If it hasn't been jet fuel since 2017, it won't be now

Real GDP has been 2.43% compound annual 1Q2017 through 1Q2025. And that includes all the obscene pandemic spending.

This isn't even close to the 2.8% Trump cheerleaders are promising, let alone the 3% The Speaker touts.

 

Speaker Johnson: We've Given Everybody A Tax Cut, That Will Be Jet Fuel For The Economy

 

There's no new tax cut. The Trump tax reform from his first term simply continues. There's no injection of new money on a permanent basis involving tax bracket changes, nothing substantively different for the average taxpayer.

 

There are short-term gimmicks for seniors, earners of tip income, earners of overtime pay, car-buyers, etc., but most of these are scattershot and most importantly, most of them expire in 2028.

 

The incremental adjustments which occur naturally to standard deduction amounts would occur anyway. 

More above average income filers will be able to itemize than previously, but only until 2030.

 

 

 

The GOP House bowed down and worshipped before the GOP Senate and voted for its reconciliation bill lock, stock, and barrel today at 2:30pm, including all the clowns of the House Freedom Caucus

The roll call vote is here.

The $36 trillion national debt will soar.

The interest payments on that debt were $639 billion fiscal year to date at the end of May, and they will soar, too.

The so-called fiscal conservatives of the House Freedom Caucus could have stopped this monstrosity, but they all backed down save for Massie and Fitzpatrick, and they aren't even members.

The entire House Freedom Caucus voted for it. 

 

 

Hakeem Jeffries has finished his speech in the US House, which took 8 hours and 44 minutes, a new record

 

Pressure on the House GOP reconciliation bill holdouts got them all, save one, to flip at 03:23 this morning, finally allowing the bill to come to the floor for debate

Thomas Massie was originally for bringing the bill to the floor for debate, then switched to against that after Trump got testy with him lol, and then switched back to for again after getting Trump to stop criticizing him, at least temporarily.

He'll still vote against this damn thing, and will probably be the only one. 

The debate phase started at 03:30 and is still ongoing.

Hakeem Jeffries is trying to outdo Kevin McCarthy with a marathon floor speech in opposition longer than eight hours and thirty-two minutes. 

CNBC also is wondering where the fuel comes from for future GDP under the Trump tax cuts since they are already not cutting it lol

 

House GOP can't agree to proceed to debating Senate reconciliation bill, vote stands at 206 Yea, 216 Nay (4 GOP against), with 10 GOP not voting

Yikes. 

Even if all not voting GOP vote Yea, there's a tie. Not good enough.

And moments ago Thomas Massie changed his Yea to Nay lol. 

 Trump’s megabill is in real trouble; House GOP leaders need to flip a ‘no’ vote to a yes

 

 

Don Bacon: Please stop hating me

 

Senate reconciliation bill gives chipmakers like TSMC more tax credits while cutting Medicaid

 

Chipmakers get larger tax credits in Trump’s latest ‘big beautiful bill’ 

 

... Under the bill, passed by the Senate Tuesday, tax credits for those semiconductor firms would rise to 35% from 25%. That’s more than the 30% increase that had made it into a draft version of the bill. ... 

The new provisions expand on tax incentives under the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act, which provided grants of $39 billion and loans of $75 billion for U.S.-based semiconductor manufacturing projects. ...

 

Medicaid cuts in Trump’s megabill will leave millions uninsured, threaten rural hospitals

... Recent changes to the bill would cut roughly $1.1 trillion in health-care spending over the next decade, according to new estimates from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. 

More than $1 trillion of those cuts would come from Medicaid, a joint federal and state health insurance program for disabled and low-income Americans, according to the CBO. The funding cuts go beyond insurance coverage: The loss of that funding could gut many rural hospitals that disproportionately rely on federal spending.

The CBO estimates that the current version of the bill would result in 11.8 million people losing health insurance by 2034, with the majority of those people losing Medicaid coverage. ...

Approximately 72 million Americans are currently enrolled in Medicaid, about one-fifth of the total U.S. population, according to government data. Medicaid is the primary payer for the majority of nursing home residents, and pays for around 40% of all births. ...

What fools these people are! What fools they think we must be!

 

Trump's Tax Cuts Spurred Growth. BBB Will Do It Again

Hassett & Miran, USA Today

 

TRUMP'S TAX CUTS SPURRED NOTHING. 

 

AND NOTHING NEW HAS BEEN CUT NOW, JUST EXTENDED.

 

THERE IS NO NEW FUEL FOR ECONOMIC GROWTH. 

