“…but bear in mind, the RINOs in the Senate are doing psy ops right now because they really do hate Trump.” And they haven’t learned a thing since John Mccain turned thumbs down on repealing Obamacare because he too hated DJT. It is incredible to me that these Senators don’t give a rat’s ass about the welfare of the country, only their egos and misguided ideas.
Ideologues are all just one manic Night of Broken Glass shy of commies (unless their ideology already is "communism," in which case they've already won the sweepstakes) because how else will they ever get to impose their ideas on the rest of us?
I don't think it is Trump or even us they hate. They loathe God and all of His creation, including themselves. They despise humanity, preferring "the environment" to their brothers. They cannot abide gender. They want to murder the unborn. They want to disintegrate countries and cultures. The things they love are the ideas that serve as their idols. Their ideologies are the things they love because they can use the ideas to destroy. Purity of some perversion of a good thing but taken to excess. Kindness that is not kindness at all but acquiescence. Language is equated to violence. Mercy turns into lawlessness.
I hate when people don't spell President Trump with a capital T and it's usually the haters with their inane remarks who do so. Sorry, just saying how I feel.
WOW & DOUBLE WOW!This is Don’s clearest column EVAH! It makes mincemeat of Rand Paul’s posturing and we need to pass it on pronto. Thanks Don & thanks Steven Miller for clarifying the obscure.
Don’s explanation of why this bill does not codify DOGE is simple, but the first that has made sense to me. Thanks for that. Now let’s find out why the House is not already working on the DOGE bill.
Well, let's just see if there is a follow-up bill, which would break the precedent of decades of Republicans talking a good game and then doing nothing. If there is no follow-up bill, then Don is 100% wrong and Rand Paul is 100% right.
That's the rub. We need to pressure our congresscritters more. They think because we aren't in their face that they are "doing and polling" well.
Don't let them. Make them understand if they don't do what Trump asks. Make them aware WE control their destiny... not polls. WE can get rid of them as fast as we put them there.
I have a hat (I forget where I bought it) that says "Make Politicians afraid again." We are failing. If only a few of us do it (like myself, with calls and letters) we come off as cranks.
If we ALL did it, we'd be making them nervous enough to DO something, rather than have speech-fests and photo-ops where they talk "muh principles" and actually SHOW them.
The spending problems originated during COVID, which hiked spending by about $2T, annually. If we reverted back to 2019 spending then we would largely eliminate the deficit. BTW, revenues (from taxes) were UP this year vs last.
The rebelling senators should work with the House both to modify DOGE cuts AND trim spending when passing budgets in regular order...outside this BBB package.
Meanwhile the bond market is pressuring us via higher LT rates (understandable debt worries but not defensible inflation and/or recession concerns).
In sum, it took us awhile to get in this place but I trust Bessent's plan and Trump.
The spending problems started a long time before COVID. It really started with Baseline Budgeting, where last years budget is a starting point. Expenditures can only go up. Zero is where the spending bills should srart, not at the "current level". There should be none of the "omnibus spending bills" we have been stuck with for decades, covering up a lazy House and a dishonest Senate.
Yes omnibus bills are a major issue. As I suggested that budgets should be passed by depth in regular order. Haven't done that since 1996. However the larger point re ballooned budget during COVID stands,.not to mention Biden era spending.
This years Bill is a concatenation born of the desire to deal with expiring tax cuts and the very narrow R majority, not to mention how far the Biden administration took 2026 budgeting before Trump assumed office,. The BBB is definitely second best but sometimes that is the best you can do.
....hence the word bureaucracy. No government program has really ever fixed any problem. They just create more, then they grow. The DOE is a prime example. So if we are looking for a Dem, a Rino, or a Rep to fix any problems we have in our culture you are just feeding the fish.
Most of the time, all this information about fiscal issues makes my brain freeze over to the point where it becomes gobbledegook. But one thing did jump out at me. Why, oh, why are Medicaid and Food Stamps “mandatory spending”?
Obesity is the biggest health issue among the “poor”. Why am I being taxed to feed all these obese people? Every church I’ve ever attended has a food bank. That’s where assistance should come from. And one of the reasons my health care is so expensive is to pay for treating all of those same people who show up at the ER with a cold or an upset stomach.
Maybe I sound like one of those “mean spirited” Republicans the left likes to talk about but I well remember the days when our daughter was a child and we lived paycheck to paycheck, and our only “vacations” were to visit family who lived far away. And we payed for our own food, our own medical care and we paid our taxes. We are the forgotten people that President Trump talks about. Senators like Paul, Massie and McConnell need to remember. Maybe we should send them a few bottles of ginkgo biloba.
