How Republicans used Alternative Facts to Rig the Budget Bill for Billionaires
Alligator Alcatraz and DOGE focuses on guns
ACTION:
Call your House Rep and tell them to VOTE NO on the big budget bill, this is especially important if you have a Republican rep. DO IT THIS MORNING!! The switchboard is (202) 224-3121
How they Rigged It
Republicans spend a lot of time screaming about how important the filibuster is, but when it comes to tax cuts for billionaires - it turns out they are willing to put their feelings aside and bend all of the rules of budgetary procedure.
The Republican’s budget bill is quite awful, but they wanted it to be way worse. Quite a few provisions were kicked out of the bill by the Senate Parliamentarian, Elizabeth MacDonough. But Trump fought against her decisions and Senate Republicans concocted a run-around to the rules of the filibuster.
This particular bill is not an ordinary bill. It’s a budget reconciliation bill, which is a budget bill made under an expedited process for tax and spending measures which is not subject to the filibuster. The limitations on reconciliation bills are that all the provisions must make changes to spending or revenue (and that must be an integral component of the provision). Another is that it can’t increase the deficit outside of a 10 year window.
MacDonough was just doing her job, but Trump was having none of it.
The president urged Republicans to ignore her, writing on Truth social: “An unelected Senate Staffer (Parliamentarian), should not be allowed to hurt the Republicans Bill. Wants many fantastic things out. NO! DJT,”
Republican Senators did not comply with Trump’s wishes on that front, and the provisions MacDonough disqualified did not end up in the final version of the bill.
But this big bill adds $3.3 trillion to the deficit with its tax cuts for the rich. So how did that slip past MacDonough’s pen?
Trump’s 2017 tax cuts are expiring, which is why they need to be made permanent through legislative action. Republicans concocted a smoke and mirrors scheme to get around the requirement - fundamentally breaking the filibuster.
“Republicans are … deploying fake math, accounting gimmicks, to hide the true cost of the bill,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said. In contrast Sen. Lindsay Graham said, “I’ve never felt better. I’ve been wanting to do this for, like, a long time.”
What exactly did he do? As the Budget Committee chair, Graham has the authority to determine the budget baseline used to score changes. You would think the baseline would be….reality. But it turns out alternative facts can be legislatively codified. Graham directed the Congressional Budget Office to calculate the budgetary impact of the bill based on the assumption that Trump's tax cuts would continue - even though the reality is they are expiring (and hence require more legislation).
Democrats tried to push back against the decision, but Republicans defeated the vote on a party-line vote all in support of Graham’s ability to manipulate the budget baseline.
Alligator Alcatraz
In other news, the federal government is opening up “Alligator Alcatraz,” an immigration detention facility modeled after the El Salvadorian prison, in the Everglades. Conservative influencers are already hawking merch.
The facility was put together within days of federal approval, and is in an isolated, 39-square mile airstrip located in the wetlands of the Big Cypress National Preserve, next to Everglades National Park.
"What'll happen is you'll bring people in there, they ain't going anywhere once they're there unless you want them to go somewhere, because, good luck getting to civilization," said Governor Ron DeSantis. Trump said it is "an East Coast" version of the hard-to escape island prison off San Francisco.
The Trump administration's immigration goals are to remove thousands of people per day with the minimal amount of due process. “[Y]ou'll be able to bring people in, they'll get processed, they have an order of removal, then they can be queued and the federal government can fly — right on the runway, right there, you literally drive them 2,000 feet, put them on a plane and then they're gone," said DeSantis.
The comments of MAGA messaging leader Benny Johnson’s posts are full of people saying, “I voted for this.”
DOGE goes after guns
DOGE has also recently gone into the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives with the goal of revising or eliminating dozens of rules and gun restrictions by July 4. We’ll find out more this week. What we know now is that they are planning to cut the inspectors who make sure gun sellers are in compliance with federal law, and dramatically reduce the agency’s budget. All of this will allow potentially dangerous people to more easily obtain weapons. More on this soon.
Thanks Emily! Do you have a script for calling my MAGA extremist house rep? I will call every day even though I know he will vote yes. (GA-10)
The irony of all of this coming to a head the week of Independence Day is not lost on me. I'll be eating hot dogs, wearing my Bruce Springsteen tshirt, and rage posting all weekend long :)