It reminds me of when the Black Lives Matter craze was happening, and some people tried to say “all lives matter” and were branded as hateful racist. Now these progressive lunatics can only bring themselves denounce all forms of hatred and isn’t that just the same thing?
I find it rich that Sumner hates Trump over SALT when:
1) Trump is the only president to ever get rid of SALT.
2) His own congressional representative (who is a trump hating RINO from CA like him) is part of the gang of five extracting the SALT concession.
3) The best way to get rid of the SALT would have been to support TRUMP so he won even bigger and didn't need Scott's congressmen vote.
4) The Democrats he supports all want to totally eliminate the SALT cap.
As usual, TDS is the only emotion Scott has. Trump's responsible for the SALT change he opposes. Trumps responsible for Japanese bond yields starting to increase in 2022. Etc, Etc.
Yes, unfortunately this seems to be a really bad bill. Maybe the best that could be done, but that seems unlikely to me. It might have been better to push a far superior bill and shame people who didn’t back it and then negotiate down to something worse; maybe they did that but I haven’t seen much public shaming.
The bill is both very bad and yet also the best that can be done at this point. The bill is bad because voters are bad and want a lot of bad things. You can't threaten the shameless with shaming, and time's up for more negotiations, which wouldn't get anywhere anyway, as everybody's been seeing it coming and making the gross sausage behind the scenes for months. At least it's actually a bill and not unilateral executive action.
You must have a different definition of TDS. To me it means hearing things T didn't say, often the opposite of what T said. Maybe it's also attributing reasons for words and actions that a more neutral person wouldn't agree with. I don't know Sumner nor his writing well but what I see is a reasoned difference of opinion. Calling that TDS is a mistake. Or derangement.
You don’t read Sumner, which is why you disagree. We do, and he clearly has TDS. Though I agree it might not be apparent just from the clip AK showed.
If you read his recent piece, he blames Trump that the U.S. will have to spend more on defense because of the failure of mutual protection treaties. Because Trump insists NATO actually spend what they committed to spend in the original treaty!!! Ipso facto, the U.S. will have to spend more on defense. THAT is an example of his TDS.
The US will have to spend more on defense regardless. So will everybody, but especially the US. To the extent big war these days is mostly about using stocks instead of flows, it has just recently become clear that most US stocks are no longer capable enough to keep up with cutting-edge capabilities over their expected term of inclusion in the inventory, and so they will need to be replaced earlier and more expensively than hoped.
You may be right, but the simple fact is the U.S. can spend marginally less on defense if Europe spends more. In EVERY realistic scenario.
Getting Europe to spend more on their own defense is 100% in the U.S.’s interest, whatever you think of all other Trump policies and bluster. But Scott basically claims otherwise. That is TDS.
I've included what Sumner said below. You can disagree with it but you have TDS (as described by Chartopia) if you think what he says is anything worse than a different opinion that might not be correct. Personally, I think he is right. While I agree with you that Trump has gotten other NATO countries to spend more on defense, I agree with Scott that he has weakened the alliance and the US is likely to get less NATO support for military actions outside of NATO countries that we deem necessary. Luckily, Trump will be gone in less than four years and maybe things will improve. Next time don't waste my time on absurd claims.
"Technically, Nato still exists. But as a practical matter it has been abolished by the Trump administration. Now it’s every country for themselves. That means a lot more defense spending (including in the US), which is economically wasteful and fiscally challenging. This is a pity, as mutual defense pacts are a wonderful way of economizing on defense spending. A Russia that cannot beat Ukraine would not dare attack Nato. But that security is gone now. Tossed away like a petulant child breaks a toy they don’t like."
‘Technically, Nato still exists. But as a practical matter it has been abolished by the Trump administration. Now it’s every country for themselves. That means a lot more defense spending (including in the US)…”
THIS IS TDS.
Trump abolished NATO - according to Sumner - because Trump insists NATO members spend more on their own defense. Ergo, the U.S. will have to spend more on defense.
Sorry, that is nonsense. That is indeed TDS.
Now, I don’t accept Chartertopia’s reverse definition of TDS. But regardless, it simply doesn’t apply here.
But one last time - my initial claim that Scott has TDS was NOT based on either of these last two pieces, but rather by the stuff he has written over months and months. And to the extent he acknowledges that TDS is a thing, he acknowledges that like most American leftists (which he otherwise is not, to be clear), he has it. He just thinks it’s a good, correct thing to have…
First your claim was based on the NATO example, now it's not. On top of that, now it's based on unnamed "stuff he has written over months and months." ... Can't argue with that.
Not that I want to. You've decided to ignore what I wrote and repeat your claim about Trump insisting members spend more even though that is at best tangential to what I wrote. You are arguing against a strawman. That is TDS.
Scott blames Trump for Japanese interest rates starting to rise in 2022 because the Japanese Fed did what he's been asking them to do forever and printed a bunch of money and now they are in a wage/price spiral.
TDS is bipartisan irrational lust and fear of Trump. Calling Trump a Nazi and literal Hitler is TDS. Accepting Trump's incoherent and inconsistent ramblings on tariffs and trade deficits is TDS.
There is plenty of room for disagreement on the need for a tax increase but I can think of no good reason that today's economy needs a tax cut. (Creating havoc in international trade is not a good reason.) I can see even less need at the top end of the income scale.
Increasing the need for itemizing tax returns versus currently seems a bad idea.
Of all the entitlements, Medicaid seems least in need of cutting.
“Of all the entitlements, Medicaid seems least in need of cutting‘
Idk whether this is a technically true statement or not, but it is a very weak argument.
ALL entitlements need cutting (at least their mandated growth rates). Medicaid has particularly bad state incentives for spending given that the feds are usually now picking up way more than 50% of the bill (go read recent Debt Dispatch Substack for a good explanation).
But Medicaid is the most politically viable entitlement to cut. That’s why they’re doing it. And surely at some level you understand this.
But you’re NOT actually arguing that *some* entitlement “cuts” are worse than none at all, even if it’s from YOUR least-worst entitlement, are you?!?
Dude, failing to extend the previous tax cuts IS a tax increase.
And the top end of the scale is where marginal rates matter most, if you want a growing economy. Go read David Henderson’s blog (AK does) if you want to understand why.
I wasn't referring to whether the old was a cut, increase, or no change. The bill contains new tax cuts.
I understand just fine why rates near the top end matter more to the economy. Thank you for your concern. While rates too high can stifle economic growth, beyond a certain point, lower rates make less and less difference and the resulting budget deficits have way more impact. I'm not saying where the sweet spot is but current rates are pretty low relative to the last 50 + years. And might not need to go lower if expenditures are going up faster than tax receipts like they are.
You're familiar with AK's position on budget deficits, right? And you've heard T say he's not going to touch Social Security, right?
The way to address deficits is by attacking spending. And having as pro-growth an economy as possible.
Envy arguments aside, as Europe knows, the way to raise revenue if/when you must is with broad-based low marginal rates, preferably mostly on consumption. As low taxes on capital as possible. And as low a top marginal income tax rate as possible.
Tariffs - IF they exempted intermediate goods, which I fully acknowledge Trump’s do not (though he may get a long way there via various deals and exception, which I don’t really endorse) are actually low-moderate consumption taxes.
Raising marginal income tax rates in a progressive taxation system is always a bad idea.
“beyond a certain point, lower rates make less and less difference and the resulting budget deficits have way more impact.”
Care to show the math for this claim? Or evidence? I doubt you can. Actually, I’m 99 certain you cannot.
This is pure politics of envy, at least in a progressive tax system.
Taxing the rich more does not bring in that much more revenue. But does reduce work incentives, risk investment incentives, and so job creation. And increases motivation to switch income to cap gains. And surely you realize that low cap gains rates are critical for BOTH growth and tax revenue
Even Obama acknowledged his cap gains increases were for “fairness”, not economic efficiency or even raising revenue.
Henderson explains the importance of low marginal rates better than I can. Or than you clearly do [not] understand it, given your envy argument wrapped in false math claims about the deficit.
Sumner is definitely wrong about "any other GOP president", but not because the thing is written exclusively by Congress. The bill is the product of thousands of hours negotiations between administration officials and Republican congressmen and, and thousands more drafting and revision by their staff and the staff of a thousand lobbyist, activist, or special interest groups. At any rate, it's worth remembering that the last GOP president who wasn't Trump was George W Bush, who cannot by any stretch of the imagination be considered to have been a principled steward of the nation's finances during his tenure.