 

Real GDP since 1Q2017 has grown at a compound annual rate of 2.43%, 23% BELOW the post-war rate of 3.17% from 1Q1947.

 

The Trump tax cuts have been a failure. 

The US Senate's biggest phony, Republican Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, boasted he had enough votes to stop Trump's bill, but voted for it all three times in the end

 

 

The roll call votes are here, here, and here.

June 4, 2025, here:

Republican Sen. Ron Johnson on Wednesday blasted President Donald Trump’s “one big, beautiful bill” as “immoral” and “grotesque,” and reiterated that he will vote against it unless his GOP colleagues make major changes.

“This is immoral, what us old farts doing to our young people,” Johnson said on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” after sounding alarms that the massive tax-and-spending-cut bill would add trillions of dollars to national deficits.

“This is grotesque, what we’re doing,” Johnson said. “We need to own up to that. This is our moment.”

“I can’t accept the scenario, I can’t accept it, so I won’t vote for it, unless we are serious about fixing it,” he continued.

Johnson has been among the Senate’s loudest GOP critics of the budget bill that narrowly passed the House last month.

Johnson and other fiscal hawks have taken aim over its effect on the nation’s debt. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated later Wednesday that the bill would add $2.4 trillion to the national debt over the next decade.

Johnson has proposed splitting the bill into two parts, though Trump insists on passing his agenda in a single package.

“The president and Senate leadership has to understand that we’re serious now,” Johnson said of himself and the handful of other GOP senators whose opposition to the bill could imperil its chances.

“They all say, ‘Oh, we can pressure these guys.’ No, you can’t.”

Republicans hold a narrow 53-47 majority in the Senate, so they can only afford to lose a handful of votes to get the bill passed in a party-line vote.

“Let’s discuss the numbers, and let’s focus on our children and grandchildren, whose futures are being mortgaged, their prospects are being diminished by what we are doing to them,” Johnson said.

Johnson’s comments came one day after Elon Musk ripped into the spending bill, calling it a “disgusting abomination” that will lead to exploding deficits. The White House brushed aside Musk’s comments.

Johnson said Musk’s criticisms bolster the case against the bill.

“He’s in the inside, he showed … President Trump how to do this, you know, contract by contract, line by line,” Johnson said of Musk. “We have to do that.”

Johnson said his campaign against the bill in its current form is not a “long shot,” because he thinks there are “enough” Republican senators who will vote against the bill.

“We want to see [Trump] succeed, but again, my loyalty is to our kids and grandkids,” he said.

“So there’s enough of us who have that attitude that very respectfully we just have say, ’Mr. President, I’m sorry, ‘one, big, beautiful bill’ was not the best idea,” he added.

 

GOP coward Senator Lisa Murkowski today hopes the US House will fix the reconciliation bill she just voted for, just like GOP coward Rep. Chip Roy hoped in May the US Senate would fix the reconciliation bill he just voted for

 You can't make this up!

Cowards hope someone else will do what must be done.

Heroes do it themselves.

Vote Nay for once!

 

 

The dark side had to come to the rescue of Trump's reconciliation bill in the U.S. Senate THREE TIMES

 

 Vance breaks 50-50 tie as Senate passes GOP megabill after voting around the clock   

Vice President Vance cast the tie-breaking vote as Senate Republicans on Tuesday delivered a huge legislative victory for President Trump by passing his One Big, Beautiful Bill Act after hours of tense negotiations that lasted through the night. ... 

the three ties which J. D. Vance had to break

 

 

Trump is threatening to throttle Elon Musk's opposition to the bill in the US Senate, which still hasn't been voted on after 24 hours of debate, by deporting him

 

The current policy baseline helps Republicans hide the fact that they are spending like drunken sailors

 

 

Phony Republican current policy baseline says Trump tax cuts will cost $0 going forward, Congressional Budget Office says $3.5 trillion

 Graham claims sole authority to decide if GOP megabill complies with budget laws

... Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), the ranking member of the Budget Committee, immediately appealed the ruling of the chair.

He pointed to a letter he received from Congressional Budget Office Director Phillip Swagel asserting that the Finance portion of the bill would increase federal deficit by $3.5 trillion between 2025 and 2034 and increase deficits beyond the 10-year budget window, which ends in 2034.

“The ability of the chair to create a phony baseline has never been used in reconciliation, not ever,” Merkley argued.

“This breaks a 51-year tradition of the Senate for honest numbers,” he declared.

