Dialogues on Big Bilious Billionaire Boys' Bill: Profiles in Avarice

Illustration by Michael DiMilo

Featuring the Fabulous Dadbots: Dave S., Mark M., Mark O., Dennis C., John K., and Geoff Carter

Hey bots,

Well, it’s about to become the law of the land. Somehow, Trump and the spineless Republican invertebrates (redundant, I know, but their lack of courage bears repeating) have passed the bilious Billionaire Boys Bill. What we know about is frightening enough. Monstrous cuts to Medicaid, trillions of dollars added to the debt, millions (billions?) of dollars siphoned to Homeland Security for ICE enforcement and God knows what else. Donald’s Orangeshirts?

I know some democratic senators successfully demanded that sales of federal lands be halted, and that Sen. Murkowski sold out the lower forty-eight to keep rural Alaskan hospitals funded—a Pyrrhic victory, if any victory at all.

It’s a nine-hundred-plus page bill. I’d like to know what the hell else is in there. What about electoral law? Will the feds attempt to fuck with state election laws? What about reports of a national citizen database? What about whatever or wherever DOGE is now? Is there a law defining political enemies of the state and the media?

As Tom Waits would ask, “What’s he building in there?”

Yah, the OBBB is now law.

It’s not beloved by virtually any Republican politician, yet they voted in lockstep. That’s the most remarkable thing about it.

You can say that Trump truly derives his power from the voters— at least, from the Republican primary voters. He makes a credible threat to field an alternate, more Trumpian candidate, against any Senator or Representative that bucks him. And he has already made good on such threats, ending the careers of Republicans that oppose him. This is why most Republicans who run afoul of him don’t bother to run for re-election— they simply resign. Thom Tillis, Jeff Flake. Bob Corker, Mark Sanborn.

This kind of strong man rule is unprecedented. LBJ was a boss, but he never wielded this kind of power over his party. No other President comes close.

Some of this power will leak away, I predict. The GOP will probably lose the House in ‘26, if the Dems can pull themselves off the mat. And after that, Trump will truly be a lame duck.

What happens to the MAGA movement after Trump steps down (or dies)? No other figure on the GOP side commands anywhere near that level of authority. It seems likely they will devolve down to a squabbling set of coalition partners. Kind of like the Democrats.

I see this as a good development. Our strong executive branch does not need to get any stronger.

Nationalism, pessimism and an ounce of optimism.

Unfortunately, our American Economy is so robust, so f’ing strong, that most voters will not feel the ills of the BBBB. Many of us hear, via liberal news outlets, endless bad news speculation. Everyone spews gloom and doom—economically, but the fact remains, this country—despite all its warts—works, achieves. True big chief whacko’s tariff tantrums did dip the economy in the first quarter, but it has stormed back. Thriving. I attribute this to our work ethic and a lot of foreign students attending Harvard and Stanford—over the years. Yes…even schizophrenic Elon. Who came up with FB? Amazon? Google? Nvidia? Apple? Tesla? The last country to surprise was Sweden—Nokia and Canada–Blackberry. (My brief foray with a Blackberry was “NFW”….those keyboards were a boon to physical therapists and Ibuprofen— all the rage for 5+ years). Look no further than AI (the final frontier?…no…but it’s a big deal—and IMH(AO)O (and optimistic) —will do mostly good things. Anthropic’s Claude (Shannon), Palantir, and many others are about to hatch (IPOs like Cursor are on the horizon). Then there are old school industrialists that have quietly been improving w/ the tech our universities have been extruding for decades (3d printing didn’t happen overnight, ditto for robotics and all sorts of cameras/sensors—packaging is becoming more sustainable. Good ‘ol GE (aero and renewables—Vernova), IBM, Cat, Cummins, Deere, Howmet to name but a few.

Thus, those who vote R or who are susceptible to:

Will be happy with the tax cuts. The ones who benefit vote R and will continue so. The ones that don’t benefit…depends; a.) How bad they’re hurt’en and b.) The Left’s ability to exploit it: If eggs and gas are stable…good luck. Housing? In addition my left leaning media rarely reports on wage growth…which has been good. Just under or just over inflation the last 2 years—depending who you read. Which covers both Joe (mostly) and big chief whacko’s eras—proving neither has control of the engine. Thankfully Jerome Powell has some.
The Medicaid cuts might be overstated—according to the Rs they are designed to cut waste/slackers—I don’t buy that, but to be fair, I’ve never heard the Times or NPR talk about the waste cutting. Never and I listen often. Other solutions/Samaritans/state level funding will fill the gap such that Rs don’t lose many voters.
Will be happy with not having to care about others. (Immigration/Deportation, US AID no more).
Not to mention abortion and trans issues galvanizing the base. These are the most depressing parts.
Debt? Refer to the top paragraph. The Engine is fine, don’t worry about the fuel.