Here is a selection: "Tariffs are an assault on free enterprise. They are industrial policy on steroids. While Trumpeters have issued innumerable justifications for their tariffs, at their core the tariffs represent a unilateral presidential decision to privilege one set of businesses or industries over all others. This is strange policy indeed for professed conservatives. After railing for years about Joe Biden’s socialist industrial policy, Republicans are installing a quasi-socialist industrial policy that would make Biden (or Brezhnev) blush.
Tariffs prefer America (First!) over any other country. As most Rep Presidents have done. Globally sub-optimal, but most countries with a trade surplus with the US have some tariffs. Where are the charts of tariff rates & amounts collected, by country?
And any tariff revenue does reduce the deficit, which is claimed to be a huge threat. Trump makes deals, doesn't care about theory. Economic theory is really weak on actual deal making, which is how transactions in real economies work.
Your too long article includes a lot about Rule of Law, but my skimming didn't see:
1) 2015 HR Clinton getting dirt on Trump, using it with Obama's FBI to start illegal spying on Trump. Approved by 4 FISA judges violating their legal obligations to accept only first person evidence. All seem to be Above the Law.
2) Every illegal immigrant violates the US border law. Each seems to be Above the Law -- anybody claiming to be a L Liberal supporting Rule of Law requires enforcement of the law on all. 11 million Fails.
US Democrats have been, and are, destroying the Rule of Law far more than Trump.
I do appreciate your willingness to write it all out.
In two years we will know who is right and who is wrong. If the economy is booming, If prices are stable, if we have a free and fair midterm election, and if Trump never calls on the military to deal with a domestic problem, then I will gladly admit to being wrong. Also, I cannot believe your comment about rule of law is serious. Trump has been on Putin's payroll for decades. Read the Mueller report.
I asked Grok about Trump getting money. Looks like "normal" business with Russian Oligarchs.
>>The Mueller Report confirms that Trump received approximately $62 million from Russian sources through the Miss Universe pageant ($7 million), the 2008 Florida mansion sale ($54 million), and a post-election payment to Cohen ($1 million). The uncompleted Trump Tower Moscow project could have generated “hundreds of millions” but yielded no direct payments. Other potential financial ties, like condo sales to Russian buyers, are noted but unquantified due to redactions, shell companies, and investigative constraints. The report’s focus on criminal conspiracy, not counterintelligence or financial dependency, limits its conclusions on Trump’s broader financial entanglements with Russia. For deeper insights, investigations by Congress or jurisdictions like New York (e.g., SDNY) would be needed, as Mueller referred 14 matters elsewhere, 12 of which remain redacted.
<<
H Biden was indeed on the payroll of corrupt Burisma, Ukraine, but not Trump.
Here is what your messiah said on Memorial Day. Is this really what your MAGA America looks like?
HAPPY MEMORIAL DAY TO ALL, INCLUDING THE SCUM THAT SPENT THE LAST FOUR YEARS TRYING TO DESTROY OUR COUNTRY THROUGH WARPED RADICAL LEFT MINDS, WHO ALLOWED 21,000,000 MILLION PEOPLE TO ILLEGALLY ENTER OUR COUNTRY, MANY OF THEM BEING CRIMINALS AND THE MENTALLY INSANE, THROUGH AN OPEN BORDER THAT ONLY AN INCOMPETENT PRESIDENT WOULD APPROVE, AND THROUGH JUDGES WHO ARE ON A MISSION TO KEEP MURDERERS, DRUG DEALERS, RAPISTS, GANG MEMBERS, AND RELEASED PRISONERS FROM ALL OVER THE WORLD, IN OUR COUNTRY SO THEY CAN ROB, MURDERER, AND RAPE AGAIN - ALL PROTECTED BY THESE USA HATING JUDGES WHO SUFFER FROM AN IDEOLOGY THAT IS SICK, AND VERY DANGEROUS FOR OUR COUNTRY. HOPEFULLY THE UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT, AND OTHER GOOD AND COMPASSIONATE JUDGES THROUGHOUT THE LAND, WILL SAVE US FROM THE DECISIONS OF THE MONSTERS WHO WANT OUR COUNTRY TO GO TO HELL. BUT FEAR NOT, WE HAVE MADE GREAT PROGRESS OVER THE LAST 4 MONTHS, AND AMERICA WILL SOON BE SAFE AND GREAT AGAIN! AGAIN, HAPPY
ha ha ha! Your argument is to insult me with a High School insult (not my messiah), after a previous college insult ("cannot believe [my] comment ... is serious"). Then to paste Trump giving Jr. HS insults to those who allowed 21 million illegals to enter the US, and commit more crimes here.
In my MAGA country, rule of law means enforcement, like MLK going to jail to change the law -- and so many folk thinking that unjust that the law changes. Yes, gang members who are rapists & murderers are called scum. They are scum. Whether from a shithole country or not. That's a more honest insult then claiming "threat to democracy" is not an insult.
But warped radical left minds can lie to themselves and believe Trump "is literally Hitler" and think it's the truth.
Does your post indicate you think that's a shoe that fits you? (My attempt at serious humor, slightly insulting as a Q. Arnold doesn't like these back & forth comment conversations, or didn't a couple years ago, so if you answer here I won't reply further.)
"If you try to mix the two, you will get more regulation of crypto and/or more government backing for criminal enterprises."
I'll take the criminals. I wouldn't have to take the criminals if the law made my bank account as entitled to as much reliability and protection as the interior of my home, but it won't, which forces me to either surrender or side with the scoundrels. Hello Bootleggers, since we're stuck in the same boat for a while, would you like me to teach you a little about being a Baptist?
All freedoms and rights are frictions for law-enforcement and are inherently law-breaking-adjacent. The cops are correct, privacy is drug-crime adjacent. The right is correct, Due Process is immigration-crime adjacent. The left is correct the right to bear arms is homicide-adjacent. All critics of Free Speech are right, it is hate-crime adjacent.
None of that is to dismiss the importance and harm of all that crime and near-crime, it is just to be honest about the high price of having rights. Once upon a time the point of America was conceived as being a polity dedicated to the notion that having rights was so important that it was still worth it despite us all having to pay these terribly high prices to maintain them.
Crypto is now the only way for an individual to maintain freedom of transaction without risking seeing himself locked out of his own funds and the entire global transactions system without notice, court order, due process, or meaningful recourse. One already has little privacy of transaction when using the conventional system, and one has to resort to cash for any kind of anonymity or avoidance of tracking and durable records permanently out of one's ability to control. With fewer establishments accepting cash, and the EU recently banning all transactions in cash greater than 10K, crypto is the only game left in town.
Is the “deficit is unsustainable” a falsifiable belief? I used to think it was true. It might be, over 100 years. In Japan’s case, it has been sustained for the last 20 years, tho each year the fear can be repeated.
Scott’s TDS has been wrong-ish for the last 8 years, so why believe him, or those who do?
If saying good things about good results of Trump actions results in a wave of unsubscriptions, which is then avoided by not saying the truth, that’s a form of audience capture. I noticed Mounk said “we” in the very rapid development of the vaccine, no credit to Trump whose pushing got it done before the election. That’s common among Dems, if Reps do something good, or Dems do something bad like Jim Crow laws or the KKK, it’s “we”. To obfuscate Rep credit or Dem blame.
Sumner is right to fear a multipolar world where China & Russia have little fear of military loss, tho he wrongly blames Trump rather than Dems & feckless EU wimp leaders unwilling to pay up for NATO and thus encourage anti-American aggression like China vs Philippine fishing. Plus Biden running away from Afghanistan & allowing Russia to invade more of Ukraine, as Obama and Bush43 did.
You neglected to end with your signature 'have a nice day.' For the record, I agree that this is the nightmare scenario, though I wonder whether the fiscal problems and other messes inherited by the Trump Administration may have rendered the economic situation unsalvageable regardless of Trumponomics.
"One of the consequences I fear about Trumponomics is that we could end up with a President from the Warren faction in 2029."
If you decide that $400B of tax cuts that are already law are worth voting for Elizabeth Warren, I can't stop you. It just seems like the most retarded thing in the world.
I don't see Trump raising taxes as likely to forestall a Warren administration. His Medicaid cuts might give us a Warren admin, but I thought you fiscal hawks all supported those.
"$300 billion over the four years they are in effect"
So the entirety of four years of keeping his campaign promises (which would be wildly popular and help forestall a Warren administration" is equal 5% of the deficits we had during COVID 2020-2021. When the Biden admin spent trillions of its three spending bills it didn't stop any of these complainers from voting for Biden/Harris, but no we gotta go full socialism because some bartender might save a few grand.
"Congress a slave to the CBO? If only."
In my own industry every single CBO score of a bill has been unmitigated garbage and everyone knew it at the time, they didn't need a retrospective it was an open secret what garbage it was.
