Maybe it’s performance anxiety ahead of Speaker Mike Johnson’s (R-LA) Memorial Day deadline, but whatever the reason, the “big, beautiful bill” that Pres. Donald Trump promised to fuck us with keeps getting smaller.
Trump’s package shrank significantly yesterday, even though he’s got a whole Johnson helping out. Johnson told House Republicans yesterday that tax cuts for pleasuring the rich will only hit $4 trillion, not the sweet spot of $4.5 trillion they had promised.
That’s because Republicans weren’t able to find $2 trillion in cuts that all the House Republicans would agree to. So now they’re looking at the $1.5 trillion in cuts they promised/threatened a month ago.
And Politico reports the GOP is still “scrambling” to hit that lower number. On one side, Johnson has “moderates” (meaning: vulnerable) Republicans terrified about the effects of impoverishing their constituents — not hunger and sickness, obvi, but their re-elections — and on the other side he’s got the far right who want the American government to go away entirely.
Johnson lost two votes on the broad-strokes funding resolution last month — Reps. Thomas Massie (R-KY) and Victoria Spartz (R-IN) — because $1.5 trillion wasn’t enough cutting. And broad strokes alone can’t get Johnson up to the vote count he needs.
Reportedly, even to get the votes for cutting $1.5 trillion in his broad-strokes outline last month, Johnson had to put his speakership on the line, saying Republicans could take his big, hard gavel from him if he’s unable to perform the budget-cutting needed to come up with $1.5 trillion.
Several committees have yet to finish their proposed cuts, with work continuing next week.
No matter what the House does pass, it still has to fly in the Senate, where even Republican Leader John Thune (R-SD) has been less than firm on $1.5 trillion.
READ HIS LIPS Reportedly, Trump told Johnson on Wednesday to make all these numbers work by:
- Raising taxes on the rich.
- Closing the “carried interest” loophole that lets Wall Street bros pay lower tax rates than their administrative workers do.
Literally just last month, Trump warned that taxing millionaires will destroy America worse than fictional threats such as Godzilla, the aliens from Independence Day, or climate change: “[A] lot of the millionaires would leave the country. …with transportation so quick and so easy, they leave countries,” Trump said like a child who just discovered buses. “You lose a lot of money if you do that.”
Published with permission of The Fucking News