Yet, the glass is not empty: Behold: The new Father, Son and Holy Ghost.

Zohran Mamdani.
Bernie Sanders
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez –say her name!

Pendulum: The years have taught us that somehow, despite the various stacked decks for the Rs (The Senate 2 votes per state formula, gerrymandering, lack of popular vote being relevant….), somehow the pendulum swings back and forth. Boggles my mind. How did Clinton swoop in over Bush the elder? And Barack after W’s 2 terms?

Also the irony of a well meaning person like Bush the elder only lasting one term, while his cowboy son, gets two. Huh? And again, rogue Dick Cheney, invents WMDs, shoots 78 yr. old friend in face, neck and torso—yet carries the day re Iraq WMD. While his daughter Liz—the one with backbone (and hunter safety lessons)—gets booted from Congress for doing the right thing.

Last: Heard a ‘Summerween’ story the other day. Vomit material. Retailers apparently make tons of $$$ off Halloween mfg’d waste. They’re coming out early with it. So, in the spirit of if you can’t beat ‘em join ‘em, how about our new pope lightens things up a bit and puts some ghoulishness back in the Catholic Church. Leo declares the Holy Spirit is out, the Holy Ghost is now back. Vatican funding tees at Target, sign of the cross to begin all school days…in Texas.

-d.

Dave,

The resilience of the US economy is a great thing, but definitely a political problem for naysayers decrying Trump’s policies. His abandonment of global economic and trade cooperation, in favor of crass mercantilism, is definitely going to hurt us in the long run. But in the short run? Hard to say what the effects really are. In large part because most tariffs are still pending.

Likewise for the Medicaid cuts. Sure, they are going to hurt people. But politically, will it really matter? Most Medicaid recipients don’t vote anyway, I’d wager. And the wider negative effects that hit the overall population, such as the closing of financially challenged hospitals, will be so delayed and diffuse as to avoid the assignment of blame.

Columnist Ramesh Ponnoru makes a good point. Medicaid is mostly Federal money, administered by the states. States, though clumsy and bureaucratic, have proven pretty nimble in squeezing maximum dollars out of the system.

That was how the “provider tax” scam became so prevalent. States charge an extra tax to hospitals. This raises the cost of Medicaid healthcare, which triggers higher payments from the Feds. The state then rebates some of the tax to the providers and manages to still come out ahead on dollars received. The states have come to depend on this trick, but it’s been outlawed now. So basically it’s a Medicaid cut. But…it seems likely that the states, who really need the money will be incentivized to cook up something else.

Similarly for work requirements. Will the states really enforce these? It’s not really in their financial interest to do so.

So, bottom line, the overall Medicaid cuts may not be as large as projected, because they’re being left in the hands of the states, who have no incentive to enforce these rules.

Overall, the Republicans are once again screwing up the system, and foisting off the issues onto the Democratic administration that will eventually follow. Obama cleaned up after Bush II. Biden cleaned up after Trump I. Clinton cleaned up after Reagan/Bush I. There’s a pattern.

-Mark

Bots,

Good point, Mark, about personal Medicaid cuts not having an impact for a while. I read they won’t take effect until after the midterms—a clumsy Republican effort to say, “Who, me?” But when the cuts do come, they’re going to be bad for not only people on Medicaid but folks on Obamacare. I’m worried about that; I do think there will be some immediate impacts, like cuts to SNAP and education funding. There’s so much shit in there, it’s been hard to sort it all out. If I’m not mistaken, I believe there’s a provision in the BBBB for the feds to take greater control of voter rolls and elections.

Dave, I hope you’re right about the progressive resurgence. They do seem to be popular. My big worry is that the Republicans are going to try and rig the elections. They’ve been rehearing. Problems at the polls? Bring in the National Guard. Or the military—especially to the Democratic strongholds in big cities. Deport as many democrats as you can. This could get hairy.

Bring back Daniel Hoen and Frank Ziedler!!