You forget how divisive Trump is. He won the faux-national popular vote by only 1.5% and still didn't get a majority against the most inept presidential candidate I can remember, who represented the woke / DEI / CRT philosophy that a good solid majority of Americans despise. The House is almost certainly going to flip Democrat in 2026. The Senate is less likely but still possible.
His tariffs are an incoherent mess which raise prices and disrupt business planning, and people have long memories of price rises and floundering economies. Biden's inflation dropped below 4% in June 2023, and was still remembered in November 2024. Trump started out more popular than the election totals, he's done a lot that's popular, especially immigration, loosening regulations, rolling back wokism, and at least making noises about reducing war around the world. But he's wasting his political capital on raising prices and disrupting the economy, and stupid statements about how expensive dolls and cars will be are going to haunt him and the GOP come November 2026. He's only got roughly a year left to make his mark; 2027 and 2028 will be stymied by Democrats.
I put the odds at 50-50 whether 2028 votes in a Democrat President and Congress, and it's all down to Trump blowing his political capital on raising prices and disrupting the economy. Of course Democrats are vying for the title of the Stupid party as they double down on wokism, but Trump is vying for the title of Evil President, so it's all a big beautiful crap shoot.
And don't forget that it was Democrats who balanced the budget in 2000. So- called conservatives have been much more profligate spenders than the liberals.
It makes me a little nuts when people blame Biden for our profligate spending during COVID. Biden spent too much, but by far the bulk of the spending was done by Trump. And we were running a trillion dollar deficit going into COVID. Our subsequent inflation problem was far more Trump's doing than Biden's.
Ditto, but it is especially annoying when they claim Congress would have overridden Trump's veto so it's really Congress's fault. I say great, then a veto would have pinned the blame on them, and who knows, the veto might have switched enough votes to prevent an override. If Trump wants credit for bills he signed, he gets it for all of them, not just the ones he doesn't regret.
But Biden deserves the inflation. His was the spending which blew it over the top.
Trump was not about to veto this legislation because Congressional Republicans supported it. It never entered his mind. The day Biden was inaugurated (despite Trump's best efforts) inflation was baked in the cake. Biden just made it worse; I'm no fan of Democrats except that they didn't try to overthrow a free election with an armed insurrection.
Neither did Republicans or MAGAs. The only people armed at the j6 ... thing ... were police. It's a pretty incompetent insurrection that shows up without weapons.
Hello! I just scanned a bunch of your Substack posts. I too think our judicial system is disfunctional. I am not an attorney so I have a hard time following some of your arguments. But I think this is incredibly important stuff. My daughter is involved in the NYC system with a bail-alternative program. What goes on there is, well, criminal.
I'm no attorney either. Most of my knowledge comes from reading a couple of David Friedman books, other legal history books, and following legal blogs for 15 years. If you ask questions on those posts, I'll answer as best I can.
Are you joking? That's insane. I could swear I saw cops being attacked with bear spray, flagpoles, and crowd control fences. To me, it's an insurrection when cops are assaulted and our seat of government is attacked and vandalized by Yahoos whether they have automatic weapons or not. Please tell me how you can have such admiration for these, well, deplorables.
Did you also see the videos of cops opening doors, letting them in, and escorting them around like tour guides?
Did you know that the Democrat-led House committee erased terabytes of video they didn’t want Republicans to see? What were they hiding?
The FBI still won’t answer how many of their undercover agents were there, or how many were egging on the crowds.
You’re the one making stuff up. I never said “automatic weapons”. Far as I know, no one else has ever suggested it either. You’re getting more rabid by the comment.
“ But we saw in the murder at the Jewish Museum who the real terrorists are. They are socialist Israel-haters who believe in “death to America.” “
I don’t see how you can reasonably draw this conclusion from this one attack.
The groups supported by the President — many J6ers, tree of life murdere, Charlottesville marchers — hate Jews, are heavily armed, and are ignored by (sympathetic) law enforcement.
This 'one attack' is just the latest escalation in a movement that began almost immediately after the October 7 attack on Israel, before any retaliation by the IDF. What AK calls the 'socialist Israel-haters (I just call them Jew-haters) who believe in "death to America"' have been protesting and marching in solidarity with pro-Hamas Islamists, and harassing and intimidating Jews and Jewish institutions, on college campuses and in major cities here in the US as well as in Europe, Canada and Australia, since October 8th. I agree that there are Jew haters in Trump's coalition (though I would single out certain podcasters and influencers and their followers, rather than the groups you mention), but you seem to be in denial about Jew hatred on the left. The frightening thing is, or should be, that Jew hatred is the one thing the far left and the far right (to the extent these terms have any meaning) seem to be able agree on. Historically, the majority of American Jews have aligned with the left and the Democratic Party, partly in the belief that Jewish empathy with other 'oppressed minorities' (blacks, women, LBGTQ+, whatever) would be reciprocated. Time and time again, Jews have learned the hard way that not only is there no reciprocity, but that other minority groups have an inherent tendency to turn against Jews, perhaps partly because Jews tend to be successful despite their minority status. I'll take my chances with the right. At least I don't have to pretend to be sympathetic the plight of the fringe Jew-haters in Trumps coalition.
Yes. It's an absurdly specific claim in a country where so far in 2025, we've had >115 mass (>4 people) shootings, Lord only knows how many random shootings for unknown reasons, and have seemingly stopped caring about school shootings. That's not counting the J6ers, and complicit support groups.
That doesn't mean I'm in the socialist Israel haters camp. Very far from it.
Not so sure government is not a criminal enterprise, per one of my favorite book titles "Stationary Bandits" by Rene Azurin, as government is full of criminals and they are enterprising.
More seriously, the SALT deduction, like the California health insurance gross-up, is disgusting. How rich are the people who can deduct $40k, the infamous top 1% or at least top 5%, many of whom have made their fortunes by exploiting government? I'm looking at you, Beltway Bandits and Wall "privatize profits and socialize losses" Street. For the rest, leave California and Illinois now, while you still can and we have covered your relo expenses.
I had no expectation Trump would care about the debt, as he didn't in Trump 1.0. He is a real estate developer, on the war path against China, and is interested in growing non-government jobs ASAP in order to win the midterms and anoint his successor. Congress is the branch of government that continues to abdicate its legislative and fiscal responsibilities. At least they are conducting the process according to regular order instead of the "You have 24 hours to vote on a 1,000 page Bill" approach of the Pelosi cabal.
There is no need to mention "grandchildren" any more in budget discussions. Once President Warren hears the bond market say, "____ off, I'm full", like Monty Python's Mr. Creosote, Jay Powell's successor will fire up the printing presses. Maybe we can hire Javier Milei when his work is done in Argentina. The timing should be about right.
Anger has turned to laughter, else I cry. On this weekend, remember the millions who have died for liberty. Then write your Senator.
“Legislators interested ingrowth would increase taxes on consumption drastically to reduce the deficit.“
Increased taxes rarely promote growth.
Yes cutting income and cap gains taxes and replacing them with low-to-moderate consumption taxes would be a good thing.
Lowering government spending and remaining in the growth of entitlements is what legislators truly interested in growth would do; raising taxes would be the last thing.
We don’t have a revenue problem in this country; we have a spending problem. Period.
We have a deficit problem and you may think it woud be better to close it with spending cuts but it would be better to close it with revenue than not at all. Cut as much as you want and raise revenue for the difference.
It’s fine that the deficit is YOUR biggest issue. But your claim was that what legislators who care about growth should do is raise taxes. I disagree completely. The deficit is not the biggest drag on growth. It is the spending, and promises of future spending that are the far bigger drag, and the far far far far better way to address deficits and debt is to cut spending, not raise taxes.
History has shown repeatedly that tax increases lead to higher spending. So no, cutting the deficit mostly or even 59% with tax increases is NOT the way to deliver growth.
Reducing spending (on non-investment) is pro-growth if it means less borrowing from investors — lower deficits. If it is just offset by less revenue collection deficits remain the same then why would growth be promoted? I do not know what data you are looking at to conclude the more revenue collection leads to higher spending. 2025 looks like large tax reductions (far beyond just extending the 2017 bill, AND a huge increase in the deficit.
Reducing spending is the only thing that reduces taxes in the long run.
Any spending requires more taxes.
More *taxes* - and expectations of higher future taxes - is what slows growth (deficit spending can of course *increase* growth for a while). Not deficits per se. Or even spending
The right answer is the least amount of long run taxes.
Which means less spending.
(And of course, tax policies that are pro growth are better than tax policies that are not. On this point, I think we do agree. Consumption taxes are better than taxes on capital or high marginal income tax rates.)
Finally, as to what data that shows that more tax revenue leads to more spending, look only at EVERY. DEMOCRATIC. COUNTRY. EVER.