A politician that only complains about things and does not offer solutions is a waste of tax payer money. They need to fix problems not just identify problems then walk away feeling good about their noble deed.
I am afraid, or maybe just certain, we are approaching a fracturing of the Republic. Maybe we should find Scott Coleman to start enforcing term limits. (Ref: Vince Flynn)
HA! LOVE THAT BOOK, and Vince Flynn’s other books!!
What a tragedy we lost him far too soon! 😢
Other books you might know are Kurt Schlichter’s ‘Kelly Turnbull’ novels depicting the national divorce of America. Not as well written as Vince, but compelling nonetheless.
Why is Mitch McConnell still there? Or Rand Paul? Or Schumer? Or Pelosi? Or any of the rest? McConnell is another FJB as far as I can tell. We definitely need term limits on all politicians, and that should be a box to check on the next presidential ballot. Eight years is enough time for the truly gifted to do something to help the country and return to their previous life with a Corona to acknowledge their excellence. They don't need to continue to line their pockets at the expense of their constituents. Their worthy excellence can be passed to their successor whom they endorse. If they can't provide a list of accomplishments at the end of their first term, un-elect them by choosing someone who will. The same OLD politicians keep doing the same old things for pride and self gratification, voting raises for themselves, and practicing their own form of insider trading. I say get rid of them, and with term limits and the idea that one needs to do some good when elected, more people will be interested in wearing that leafy crown to insure their political afterlife is a glorious one.
Term limits already exist, in that the people are completely free and capable of NOT voting for bad congresspeople.
If you are upset with certain congresspeople, work for and donate to their opponent in the primary. If you don't think the opponent is any better (which is often the case), then look at the process for how candidates are selected. Nothing is stopping you from getting involved in your local Republican Party apparatus, and influencing it for the better.
With respect— everyone says that. ‘They already exist.’ Well, yes and no. Yes we can vote them out of office BUT — both parties DO NOT primary the incumbent if they choose to run for another term. People in power-like China Mitch won’t allow it and won’t fund someone to run against a ‘homeboy’ so to speak’. So then your only option is to vote for the ‘other guy/gal of the other party’. So no in reality term limits do not already exist.
So we as conservatives hold our nose and vote for the Republicans -even the lousy incumbent-rather than turn the seat over to a Democrat. Lousy option.
Term limits need to be in place for ALL elected positions in the government. IMHO
That is exactly why MAGA has to get involved in the state Republican Party apparatuses--to change that "old-boy-network" convention of not primarying an incumbent. And actually, many state parties are silent (supposedly neutral and uninvolved) in the primary stage, feeling that the Republican voters should select the candidate during the primary, then the Party itself throws money behind the Republican candidate who wins the primary.
"People in power", like Mitch McConnell, don't actually have any power to "not allow" financing a challenger to an incumbent. Long-standing incumbents are NOT invulnerable from being challenged by the state Party apparatus. In fact--the state Party apparatus is probably the MOST effective influencer or control on a wayward Congressperson.
It's just that too often, the state Party apparatus is too much made up of the incumbent's lackeys, or of people that are new in the Party apparatus and AFRAID to call out an incumbent. That is why confident and independent MAGA people have to get into the state Party hierarchy. MAGA people who are active inside the state Party apparatus can put huge pressure on an incumbent RINO--even publicly shaming them and calling for a replacement. In some states, you can even recall a senator.
Just because normal people (like us) are not currently very active in the state Republican Party apparatuses, does not mean that there is any "law" enabling RINO's to keep running RINO candidates. We have "ceded" this territory to the RINO's, and only WE can take it back.
And these Party positions are often publicly-elected positions, which are as easy to win as local school board elections. Few people pay attention to or vote in these races. Start at the county level (easier). The state level is usually filled by a long-time lackey whom people are afraid to offend by challenging.
Excellent and insightful analysis, as we have come to expect. (Which explains why we come here and stay here.) My personal observation is that any system that becomes too large for a single person to understand it is prone to fraud and corruption. The bigger the system, the more lacunae exist where hiding, cheating and stealing can be accomplished with little fear of being found out. Ask yourself, are you more likely to be successful in hiding in your bedroom closet or in a closet in one of the rooms in a hotel? Would you be found sooner in your closet or in one of those hotel room closets? The federal government is that hotel--the biggest hotel in the world--and each of the rooms in it has a closet. Or perhaps you could use the old "needle in a haystack" analogy, where the federal haystack conceals all kinds of financial needles. At any rate, as long as the federal government remains a gargantuan Leviathan, the opportunities for theft will remain nearly unbounded for those whose proclivities run in the direction of selfishness, which is to say, everybody. What is to be done? I have no idea, but am inclined to trust Trump's business instincts on this one. I find it too convenient that some people who have been in government for a sufficiently long time to have done something about the mounting debt have failed to implement their alleged desire to economize until now. On the other hand, I sincerely wish them success in their efforts to control our budgetary extravagance in a system where we elect representatives on the basis of their promise that, "You get a car... and YOU get a car...AND YOU GET A CAR".
