal.

RELATED: I was against Trump’s ‘big, beautiful bill’ — Stephen Miller changed my mind

Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images

Expect ransom demands. Democrats could insist on undoing the repeal of Green New Deal policies. They might push to roll back modest Medicaid reforms included in the bill. They could demand changes to immigration enforcement or extract new spending commitments, especially if the economy continues to falter. Nothing would be off the table.

In short, Republicans have given Democrats the upper hand in a high-stakes negotiation just as Trump is trying to shape his legacy and tee up a successor. They didn’t just walk into the trap — they built it.

Lessons not learned

Republicans keep making the same mistake. Rather than structurally reforming the federal government, they pass short-term tax cuts and temporary spending increases while pretending deficits don’t matter.

This bill could have tackled the cost of health care, the explosion of federal spending, or the burden of inflation. It could have included structural reforms to entitlements, energy, or higher education. Instead, the GOP opted to pass a tax cut bill that tries to game the budget window.

If they believe growth will eventually offset the deficit — fine. But in that case, why not go all in? Make the cuts permanent. Expand them. Flatten the code and eliminate more deductions. Build a case for supply-side reform rather than hiding behind fiscal gimmicks.

Instead, they did the opposite. They chose a politically popular mix of spending and tax breaks and timed it to explode during an election that will determine Trump’s legacy, hoping no one would notice.

The bottom line

The one big, beautiful bill doesn’t reduce spending. It doesn’t rein in the bureaucracy. It doesn’t fix the structural problems crushing the middle class. It temporarily cuts taxes while baking in a debt explosion and surrendering future negotiating power to Democrats.

If Republicans think deficits don’t matter, they should at least have the courage to admit it. If they think Trump’s policies will spark enough growth to pay for themselves, then make those policies permanent. But don’t pretend to care about fiscal restraint while quietly handing the next Congress a multitrillion-dollar mess.

Republicans just built a bomb — and they are poised to hand over the detonator to their political enemies at the worst possible time.

The Debate Over Infrastructure Funding Gimmicks Is Exactly What’s Wrong With Washington

In lieu of additional revenue obtained from auditing taxpayers, how do lawmakers now propose to fund increased federal spending on roads and bridges? Through a budget gimmick.

The Senate is gaming the system to increase spending. VETO!

Leave it to the intellectually dishonest knuckleheads in the Senate to find innovative ways to leave no spending increase behind.

After the president signed the March omnibus bill, he at least made an effort to save a small amount of extra spending through a procedure that is not subject to the filibuster. The Trump administration proposed a tiny $15 billion “rescissions” package to claw back authority for spending on programs that were completely unnecessary or funds that wouldn’t be spent.  Among the provisions was $7 billion in CHIP funding that would not or could not be spent for that fiscal year.

Essentially, this was a package to make legislators feel good about themselves and show they were cutting spending, even though they were not really cutting anything. Yet the Senate, including many Republicans, still balked at the bill. Why? As Deputy OMB Director Russ Vought predicted, “At some point Congress will likely ‘rescind’ those funds as a budget gimmick to offset new spending elsewhere, as it did on the recently passed omnibus.” Legislators knew darn well this money would not be spent and represented phony savings, yet they wanted to keep the funding on the books so they could double-dip and “offset” future spending increases. Passing the administration’s rescissions package would have prevented that.

To that end, Democrats in Congress accused Trump of taking medical care away from children. Rep. Nita Lowey, D-N.Y., called it an “attack on American children and families.” Sen. Pat. Leahy said the rescissions package was “unconscionable” and an example of “cut first, ask questions later.” Even Sen. Lisa Murkowski said, “I don’t support any of this” before casting a vote for it. The Senate rejected it in June, after the House narrowly passed it.

Let’s put aside the fact that CHIP has record funding and that the entire program is superfluous in a post-Obamacare and Medicaid expansion world. In fact, the drafters of Obamacare intended for the CHIP program to end. Either way, these funds were already not being spent. However, Democrats used it as a talking point to scare phony Republicans away from supporting the one notional spending cut package they could pass without a filibuster.

Fast-forward to the current “CROmnibus” legislators are passing to fund HHS at record levels, and they are now using some of the very funding they claimed was vital to children’s health as a way of offsetting new spending, just as Vought predicted. The budget gimmick is called “Changes in Mandatory Programs (CHIMPs).” This means that they take a pot of money from “mandatory” entitlement programs that was never going to be spent and use it to increase discretionary spending.

This bill is full of other budget gimmicks, such as increasing “overseas contingency operation” spending (which is not subject to budget caps) for the endless wars, aka social engineering Islamic sectarian strife, in order to bust even the increased budget caps.

The president was right to criticize this bill for not funding border priorities while funding everything else. I would add that the bill also needs to end the bogus asylum and UAC invasion as well as combat sanctuary cities. The president promised in March never to get taken to the cleaners by Congress again on a budget bill. Well, now is the time to issue an ironclad veto threat and have this fight. The lies Congress used to block his rescissions package are apparent in this very bill and should serve as one more reason for him to dust off his veto pen and demand that House pass a bill with his priorities.

In explaining our constitutional system of checks and balances during debate at the convention, the great James Wilson, one of the leading crafters of the Constitution, observed, “In order to controul the Legislative authority, you must divide it. In order to controul the Executive you must unite it.” Unfortunately, despite the many factions and the bicameralism inherent in the legislature, they are united by endless spending. The president was vested with the sole responsibility of the veto pen because he alone would be accountable for his actions.

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