Well we disagree about a lot of things but one mistake a person with your general views should not make is to believe that “deficit spending can of course increase growth for a while.“ If defcits finance high yielding public investments that increase growth permanently and if not, if they finance consumption they harm growth. [Some deficit spending in a recession may seem like and exception to the above, but it is not. When the Fed is fighting a recession with low interest rates and lots of machines and people and real estate in unemployed, lots of things that are NOT investment in normal time (reopening that library, re-hiring the laid off police officer, bringing forward the street maintenance project) become investments (or better investments) in recession.]
But the idea that we can just cut taxes and that spending will be reduced someday is just a delusion.
I do appreciate the understated concern on the impact of these moronic policy choices. I don't fear they're bad for the country. I have an unshakable belief that they are bad and are pointing us into unavoidable disaster.
From Stephen Miller's tweet, who I now trust a bit more than Sumner, tho don't fully believe this, either:
>>
I’ve seen a few claims making the rounds on the Big Beautiful Bill that require correction.
The first is that it doesn’t “codify the DOGE cuts.” A reconciliation bill, which is a budget bill that passes with 50 votes, is limited by senate rules to “mandatory” spending only — eg Medicaid and Food Stamps. The senate rules prevent it from cutting “discretionary” spending — eg the Department of Education or federal grants. The DOGE cuts are overwhelmingly discretionary, not mandatory. The bill saves more than 1.6 TRILLION in mandatory spending, including the largest-ever welfare reform. A remarkable achievement.
I’ve also seen claims the bill increases the deficit. This lie is based on a CBO accounting gimmick. Income tax rates from the 2017 tax cut are set to expire in September. They were always planned to be permanent. CBO says maintaining *current* rates adds to the deficit, but by definition leaving these income tax rates unchanged cannot add one penny to the deficit. The bill’s spending cuts REDUCE the deficit against the current law baseline, which is the only correct baseline to use.
Another fantastically false claim is that the bill spends trillions of dollars. This is just completely invented out of whole cloth. This is not a ten year budget bill—it doesn’t “fund” almost any operations of government, which are funded in the annual budget bills (which this is not). In other words, if this bill passed, but the annual budget bill did not, there would be no government funding. Under the math that critics are using, if we passed a one paragraph reconciliation bill that cut simply 50 billion in food stamp spending, they would say the bill “added” trillions in spending and debt because they are counting ALL the projected federal spending that exists entirely outside the scope of this legislation, which is of course preposterous. The only funding in the bill is for the President’s border and defense priorities, while enacting a net spending cut of over 1.6 TRILLION dollars.
The bill has two fiscal components: a massive tax cut and a massive spending cut.
<<
One should learn more about what one fears -- and then clearly evaluate the situation.
Stephen talks about the annual budget bill, but I understand that such bills are supposed to be done, but have been replaced by Continuing Resolutions, which this bill also is NOT.
I'm not convinced the tax cuts were "planned to be permanent" by the Dems, tho I note the Dems in practice are much happier raising unfunded spending than actually raising taxes.
He doesn't mention how big the bill is -- so I'm certainly not going to read it all. And probably not even read a summary by anybody I trust, tho selections of the summary, like Stephen's above, are useful.
A counter balance to Sumner, tho perhaps not really more balanced, yet seemingly more accurate.
I understand you fear of a ‘Warren’ administration, but, seriously, what did you expect from a Trump administration? Are you implying perhaps that you did not expect Trump to pursue so energetically the principles he had consistently proclaimed through his political career, eg, protectionism, xenophobia, anti-intellectualism?
A lot of people in the government and especially at the Pentagon believe that China will either blockade or invade Taiwan in 2027. If you take that as an assumed fact, a lot of things about the Trump administration look both more prudent and more frivolous, or simply irrelevant. The faction of business people who are also in the Trump coalition also often assume that this is true and also explains why people are willing to depart from various old orthodoxies on various points related to trade and regulation.
Of course, taking this as an assumed fact makes it more likely to happen. It doesn't seem like there are many highly placed people who can conceive of an alternative to war. The real alternative seems to be to "talk loud and then don't build up the military" while China builds up its military to sort of preemptively cede the territory. But the foreign policy problem with preemptively ceding Taiwan is that it would also cause crises of confidence throughout Asia and possibly Europe also. Either outcome of ceding or fighting vitiates the old order of diplomacy and trade.
Washington has different incentives from a normal private actor, so it is more likely to try to fight even if a losing outcome is guaranteed (see Russia vs. Ukraine). They have shown their bipartisan commitment to do intensely stupid things to try to preserve international military and diplomatic prestige.
War with China would be a lot like Covid domestically except much more extreme, fervent, and personally dangerous w.r.t. departing from whatever orthodox belief the government in Washington wants everyone to profess. If the government wants everyone to show up in rallies to ritualistically dump gallons of duck sauce down sewage drains in outrage over the sinking of an aircraft carrier, that is what everyone will have to do to show loyalty to the state.
If in such a contingency one posts online about how dumping duck sauce down drains or pulling one's eyes back to emphasize racially insensitive remarks about the hated enemy is a bad look or irrational one will never work again and will probably be sent to prison.
I don't think that Warreninism or the left in general is that dangerous in the near term because if the state looks for who will help war capacity and whom will hurt war capacity, it's straightforward to see that suppressing the organized internationalist anti-colonial left is good for war preparedness. Personally I do not think most leftists are sincere, especially up the social scale. They will just flip flop to whatever professed belief allows them to extract payoffs as a sham opposition: they will subsume the role of the GOP as political Washington Generals.
This is a kind of interesting take I had not thought about. However, I do not see how it squares with the Trump administration policy of gratuitously attacking and offending allies.
The justification there is close to the real motivation. On trade the administration wants an unlevel playing field slanted to the US. On defense the US wants a larger portion of European taxes paid to US defense manufacturing.
Neither of these things really help military preparedness all that much because the idea that spending and on-books military assets are equivalent to military power is a false assumption. The usual example of this would be France's investment in the Maginot Line during the interwar period which turned out to be reasonably easy to bypass at low cost.
So I agree with you that Washington's ostensible goals (prepare for Taiwan 2027) are badly at odds with the trade policy and even the NATO tribute policy. If they really believe in Taiwan 2027, then you need a trade policy not totally unlike what we did during the Vietnam war to encourage and facilitate industrial production in the likely theater of war. The other big issue is that Trump wants a lasting peace with Russia, but that looks unlikely. So because that peace looks less and less likely a lot of the focus in Washington goes towards trying to build up Europe to deter Russia when it ostensibly wants to focus on Asia.
It reminds me of when the Black Lives Matter craze was happening, and some people tried to say “all lives matter” and were branded as hateful racist. Now these progressive lunatics can only bring themselves denounce all forms of hatred and isn’t that just the same thing?
Obviously it is NOT the same thing.
When leftists do it it is because they are compassionate and correct.
When non-leftists do it, they are racist and have bad intentions.
Have you learned *nothing*?
I find it rich that Sumner hates Trump over SALT when:
1) Trump is the only president to ever get rid of SALT.
2) His own congressional representative (who is a trump hating RINO from CA like him) is part of the gang of five extracting the SALT concession.
3) The best way to get rid of the SALT would have been to support TRUMP so he won even bigger and didn't need Scott's congressmen vote.
4) The Democrats he supports all want to totally eliminate the SALT cap.
As usual, TDS is the only emotion Scott has. Trump's responsible for the SALT change he opposes. Trumps responsible for Japanese bond yields starting to increase in 2022. Etc, Etc.
Well…
I agree with you 100% that Scott has TDS.
But it doesn’t change the fact that he is pretty much spot on about this bill.
Yes, unfortunately this seems to be a really bad bill. Maybe the best that could be done, but that seems unlikely to me. It might have been better to push a far superior bill and shame people who didn’t back it and then negotiate down to something worse; maybe they did that but I haven’t seen much public shaming.
The bill is both very bad and yet also the best that can be done at this point. The bill is bad because voters are bad and want a lot of bad things. You can't threaten the shameless with shaming, and time's up for more negotiations, which wouldn't get anywhere anyway, as everybody's been seeing it coming and making the gross sausage behind the scenes for months. At least it's actually a bill and not unilateral executive action.
No. The doing would better than the bill; that woud actually make a small cut in the deficit.
You must have a different definition of TDS. To me it means hearing things T didn't say, often the opposite of what T said. Maybe it's also attributing reasons for words and actions that a more neutral person wouldn't agree with. I don't know Sumner nor his writing well but what I see is a reasoned difference of opinion. Calling that TDS is a mistake. Or derangement.