“Whether you favor or oppose the Big Beautiful Bill depends on whether you trust Trump or you trust Democrats.”
That is over simplification. Why at this point would we trust anyone in government? This bill is an abomination. We have gotten to a point where our congress can no longer argue the merits of anything important. 75% of this bill should be debated and voted on separately. But here we are, with the GOP no better than the Dems at articulating an argument about merit. Now real conservatives are turning on our own because they dissent. We went to a fulltime congress because of workload it was said. BS. They have the time, they just choose to waste it. Their lazy. Paul and Massie are not the problem. Take the bill apart and really sell it to Americans as pieces. 95% of those on this blog arent sure what is in the bill. Maybe it is high time we demanded to know the answer and hear some real debate, not political BS talking points. I do trust Mr Trump, but I also understand his weaknesses. Lets debate this bill and clean it up instead of attacking people in our own party for trying to be honest.
Reddog, respectfully, you are UTTERLY MISSING THE FOREST FOR THE TREES.
House has a 3 vote GOP majority and Senate has about the same?
Trump KNOWS that ALL THE PIECES ARE INTER-RELATED: tariff success, ending wars in Israel and Ukraine, increasing domestic ENERGY production, reducing over-regulation, bringing manufacturing BACK to the U.S. — ALL OF WHICH WILL LEAD TO A SUPER-CHARGED ECONOMY, and a YUUUUGE MID-TERM WIN FOR GOP, at which time he will have the biggest baddest sledgehammer to beat the enemies from within into submission for his final two years and truly Make America Great Again!
It is all EITHER an UPWARD SPIRAL, or a DOWNWARD SPIRAL.
You choose.
There is NO time right NOW to navel-gaze, pearl-clutch or otherwise dilly-dally before the mid-terms!
Just as with the illegal alien deportations, the ENEMY (from within) knows if they can succeed in demanding a granular approach “Everyone must have ‘Due Process’”, “Take the bill apart and really sell it to Americans as pieces” IT IS ALL D.O.A.!!!
We have met the enemy, and the enemy is us. Pogo. Damn you, Rinos-hold your nose and pass this bill-let the three traitors bloviate-50-50. And VP Vance cements his presidential bonafide's. A win for the country-how quaint.
I really don’t like the idea of huge omnibus bills, period. They should just vote straight up on individual issues: “Here’s a really simple issue. Yeah or nay? Next topic…” In reality a bill can be big or beautiful, but not both, with the way so much crapola gets rammed through.
Yes, I see from the comments to my comment above the “you don’t get it” folks and the “this is a special circumstance” folks disagree with my view. Thats okay. But if I wasn’t so busy I would go back and note how many times this virtually same circumstance has happened before. When isn't the situation a crisis? I get it, but we are always in crisis situations because we don’t do the right thing. This is just the latest. We have allowed the congress, both sides of the aisle, to make it just about politics, forgetting the fact that they are the ones we elected to prevent these crisis situations. So now when good people try to make some commonsense arguments for fiscal sanity, Rand Paul and other dissenters must be banished or primaried. Insanity, until it happens yet again down the road.
I hear you Reddog, I truly do. But here’s my final point…
I do not think we have been in THIS exact circumstance before.
The circumstance we’re in now is having a president who TRULY dies NOT GIVE A **** about anything other than MAKING AMERICA GREAT AGAIN.Yes, yes, his ego, blah, blah, blah. But I’m sure he knows that if he makes America great again his legacy will take care of itself, thus satisfying his ego.
SO, we have a truly UNIQUE president who has no more f’s to give after being: impeached twice over manufactured bs, having a fraudulent election steal the reelection from him, lawfared to death in multiple states on bs charges in an attempt to keep him off the campaign trail IN THE MIDDLE OF THE CAMPAIGN / and tie up his entire working capital with whatever the hell Leticia James wanted him to pay / throw him in jail, attempt to ASSASSINATE HIM TWICE.
SO, there’s NOTHING LEFT they can do to him.
He’s LEARNED in the intervening 4 years who’s good, who’s bad and how to work (around) the system.