Merry Cryptocurrency Week everyone! If you’re like me, you’ve draped the Crypto Tree with Etherium garlands and carefully hung Bitcoin ornaments on the blockchain boughs with a Big Beautiful TRUMP coin perched on the peak. Then Lynn and I sing crypto carols until our throats are sore and we drink ourselves to sleep with visions of sucker plums in our heads.

Invariably we wake up groggy, hungover and poorer, but I did read a bit of consolation from the monstrous BBBB this morning. For married couples over 65, filing jointly, and making less than $150K per year, we will get an additional $6K standard deduction through 2028 tax season. The poor suckers on Medicaid be damned, I got mine! BTW, I used to be one of those poor suckers.

Gotta run. Manning a table at our local Good Trouble Lives On rally this afternoon. Cheers.

MarkO

AO (Agent Orange) that is…is boxed in. Let’s see how he wiggles out of this one. Subject is inflation, tariffs (TACO) and Donald vs Jerome (Fed Chair Jerome Powell).

Inflation crept up (whack a mole), last month. Not earth-shaking news…it’s danced around prior. Is this the one folks have been worried about? Tariff’s finally being felt? (after those think ahead inventories have been deleted). Is Jerome super smart not to budge on interest cuts? (which ao is begging for). Is Jerome super smart to “express concern” about tariffs and—a conclusion shared by both economists and Texas Instruments calculators–that a nebulous non-value add ‘tax’, like a tariff, might fuel inflation?
Thus, Donald is caught between a rock and a hard gonad. Blame it on Jerome and the market freaks out—see below. Chest beat about tariffs and the market does the same…or at least it used to…lately it has pre-assumed that he will TACO. (Trump Always Chickens Out).
So here we sit with another wave of tariffs due to go into effect in 2 weeks, (8/1).
Smart money says invest in TACOs.

The snip below shows the effect of his threat, yesterday, to send a letter recommending firing Powell to Congress (which they can’t do… but w/ flaccid SCOTUS who knows): The “Did” (threaten) part of the markets that day. Only to undo it after the market freak out and AO walked back his threat.

Trump Denies Plan to Fire Powell After Floating Idea to Republicans – Bloomberg

-d

I always wondered what the “dismantling of the deep state” would look like. Pasty skinned, stringy haired, unwashed Steve Bannon wrote about it with a dour and surprising intelligence from some basement in Trenton. But his musings seemed unreal and strange and I couldn’t imagine what it would look like. Now I know. Big Bird’s legs have been cut from beneath him, Bert and Ernie have been beaten with a truncheon and thrown into separate rooms and Clifford the Big Red Dog has been cut down to size. Of course these things always happen in a dark room with a single bare bulb swinging slightly at 5 pm on a Friday. Russell Vought is in the background wearing a dress (for some reason these guys always wear dresses) and Republican representatives are wringing their hands, saying “if it were up to me”. As for me, I push to the sun light as the cultural pendulum swings wildly to the right. As I reach upward to the blue sky and bright sunlight, Steve Cobert is holding his head in his hands saying, What just happened?

Sorry for the dark post. I was dismayed by this morning’s news.

Loved it. Keep ‘em com’en!

Russell the accountant in the girly dress. A bot was once accused of prancing around in his wife’s undies.

It’s hard to get excited about the negative impact of the tariffs, since we have yet to see it. The US economy, she is resilient. At some point, the chickens will come home to roost — probably right when a Democrat takes the Presidency. Likewise, the long term threat of the Congress’s fiscal profligacy remains that — long term. And those are chickens that will be roosting — more like large, hungry vultures.

MarkO mentions the gratuitous bone thrown by the Big Beautiful Bill to those of us in our golden years. We are all getting that $6000 tax deduction, which translates to a $1,320 tax savings ($2,640 for a married couple) at the 22% tax rate. Hey, I’ll take it, but c’mon, it’s another pander to the geezers.

You may have seen the email blasted out by the Social Security Administration, trumpeting that the OBBB would “eliminate federal income taxes on Social Security benefits for most beneficiaries”. Of course, it does no such thing. We will continue to be taxed on our SS benefits, while simultaneously benefitting from this new deduction. And sorry, the tax that Jean and I pay as a couple, on 85% of our Soc Sec benefits , far exceeds the $2640 savings from the OBBB. So it’s not just a matter of wordsmithing.

The shamelessness of the Social Security Administrator in brazenly promulgating this lie is a trademark of the Trump era.