You don’t read Sumner, which is why you disagree. We do, and he clearly has TDS. Though I agree it might not be apparent just from the clip AK showed.
If you read his recent piece, he blames Trump that the U.S. will have to spend more on defense because of the failure of mutual protection treaties. Because Trump insists NATO actually spend what they committed to spend in the original treaty!!! Ipso facto, the U.S. will have to spend more on defense. THAT is an example of his TDS.
The US will have to spend more on defense regardless. So will everybody, but especially the US. To the extent big war these days is mostly about using stocks instead of flows, it has just recently become clear that most US stocks are no longer capable enough to keep up with cutting-edge capabilities over their expected term of inclusion in the inventory, and so they will need to be replaced earlier and more expensively than hoped.
You may be right, but the simple fact is the U.S. can spend marginally less on defense if Europe spends more. In EVERY realistic scenario.
Getting Europe to spend more on their own defense is 100% in the U.S.’s interest, whatever you think of all other Trump policies and bluster. But Scott basically claims otherwise. That is TDS.
I've included what Sumner said below. You can disagree with it but you have TDS (as described by Chartopia) if you think what he says is anything worse than a different opinion that might not be correct. Personally, I think he is right. While I agree with you that Trump has gotten other NATO countries to spend more on defense, I agree with Scott that he has weakened the alliance and the US is likely to get less NATO support for military actions outside of NATO countries that we deem necessary. Luckily, Trump will be gone in less than four years and maybe things will improve. Next time don't waste my time on absurd claims.
"Technically, Nato still exists. But as a practical matter it has been abolished by the Trump administration. Now it’s every country for themselves. That means a lot more defense spending (including in the US), which is economically wasteful and fiscally challenging. This is a pity, as mutual defense pacts are a wonderful way of economizing on defense spending. A Russia that cannot beat Ukraine would not dare attack Nato. But that security is gone now. Tossed away like a petulant child breaks a toy they don’t like."
Yeah, sorry. Not just no, but an emphatic no.
‘Technically, Nato still exists. But as a practical matter it has been abolished by the Trump administration. Now it’s every country for themselves. That means a lot more defense spending (including in the US)…”
THIS IS TDS.
Trump abolished NATO - according to Sumner - because Trump insists NATO members spend more on their own defense. Ergo, the U.S. will have to spend more on defense.
Sorry, that is nonsense. That is indeed TDS.
Now, I don’t accept Chartertopia’s reverse definition of TDS. But regardless, it simply doesn’t apply here.
But one last time - my initial claim that Scott has TDS was NOT based on either of these last two pieces, but rather by the stuff he has written over months and months. And to the extent he acknowledges that TDS is a thing, he acknowledges that like most American leftists (which he otherwise is not, to be clear), he has it. He just thinks it’s a good, correct thing to have…
That is TDS.
First your claim was based on the NATO example, now it's not. On top of that, now it's based on unnamed "stuff he has written over months and months." ... Can't argue with that.
Not that I want to. You've decided to ignore what I wrote and repeat your claim about Trump insisting members spend more even though that is at best tangential to what I wrote. You are arguing against a strawman. That is TDS.
Btw, the 2nd half of his claim in that paragraph is also nonsense.
His last line literally describes what he is doing himself with his claim about NATO and U.S. defense spending.
That you think the extreme claim he makes in that paragraph is not nonsense is… telling/bizarre.
Scott blames Trump for Japanese interest rates starting to rise in 2022 because the Japanese Fed did what he's been asking them to do forever and printed a bunch of money and now they are in a wage/price spiral.
TDS is bipartisan irrational lust and fear of Trump. Calling Trump a Nazi and literal Hitler is TDS. Accepting Trump's incoherent and inconsistent ramblings on tariffs and trade deficits is TDS.
“TDS is bipartisan irrational lust and fear of Trump.”
Sorry, just because you make an assertion doesn’t make it true.
There are indeed Trump fanboys who believe everything he does is right. But that is simply not the same as TDS.
Sorry, just because you make an assertion doesn't make it true.
100% correct.
But in this case mine adheres to the well understood meaning of the term, while yours is unique to you.
Yes, I’m aware that in Alice In Wonderland words mean exactly what you want them to mean…
Agreed. Pretty sure Sumner did neither of those.
There are lesser forms of TDS. About Sumner, I have no thoughts.
What’s so bad about the bill?
What would you do differently in the same position as Trump (with the same political constraints as him).
There is plenty of room for disagreement on the need for a tax increase but I can think of no good reason that today's economy needs a tax cut. (Creating havoc in international trade is not a good reason.) I can see even less need at the top end of the income scale.
Increasing the need for itemizing tax returns versus currently seems a bad idea.
Of all the entitlements, Medicaid seems least in need of cutting.
“Of all the entitlements, Medicaid seems least in need of cutting‘
Idk whether this is a technically true statement or not, but it is a very weak argument.
ALL entitlements need cutting (at least their mandated growth rates). Medicaid has particularly bad state incentives for spending given that the feds are usually now picking up way more than 50% of the bill (go read recent Debt Dispatch Substack for a good explanation).
But Medicaid is the most politically viable entitlement to cut. That’s why they’re doing it. And surely at some level you understand this.
But you’re NOT actually arguing that *some* entitlement “cuts” are worse than none at all, even if it’s from YOUR least-worst entitlement, are you?!?
Dude, failing to extend the previous tax cuts IS a tax increase.
And the top end of the scale is where marginal rates matter most, if you want a growing economy. Go read David Henderson’s blog (AK does) if you want to understand why.
I wasn't referring to whether the old was a cut, increase, or no change. The bill contains new tax cuts.
I understand just fine why rates near the top end matter more to the economy. Thank you for your concern. While rates too high can stifle economic growth, beyond a certain point, lower rates make less and less difference and the resulting budget deficits have way more impact. I'm not saying where the sweet spot is but current rates are pretty low relative to the last 50 + years. And might not need to go lower if expenditures are going up faster than tax receipts like they are.
You're familiar with AK's position on budget deficits, right? And you've heard T say he's not going to touch Social Security, right?
The way to address deficits is by attacking spending. And having as pro-growth an economy as possible.
Envy arguments aside, as Europe knows, the way to raise revenue if/when you must is with broad-based low marginal rates, preferably mostly on consumption. As low taxes on capital as possible. And as low a top marginal income tax rate as possible.
Tariffs - IF they exempted intermediate goods, which I fully acknowledge Trump’s do not (though he may get a long way there via various deals and exception, which I don’t really endorse) are actually low-moderate consumption taxes.
Raising marginal income tax rates in a progressive taxation system is always a bad idea.
Even though it’s often great (envy) politics.
“beyond a certain point, lower rates make less and less difference and the resulting budget deficits have way more impact.”
Care to show the math for this claim? Or evidence? I doubt you can. Actually, I’m 99 certain you cannot.
This is pure politics of envy, at least in a progressive tax system.
Taxing the rich more does not bring in that much more revenue. But does reduce work incentives, risk investment incentives, and so job creation. And increases motivation to switch income to cap gains. And surely you realize that low cap gains rates are critical for BOTH growth and tax revenue
Even Obama acknowledged his cap gains increases were for “fairness”, not economic efficiency or even raising revenue.
Henderson explains the importance of low marginal rates better than I can. Or than you clearly do [not] understand it, given your envy argument wrapped in false math claims about the deficit.
Read what I wrote again. Your response is off-target.
I can live with the suboptimal SALT stuff if it’s required to pass it.
I’d absolutely make permanent the prior cuts.
I can live with the dumb no tax on tips since campaign promise.
Most of the rest is bad. Complexity for no benefit, and he doesn’t need to do, he’s choosing to.
No I don’t expect him to cut spending even more, that’s on Congress and the voters just as much.
The SALT deduction should be 0%, the tax on tips 110%. It's time for both to go away.
We agree on SALT. I don’t get your 110% point on tips.
The right thing - pre-campaign promise - to do was nothing. Do fewer, but NOT zero, audits of employees who make cash tips.
But now we are talking what is sensible policy, not good politics.
He wants a disincentive for tips so they go away.
Sumner wrote:
"and any other GOP president would have delivered a far better bill."
Sumner is full of .shit- this bill was written by the GOP Congress, not Trump.
Sumner is definitely wrong about "any other GOP president", but not because the thing is written exclusively by Congress. The bill is the product of thousands of hours negotiations between administration officials and Republican congressmen and, and thousands more drafting and revision by their staff and the staff of a thousand lobbyist, activist, or special interest groups. At any rate, it's worth remembering that the last GOP president who wasn't Trump was George W Bush, who cannot by any stretch of the imagination be considered to have been a principled steward of the nation's finances during his tenure.