Merkley’s appeal of the chair’s ruling empowering Graham failed by a party-line vote. Senators rejected it by a vote of 53 to 47. ...

Every Republican in the U.S. Senate drank the koolaid this morning and voted for the current policy baseline, including Thom Tillis, Rand Paul, Ron Johnson, you name 'em, they voted for it

I'm speechless.

The roll call vote is here. 

Using their magic eraser, the Trump tax cuts will cost $0 going forward. 

 

Words have a meaning, and Real Clear Politics wants you to think Donald Trump intimidated Senator Thom Tillis to disappear

NC GOP Senator Tillis Announces Resignation After Clash With Trump

Fox News is almost as bad:

 Thom Tillis announces retirement from Senate after clash with Trump 

The truth: ... The North Carolina Republican announced on Sunday that he would not seek reelection in the 2026 cycle. ...

Thom is still there, hopefully to vote Nay again today on Trump's big, ugly charade of a reconciliation bill, and will be there for eighteen more months, and there's not a damn thing Trump can do about it.

He will be a potent second potential Nay vote in the US Senate on everything with Rand Paul. 

 

Republicans are doing an end-run around the Senate parliamentarian to make novel use of the current policy baseline instead of current law, asserting a Democrat precedent from 2022

 Senate GOP declines to meet with parliamentarian on whether Trump tax cuts add to deficit

... Republicans, however, say that the parliamentarian doesn’t have a role in judging how much the tax portion of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act would add to the deficit within the bill’s 10-year budget window or whether it would add to deficits beyond 2034.

They argue that Budget Committee Chair Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) has authority under Section 312 of the Congressional Budget Act “to determine baseline numbers of spending and revenue.”

Ryan Wrasse, a spokesperson for Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.), pointed to a Budget Committee report published when Democrats were in the majority in 2022 stating that the Budget Committee, through its chair, makes the call on questions of numbers, not the parliamentarian.

Graham received a letter from Swagel [CBO Director] on Saturday stating that the Finance Committee’s tax text does not exceed its reconciliation instructions or add to deficits after 2034 when scored on the “current-policy” baseline that Graham wants the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) and CBO to use.

Taylor Reidy, a spokesperson for the Budget panel, asserted on the social platform X that “there is no need to have a parliamentarian meeting with respect to current policy baseline because Section 312 of the Congressional Budget Act gives Sen. Graham — as Chairman of the Budget Committee — the authority to set the baseline.” ...

All you really need to know is that whatever these yokels end up passing, the country will be $50-$60 trillion in debt ten years from now because they spend too much and tax too little.

Republican Senator Thom Tillis from North Carolina will not run again in 2026 after voting to stop Trump's reconciliation bill

 Tillis won’t run for reelection in North Carolina 

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) on Sunday announced he will not seek reelection to the Senate next year, firing a political shock wave into the midterm cycle after he said he would oppose President Trump’s mammoth tax package. ... 

 

Republican Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin folds like a house of cards, switches his Nay vote to Yea to advance reconciliation bill to the Senate floor for debate

 Trump megabill narrowly advances in Senate despite two GOP defections

Senate Republicans on Saturday narrowly voted to advance a sprawling 1,000-page bill to enact President Trump’s agenda, despite the opposition of two GOP lawmakers.

The vote was 51-49.

Two Republicans voted against advancing the package: Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who opposes a provision to raise the debt limit by $5 trillion and Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), who says the legislation would cost his state $38.9 trillion in federal Medicaid funding.

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) changed his “no” vote to “aye,” and holdout Sens. Mike Lee (R-Utah), Rick Scott (R-Fla.) and Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.) also voted yes to advance the bill. 

The bill had suffered several significant setbacks in the days and hours before coming to the floor, at times appearing to be on shaky ground.

The vote itself was also full of drama. ...

Flashback to May 25 when Johnson said he had enough votes in the Senate to stop the bill:

GOP senator says resistance to Trump's 'Big, Beautiful Bill' could stop it in the Senate

President Donald Trump and Speaker Mike Johnson are hopeful for minimal modifications in the Senate to the "One Big, Beautiful Bill" passed by the House last week, but one Republican senator said there's enough resistance to halt the bill unless there are significant changes.

"The first goal of our budget reconciliation process should be to reduce the deficit. This actually increases," Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., told CNN's "State of the Union" on Sunday, urging deeper spending cuts than those in the bill to reset to a "reasonable, pre-pandemic level of spending."

"I think we have enough to stop the process until the president gets serious about spending reduction and reducing the deficit," Johnson said. ...                                                

Didn't even have him!