All this adds up to if Congress will JUST GIVE HIM THIS WIN, WE FINALLY HAVE A PREZ WHO WILL de-RINO DC.
And their resistance merely undermines Trump succeeding AND will NEVER achieve what the few resisters want either. It’s a lose-lose.
Instead, let’s all be for ‘holding a tough position’ down the road, like after the midterms, when it can possibly or even probably can result in a WIN!
I agree with you on the “why”. But Im convinced the House and Senate is not committed to reducing the debt. Now you have GOP Senators like Ron Johnson, RINO, speaking out against it. 50% if the GOP members do not want to stop the spending because the spending is what keeps them in office. They don’t pick up the office phone when Reddog calls but they sure as hell pick it up when Mr. Deep Pockets from XYZ defense contractor or healthcare company calls. We no longer are represented by a congress of the people. The big bill is horribly flawed and loaded with spending. Mr Trump knows it and it pisses mr off he wont at least acknowledge it. Im 77 and a life long conservative who has voted GOP but become sick of his party. They are only by degree different from the Socialist Dems. Lets just agree here to disagree but that we both want the same thing but our idea of how to change it is different. Say a prayer, we are going to need it.
Well if the Butler PA event suggests anything it is that forces bigger and badder than us puny humans seem to be on DJTs side, so we can hope that is true. 🙏
No one is upset with the "good people" for "trying to make some commonsense arguments for fiscal sanity". The "good people's" comments are often true and important.
But what we ARE upset about, is that they won't VOTE for a compromise bill. It's their withholding of their VOTE that lets the Democrats win, and wipes out even the opportunity for an incremental improvement, that we can build on with the next incremental improvement, etc.
Reddog, you're making great sense here. Some of us seem to forget that our side is now using some of the cowardly tactics of the left. When they start putting huge bills together of thousands of pages, then giving members a limited time to read it, and then conduct votes in the middle of the night; you know they have something to hide. Sometimes it doesn't seem to matter if the Democrats win or the Republicans win, the citizen/taxpayer almost always loses.
We do not have the luxury of time to debate a myriad of small bills right now.
The default deadline, I believe, is the end of July and only a Bill containing many of the very specific actions included in it, in concert with the tariff effects, will help us avert certain far more deadly consequences.
That is the urgency involved with this Bill.
Listen to Bessent and Vought and Trump: they know it is not perfect, but it is essential. Without this Bill which will set different economic parameters (i.e. the tax cuts, etc.) we will face almost certain ruin as a nation, and far more uncertain and dangerous set of problems if we don’t.
Agree time is of the essence. That is why teetering around with this nonsense is not the answer. This legislation is just like all the others of kicking it down the road. It's the Congress being lazy and doing nothing as they've done for at least 50 years.
Well, I just hung up the phone from calling both Rand Paul's Washington office and Bowling Green, Kentucky office, to register my opinion/request that he support the BBB. (Didn't get a live person at either location, and there was a less than 1 minute time limit on the voicemail. But my view will in a very small way register in their phone statistics.)
This column hits the nail on the head--nitpicking Trump's bill effectively strengthens the Democrats.
Purists who can't recognize the value of incrementalism when we are digging out of an extremely deep hole are worthless. Am usually a strong supporter of Rand Paul, but he is blowing it on this topic.
There's this tendency that sometimes happen as people age-- they get rigid about their sense of identity and their virtues, and ultimately become "caricatures of themselves". Paul is pushing so hard on his principles that he has blinded himself to being practical.
Therein lies the problem with true believers. Choose this day whom you will serve God or mammon. I don’t necessarily fault Paul, et al, in particular for his beliefs, I do fault him for choosing to play his game on another man’s field. Trump won, Paul did not.
Some of the Senators and "representatives" that I've liked in the past, (few as they are,) are ruining our chance for any real PROGRESS, albeit not ideal. Reagan said a "good bill shouldn't be killed just because it's not a perfect bill." We're blowing our slim majorities in both houses because a few self-identified "purists" don't understand that simple fact. They might as well call themselves "republicrats: we're against everything." They need to start enjoying their pensions!
Yep , that is the crux of the problem. We must maneuver so we make inroads to stopping the stupidity of our legislative process . The huge bills bother me to no end but getting to the point to where it is preventable is the short term goal . Even so ceding anything to the Dims is not an option .
That hits the nail on the head for me. How can Trump earn more trust than he has, that we should listen to his ‘sky is falling’ opponents.
As a non-economist (which is a little something I’ve got going for me) I wonder why all the foreign investments in American jobs that Trump has been winning for us thru negotiation aren’t factoring in. He’s growing the economy, the revenue side of the business of AMERICA.