The real political reason that Sumner is wrong is that:
Any Republican who would have delivered a far better bill ... would NOT have been elected. Look at the vote numbers.
I thought readers might be interested in reading my recent substack post "Vendettanomics."
https://charles72f.substack.com/p/vendettanomics-trumps-war-on-econ
Here is a selection: "Tariffs are an assault on free enterprise. They are industrial policy on steroids. While Trumpeters have issued innumerable justifications for their tariffs, at their core the tariffs represent a unilateral presidential decision to privilege one set of businesses or industries over all others. This is strange policy indeed for professed conservatives. After railing for years about Joe Biden’s socialist industrial policy, Republicans are installing a quasi-socialist industrial policy that would make Biden (or Brezhnev) blush.
Tariffs prefer America (First!) over any other country. As most Rep Presidents have done. Globally sub-optimal, but most countries with a trade surplus with the US have some tariffs. Where are the charts of tariff rates & amounts collected, by country?
And any tariff revenue does reduce the deficit, which is claimed to be a huge threat. Trump makes deals, doesn't care about theory. Economic theory is really weak on actual deal making, which is how transactions in real economies work.
Your too long article includes a lot about Rule of Law, but my skimming didn't see:
1) 2015 HR Clinton getting dirt on Trump, using it with Obama's FBI to start illegal spying on Trump. Approved by 4 FISA judges violating their legal obligations to accept only first person evidence. All seem to be Above the Law.
2) Every illegal immigrant violates the US border law. Each seems to be Above the Law -- anybody claiming to be a L Liberal supporting Rule of Law requires enforcement of the law on all. 11 million Fails.
US Democrats have been, and are, destroying the Rule of Law far more than Trump.
I do appreciate your willingness to write it all out.
In two years we will know who is right and who is wrong. If the economy is booming, If prices are stable, if we have a free and fair midterm election, and if Trump never calls on the military to deal with a domestic problem, then I will gladly admit to being wrong. Also, I cannot believe your comment about rule of law is serious. Trump has been on Putin's payroll for decades. Read the Mueller report.
I asked Grok about Trump getting money. Looks like "normal" business with Russian Oligarchs.
>>The Mueller Report confirms that Trump received approximately $62 million from Russian sources through the Miss Universe pageant ($7 million), the 2008 Florida mansion sale ($54 million), and a post-election payment to Cohen ($1 million). The uncompleted Trump Tower Moscow project could have generated “hundreds of millions” but yielded no direct payments. Other potential financial ties, like condo sales to Russian buyers, are noted but unquantified due to redactions, shell companies, and investigative constraints. The report’s focus on criminal conspiracy, not counterintelligence or financial dependency, limits its conclusions on Trump’s broader financial entanglements with Russia. For deeper insights, investigations by Congress or jurisdictions like New York (e.g., SDNY) would be needed, as Mueller referred 14 matters elsewhere, 12 of which remain redacted.
<<
H Biden was indeed on the payroll of corrupt Burisma, Ukraine, but not Trump.
If you don’t believe rule of law means enforcement, it’s you who are not serious.
Here is what your messiah said on Memorial Day. Is this really what your MAGA America looks like?
HAPPY MEMORIAL DAY TO ALL, INCLUDING THE SCUM THAT SPENT THE LAST FOUR YEARS TRYING TO DESTROY OUR COUNTRY THROUGH WARPED RADICAL LEFT MINDS, WHO ALLOWED 21,000,000 MILLION PEOPLE TO ILLEGALLY ENTER OUR COUNTRY, MANY OF THEM BEING CRIMINALS AND THE MENTALLY INSANE, THROUGH AN OPEN BORDER THAT ONLY AN INCOMPETENT PRESIDENT WOULD APPROVE, AND THROUGH JUDGES WHO ARE ON A MISSION TO KEEP MURDERERS, DRUG DEALERS, RAPISTS, GANG MEMBERS, AND RELEASED PRISONERS FROM ALL OVER THE WORLD, IN OUR COUNTRY SO THEY CAN ROB, MURDERER, AND RAPE AGAIN - ALL PROTECTED BY THESE USA HATING JUDGES WHO SUFFER FROM AN IDEOLOGY THAT IS SICK, AND VERY DANGEROUS FOR OUR COUNTRY. HOPEFULLY THE UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT, AND OTHER GOOD AND COMPASSIONATE JUDGES THROUGHOUT THE LAND, WILL SAVE US FROM THE DECISIONS OF THE MONSTERS WHO WANT OUR COUNTRY TO GO TO HELL. BUT FEAR NOT, WE HAVE MADE GREAT PROGRESS OVER THE LAST 4 MONTHS, AND AMERICA WILL SOON BE SAFE AND GREAT AGAIN! AGAIN, HAPPY
MEMORIAL DAY, AND GOD BLESS AMERICA!
ha ha ha! Your argument is to insult me with a High School insult (not my messiah), after a previous college insult ("cannot believe [my] comment ... is serious"). Then to paste Trump giving Jr. HS insults to those who allowed 21 million illegals to enter the US, and commit more crimes here.
In my MAGA country, rule of law means enforcement, like MLK going to jail to change the law -- and so many folk thinking that unjust that the law changes. Yes, gang members who are rapists & murderers are called scum. They are scum. Whether from a shithole country or not. That's a more honest insult then claiming "threat to democracy" is not an insult.
But warped radical left minds can lie to themselves and believe Trump "is literally Hitler" and think it's the truth.
Does your post indicate you think that's a shoe that fits you? (My attempt at serious humor, slightly insulting as a Q. Arnold doesn't like these back & forth comment conversations, or didn't a couple years ago, so if you answer here I won't reply further.)
"If you try to mix the two, you will get more regulation of crypto and/or more government backing for criminal enterprises."
I'll take the criminals. I wouldn't have to take the criminals if the law made my bank account as entitled to as much reliability and protection as the interior of my home, but it won't, which forces me to either surrender or side with the scoundrels. Hello Bootleggers, since we're stuck in the same boat for a while, would you like me to teach you a little about being a Baptist?
All freedoms and rights are frictions for law-enforcement and are inherently law-breaking-adjacent. The cops are correct, privacy is drug-crime adjacent. The right is correct, Due Process is immigration-crime adjacent. The left is correct the right to bear arms is homicide-adjacent. All critics of Free Speech are right, it is hate-crime adjacent.
None of that is to dismiss the importance and harm of all that crime and near-crime, it is just to be honest about the high price of having rights. Once upon a time the point of America was conceived as being a polity dedicated to the notion that having rights was so important that it was still worth it despite us all having to pay these terribly high prices to maintain them.
Crypto is now the only way for an individual to maintain freedom of transaction without risking seeing himself locked out of his own funds and the entire global transactions system without notice, court order, due process, or meaningful recourse. One already has little privacy of transaction when using the conventional system, and one has to resort to cash for any kind of anonymity or avoidance of tracking and durable records permanently out of one's ability to control. With fewer establishments accepting cash, and the EU recently banning all transactions in cash greater than 10K, crypto is the only game left in town.
Is the “deficit is unsustainable” a falsifiable belief? I used to think it was true. It might be, over 100 years. In Japan’s case, it has been sustained for the last 20 years, tho each year the fear can be repeated.
Scott’s TDS has been wrong-ish for the last 8 years, so why believe him, or those who do?
If saying good things about good results of Trump actions results in a wave of unsubscriptions, which is then avoided by not saying the truth, that’s a form of audience capture. I noticed Mounk said “we” in the very rapid development of the vaccine, no credit to Trump whose pushing got it done before the election. That’s common among Dems, if Reps do something good, or Dems do something bad like Jim Crow laws or the KKK, it’s “we”. To obfuscate Rep credit or Dem blame.
Sumner is right to fear a multipolar world where China & Russia have little fear of military loss, tho he wrongly blames Trump rather than Dems & feckless EU wimp leaders unwilling to pay up for NATO and thus encourage anti-American aggression like China vs Philippine fishing. Plus Biden running away from Afghanistan & allowing Russia to invade more of Ukraine, as Obama and Bush43 did.
You neglected to end with your signature 'have a nice day.' For the record, I agree that this is the nightmare scenario, though I wonder whether the fiscal problems and other messes inherited by the Trump Administration may have rendered the economic situation unsalvageable regardless of Trumponomics.
"One of the consequences I fear about Trumponomics is that we could end up with a President from the Warren faction in 2029."
If you decide that $400B of tax cuts that are already law are worth voting for Elizabeth Warren, I can't stop you. It just seems like the most retarded thing in the world.
I don't see Trump raising taxes as likely to forestall a Warren administration. His Medicaid cuts might give us a Warren admin, but I thought you fiscal hawks all supported those.
"$300 billion over the four years they are in effect"
So the entirety of four years of keeping his campaign promises (which would be wildly popular and help forestall a Warren administration" is equal 5% of the deficits we had during COVID 2020-2021. When the Biden admin spent trillions of its three spending bills it didn't stop any of these complainers from voting for Biden/Harris, but no we gotta go full socialism because some bartender might save a few grand.
"Congress a slave to the CBO? If only."
In my own industry every single CBO score of a bill has been unmitigated garbage and everyone knew it at the time, they didn't need a retrospective it was an open secret what garbage it was.
You forget how divisive Trump is. He won the faux-national popular vote by only 1.5% and still didn't get a majority against the most inept presidential candidate I can remember, who represented the woke / DEI / CRT philosophy that a good solid majority of Americans despise. The House is almost certainly going to flip Democrat in 2026. The Senate is less likely but still possible.
His tariffs are an incoherent mess which raise prices and disrupt business planning, and people have long memories of price rises and floundering economies. Biden's inflation dropped below 4% in June 2023, and was still remembered in November 2024. Trump started out more popular than the election totals, he's done a lot that's popular, especially immigration, loosening regulations, rolling back wokism, and at least making noises about reducing war around the world. But he's wasting his political capital on raising prices and disrupting the economy, and stupid statements about how expensive dolls and cars will be are going to haunt him and the GOP come November 2026. He's only got roughly a year left to make his mark; 2027 and 2028 will be stymied by Democrats.
I put the odds at 50-50 whether 2028 votes in a Democrat President and Congress, and it's all down to Trump blowing his political capital on raising prices and disrupting the economy. Of course Democrats are vying for the title of the Stupid party as they double down on wokism, but Trump is vying for the title of Evil President, so it's all a big beautiful crap shoot.
And don't forget that it was Democrats who balanced the budget in 2000. So- called conservatives have been much more profligate spenders than the liberals.
Oh hogwash. It takes two to tango. Congress had more to do with it than Clinton, since they were the ones writing the legislation.
It makes me a little nuts when people blame Biden for our profligate spending during COVID. Biden spent too much, but by far the bulk of the spending was done by Trump. And we were running a trillion dollar deficit going into COVID. Our subsequent inflation problem was far more Trump's doing than Biden's.
Trump spent the most that could be spent without igniting inflation, the right amount to counter the Covid lockdown crisis.
Biden’s IRA, with lots of wasted spending on rural homes getting internet (not), and EV chargers getting built (not), was the problem.
Biden’s increased, rather than same or less spending caused the inflation, along with lousy supply chain disruption.
Ditto, but it is especially annoying when they claim Congress would have overridden Trump's veto so it's really Congress's fault. I say great, then a veto would have pinned the blame on them, and who knows, the veto might have switched enough votes to prevent an override. If Trump wants credit for bills he signed, he gets it for all of them, not just the ones he doesn't regret.
But Biden deserves the inflation. His was the spending which blew it over the top.
Trump was not about to veto this legislation because Congressional Republicans supported it. It never entered his mind. The day Biden was inaugurated (despite Trump's best efforts) inflation was baked in the cake. Biden just made it worse; I'm no fan of Democrats except that they didn't try to overthrow a free election with an armed insurrection.
https://charles72f.substack.com/p/aint-nothin-but-a-party
Neither did Republicans or MAGAs. The only people armed at the j6 ... thing ... were police. It's a pretty incompetent insurrection that shows up without weapons.
Hello! I just scanned a bunch of your Substack posts. I too think our judicial system is disfunctional. I am not an attorney so I have a hard time following some of your arguments. But I think this is incredibly important stuff. My daughter is involved in the NYC system with a bail-alternative program. What goes on there is, well, criminal.
I'm no attorney either. Most of my knowledge comes from reading a couple of David Friedman books, other legal history books, and following legal blogs for 15 years. If you ask questions on those posts, I'll answer as best I can.
Are you joking? That's insane. I could swear I saw cops being attacked with bear spray, flagpoles, and crowd control fences. To me, it's an insurrection when cops are assaulted and our seat of government is attacked and vandalized by Yahoos whether they have automatic weapons or not. Please tell me how you can have such admiration for these, well, deplorables.
Did you also see the videos of cops opening doors, letting them in, and escorting them around like tour guides?
Did you know that the Democrat-led House committee erased terabytes of video they didn’t want Republicans to see? What were they hiding?
The FBI still won’t answer how many of their undercover agents were there, or how many were egging on the crowds.
You’re the one making stuff up. I never said “automatic weapons”. Far as I know, no one else has ever suggested it either. You’re getting more rabid by the comment.
“ But we saw in the murder at the Jewish Museum who the real terrorists are. They are socialist Israel-haters who believe in “death to America.” “
I don’t see how you can reasonably draw this conclusion from this one attack.
The groups supported by the President — many J6ers, tree of life murdere, Charlottesville marchers — hate Jews, are heavily armed, and are ignored by (sympathetic) law enforcement.
This 'one attack' is just the latest escalation in a movement that began almost immediately after the October 7 attack on Israel, before any retaliation by the IDF. What AK calls the 'socialist Israel-haters (I just call them Jew-haters) who believe in "death to America"' have been protesting and marching in solidarity with pro-Hamas Islamists, and harassing and intimidating Jews and Jewish institutions, on college campuses and in major cities here in the US as well as in Europe, Canada and Australia, since October 8th. I agree that there are Jew haters in Trump's coalition (though I would single out certain podcasters and influencers and their followers, rather than the groups you mention), but you seem to be in denial about Jew hatred on the left. The frightening thing is, or should be, that Jew hatred is the one thing the far left and the far right (to the extent these terms have any meaning) seem to be able agree on. Historically, the majority of American Jews have aligned with the left and the Democratic Party, partly in the belief that Jewish empathy with other 'oppressed minorities' (blacks, women, LBGTQ+, whatever) would be reciprocated. Time and time again, Jews have learned the hard way that not only is there no reciprocity, but that other minority groups have an inherent tendency to turn against Jews, perhaps partly because Jews tend to be successful despite their minority status. I'll take my chances with the right. At least I don't have to pretend to be sympathetic the plight of the fringe Jew-haters in Trumps coalition.
Yes. It's an absurdly specific claim in a country where so far in 2025, we've had >115 mass (>4 people) shootings, Lord only knows how many random shootings for unknown reasons, and have seemingly stopped caring about school shootings. That's not counting the J6ers, and complicit support groups.
That doesn't mean I'm in the socialist Israel haters camp. Very far from it.
The real terrorists? Apparently, it's Americans.
Foreign influence, including the CCP, on US-based 'extremist networks' tied to the murderer: https://networkcontagion.us/reports/5-22-25-the-may-21-embassy-attack-indicators-of-foreign-influence-in-u-s-based-extremist-networks/
Not so sure government is not a criminal enterprise, per one of my favorite book titles "Stationary Bandits" by Rene Azurin, as government is full of criminals and they are enterprising.
More seriously, the SALT deduction, like the California health insurance gross-up, is disgusting. How rich are the people who can deduct $40k, the infamous top 1% or at least top 5%, many of whom have made their fortunes by exploiting government? I'm looking at you, Beltway Bandits and Wall "privatize profits and socialize losses" Street. For the rest, leave California and Illinois now, while you still can and we have covered your relo expenses.
I had no expectation Trump would care about the debt, as he didn't in Trump 1.0. He is a real estate developer, on the war path against China, and is interested in growing non-government jobs ASAP in order to win the midterms and anoint his successor. Congress is the branch of government that continues to abdicate its legislative and fiscal responsibilities. At least they are conducting the process according to regular order instead of the "You have 24 hours to vote on a 1,000 page Bill" approach of the Pelosi cabal.
There is no need to mention "grandchildren" any more in budget discussions. Once President Warren hears the bond market say, "____ off, I'm full", like Monty Python's Mr. Creosote, Jay Powell's successor will fire up the printing presses. Maybe we can hire Javier Milei when his work is done in Argentina. The timing should be about right.
Anger has turned to laughter, else I cry. On this weekend, remember the millions who have died for liberty. Then write your Senator.
"The media brandish estimates from it and the JCT to frighten off legislators interested in growth-focused policy"
Legislators interested ingrowth would increase taxes on consumption drastically to reduce the deficit.
“Legislators interested ingrowth would increase taxes on consumption drastically to reduce the deficit.“
Increased taxes rarely promote growth.
Yes cutting income and cap gains taxes and replacing them with low-to-moderate consumption taxes would be a good thing.
Lowering government spending and remaining in the growth of entitlements is what legislators truly interested in growth would do; raising taxes would be the last thing.
We don’t have a revenue problem in this country; we have a spending problem. Period.
We have a deficit problem and you may think it woud be better to close it with spending cuts but it would be better to close it with revenue than not at all. Cut as much as you want and raise revenue for the difference.
It’s fine that the deficit is YOUR biggest issue. But your claim was that what legislators who care about growth should do is raise taxes. I disagree completely. The deficit is not the biggest drag on growth. It is the spending, and promises of future spending that are the far bigger drag, and the far far far far better way to address deficits and debt is to cut spending, not raise taxes.
History has shown repeatedly that tax increases lead to higher spending. So no, cutting the deficit mostly or even 59% with tax increases is NOT the way to deliver growth.
Reducing spending (on non-investment) is pro-growth if it means less borrowing from investors — lower deficits. If it is just offset by less revenue collection deficits remain the same then why would growth be promoted? I do not know what data you are looking at to conclude the more revenue collection leads to higher spending. 2025 looks like large tax reductions (far beyond just extending the 2017 bill, AND a huge increase in the deficit.
Reducing spending is the only thing that reduces taxes in the long run.
Any spending requires more taxes.
More *taxes* - and expectations of higher future taxes - is what slows growth (deficit spending can of course *increase* growth for a while). Not deficits per se. Or even spending
The right answer is the least amount of long run taxes.
Which means less spending.
(And of course, tax policies that are pro growth are better than tax policies that are not. On this point, I think we do agree. Consumption taxes are better than taxes on capital or high marginal income tax rates.)
Finally, as to what data that shows that more tax revenue leads to more spending, look only at EVERY. DEMOCRATIC. COUNTRY. EVER.
Well we disagree about a lot of things but one mistake a person with your general views should not make is to believe that “deficit spending can of course increase growth for a while.“ If defcits finance high yielding public investments that increase growth permanently and if not, if they finance consumption they harm growth. [Some deficit spending in a recession may seem like and exception to the above, but it is not. When the Fed is fighting a recession with low interest rates and lots of machines and people and real estate in unemployed, lots of things that are NOT investment in normal time (reopening that library, re-hiring the laid off police officer, bringing forward the street maintenance project) become investments (or better investments) in recession.]
But the idea that we can just cut taxes and that spending will be reduced someday is just a delusion.
I do appreciate the understated concern on the impact of these moronic policy choices. I don't fear they're bad for the country. I have an unshakable belief that they are bad and are pointing us into unavoidable disaster.
From Stephen Miller's tweet, who I now trust a bit more than Sumner, tho don't fully believe this, either:
>>
I’ve seen a few claims making the rounds on the Big Beautiful Bill that require correction.
The first is that it doesn’t “codify the DOGE cuts.” A reconciliation bill, which is a budget bill that passes with 50 votes, is limited by senate rules to “mandatory” spending only — eg Medicaid and Food Stamps. The senate rules prevent it from cutting “discretionary” spending — eg the Department of Education or federal grants. The DOGE cuts are overwhelmingly discretionary, not mandatory. The bill saves more than 1.6 TRILLION in mandatory spending, including the largest-ever welfare reform. A remarkable achievement.
I’ve also seen claims the bill increases the deficit. This lie is based on a CBO accounting gimmick. Income tax rates from the 2017 tax cut are set to expire in September. They were always planned to be permanent. CBO says maintaining *current* rates adds to the deficit, but by definition leaving these income tax rates unchanged cannot add one penny to the deficit. The bill’s spending cuts REDUCE the deficit against the current law baseline, which is the only correct baseline to use.
Another fantastically false claim is that the bill spends trillions of dollars. This is just completely invented out of whole cloth. This is not a ten year budget bill—it doesn’t “fund” almost any operations of government, which are funded in the annual budget bills (which this is not). In other words, if this bill passed, but the annual budget bill did not, there would be no government funding. Under the math that critics are using, if we passed a one paragraph reconciliation bill that cut simply 50 billion in food stamp spending, they would say the bill “added” trillions in spending and debt because they are counting ALL the projected federal spending that exists entirely outside the scope of this legislation, which is of course preposterous. The only funding in the bill is for the President’s border and defense priorities, while enacting a net spending cut of over 1.6 TRILLION dollars.
The bill has two fiscal components: a massive tax cut and a massive spending cut.
<<
One should learn more about what one fears -- and then clearly evaluate the situation.
Stephen talks about the annual budget bill, but I understand that such bills are supposed to be done, but have been replaced by Continuing Resolutions, which this bill also is NOT.
I'm not convinced the tax cuts were "planned to be permanent" by the Dems, tho I note the Dems in practice are much happier raising unfunded spending than actually raising taxes.
He doesn't mention how big the bill is -- so I'm certainly not going to read it all. And probably not even read a summary by anybody I trust, tho selections of the summary, like Stephen's above, are useful.
A counter balance to Sumner, tho perhaps not really more balanced, yet seemingly more accurate.
"a modest boost to the economy"
What provision ins the bill does that? The 2017 deficit act at lease reduced corporate taxes, but this one does nothing positive.
Dude, the one unabashedly positive thing this bill DOES do is ensure we don’t have a big increase in the corporate tax rate.
Which is what will happen if there is no bill whatsoever.
No the corporate rate change from 2017 does not expire.
My apologies on that one. You are correct. Thx.
I understand you fear of a ‘Warren’ administration, but, seriously, what did you expect from a Trump administration? Are you implying perhaps that you did not expect Trump to pursue so energetically the principles he had consistently proclaimed through his political career, eg, protectionism, xenophobia, anti-intellectualism?
I don't think anyone predicted the sheer scale of his tariffs, or expected him to change them almost daily as he did for a while.
A lot of people in the government and especially at the Pentagon believe that China will either blockade or invade Taiwan in 2027. If you take that as an assumed fact, a lot of things about the Trump administration look both more prudent and more frivolous, or simply irrelevant. The faction of business people who are also in the Trump coalition also often assume that this is true and also explains why people are willing to depart from various old orthodoxies on various points related to trade and regulation.
Of course, taking this as an assumed fact makes it more likely to happen. It doesn't seem like there are many highly placed people who can conceive of an alternative to war. The real alternative seems to be to "talk loud and then don't build up the military" while China builds up its military to sort of preemptively cede the territory. But the foreign policy problem with preemptively ceding Taiwan is that it would also cause crises of confidence throughout Asia and possibly Europe also. Either outcome of ceding or fighting vitiates the old order of diplomacy and trade.
Washington has different incentives from a normal private actor, so it is more likely to try to fight even if a losing outcome is guaranteed (see Russia vs. Ukraine). They have shown their bipartisan commitment to do intensely stupid things to try to preserve international military and diplomatic prestige.
War with China would be a lot like Covid domestically except much more extreme, fervent, and personally dangerous w.r.t. departing from whatever orthodox belief the government in Washington wants everyone to profess. If the government wants everyone to show up in rallies to ritualistically dump gallons of duck sauce down sewage drains in outrage over the sinking of an aircraft carrier, that is what everyone will have to do to show loyalty to the state.
If in such a contingency one posts online about how dumping duck sauce down drains or pulling one's eyes back to emphasize racially insensitive remarks about the hated enemy is a bad look or irrational one will never work again and will probably be sent to prison.
I don't think that Warreninism or the left in general is that dangerous in the near term because if the state looks for who will help war capacity and whom will hurt war capacity, it's straightforward to see that suppressing the organized internationalist anti-colonial left is good for war preparedness. Personally I do not think most leftists are sincere, especially up the social scale. They will just flip flop to whatever professed belief allows them to extract payoffs as a sham opposition: they will subsume the role of the GOP as political Washington Generals.
This is a kind of interesting take I had not thought about. However, I do not see how it squares with the Trump administration policy of gratuitously attacking and offending allies.
The justification there is close to the real motivation. On trade the administration wants an unlevel playing field slanted to the US. On defense the US wants a larger portion of European taxes paid to US defense manufacturing.
Neither of these things really help military preparedness all that much because the idea that spending and on-books military assets are equivalent to military power is a false assumption. The usual example of this would be France's investment in the Maginot Line during the interwar period which turned out to be reasonably easy to bypass at low cost.
So I agree with you that Washington's ostensible goals (prepare for Taiwan 2027) are badly at odds with the trade policy and even the NATO tribute policy. If they really believe in Taiwan 2027, then you need a trade policy not totally unlike what we did during the Vietnam war to encourage and facilitate industrial production in the likely theater of war. The other big issue is that Trump wants a lasting peace with Russia, but that looks unlikely. So because that peace looks less and less likely a lot of the focus in Washington goes towards trying to build up Europe to deter Russia when it ostensibly wants to focus on Asia.