“…but bear in mind, the RINOs in the Senate are doing psy ops right now because they really do hate Trump.” And they haven’t learned a thing since John Mccain turned thumbs down on repealing Obamacare because he too hated DJT. It is incredible to me that these Senators don’t give a rat’s ass about the welfare of the country, only their egos and misguided ideas.
Ideologues are all just one manic Night of Broken Glass shy of commies (unless their ideology already is "communism," in which case they've already won the sweepstakes) because how else will they ever get to impose their ideas on the rest of us?
Their only ideology seems to be hate trump
I don't think it is Trump or even us they hate. They loathe God and all of His creation, including themselves. They despise humanity, preferring "the environment" to their brothers. They cannot abide gender. They want to murder the unborn. They want to disintegrate countries and cultures. The things they love are the ideas that serve as their idols. Their ideologies are the things they love because they can use the ideas to destroy. Purity of some perversion of a good thing but taken to excess. Kindness that is not kindness at all but acquiescence. Language is equated to violence. Mercy turns into lawlessness.
I hate when people don't spell President Trump with a capital T and it's usually the haters with their inane remarks who do so. Sorry, just saying how I feel.
Dr Tar and Professor Feather…call them!
Hatred is behind all of the psyops.
I'm OK with shutting IT ALL DOWN for awhile
Make it a long Long LONG while.
That’s been my position for years
WOW & DOUBLE WOW!This is Don’s clearest column EVAH! It makes mincemeat of Rand Paul’s posturing and we need to pass it on pronto. Thanks Don & thanks Steven Miller for clarifying the obscure.
Federal budget rules and spending ‘amounts’ are purposefully designed t/b obscure and irrational. CBO is handmade to give them cover…..
Looks like CBO should be the next agency dismantled. Just another arm of the DNC.
Bingo !!
Really hard to know the truth!!
How to know the truth. Step one. Read Don's substack. Step two. Let Trump be Trump. Step 3. Follow Jesus who is the living and written word.
I agree with you but step 3 should be step 1 😁
I always try to not sound like a preacher or an evangelical even though I are one. Hence the reversal of the proper order. I'm a stealth preacher.
What a great, cynical piece!
"The bill isn’t perfect. So what? Pass it and come back to draft a follow-up bill. Further cuts can be part of the codifying DOGE bill."
Exactly.
Don’s explanation of why this bill does not codify DOGE is simple, but the first that has made sense to me. Thanks for that. Now let’s find out why the House is not already working on the DOGE bill.
Well, let's just see if there is a follow-up bill, which would break the precedent of decades of Republicans talking a good game and then doing nothing. If there is no follow-up bill, then Don is 100% wrong and Rand Paul is 100% right.
That's the rub. We need to pressure our congresscritters more. They think because we aren't in their face that they are "doing and polling" well.
Don't let them. Make them understand if they don't do what Trump asks. Make them aware WE control their destiny... not polls. WE can get rid of them as fast as we put them there.
I have a hat (I forget where I bought it) that says "Make Politicians afraid again." We are failing. If only a few of us do it (like myself, with calls and letters) we come off as cranks.
If we ALL did it, we'd be making them nervous enough to DO something, rather than have speech-fests and photo-ops where they talk "muh principles" and actually SHOW them.
Trump knows congress is bought and paid for and is simply trying to grow the economy.
The spending problems originated during COVID, which hiked spending by about $2T, annually. If we reverted back to 2019 spending then we would largely eliminate the deficit. BTW, revenues (from taxes) were UP this year vs last.
The rebelling senators should work with the House both to modify DOGE cuts AND trim spending when passing budgets in regular order...outside this BBB package.
Meanwhile the bond market is pressuring us via higher LT rates (understandable debt worries but not defensible inflation and/or recession concerns).
In sum, it took us awhile to get in this place but I trust Bessent's plan and Trump.
These folks should get with the program.
The spending problems started a long time before COVID. It really started with Baseline Budgeting, where last years budget is a starting point. Expenditures can only go up. Zero is where the spending bills should srart, not at the "current level". There should be none of the "omnibus spending bills" we have been stuck with for decades, covering up a lazy House and a dishonest Senate.
Yes omnibus bills are a major issue. As I suggested that budgets should be passed by depth in regular order. Haven't done that since 1996. However the larger point re ballooned budget during COVID stands,.not to mention Biden era spending.
This years Bill is a concatenation born of the desire to deal with expiring tax cuts and the very narrow R majority, not to mention how far the Biden administration took 2026 budgeting before Trump assumed office,. The BBB is definitely second best but sometimes that is the best you can do.
....hence the word bureaucracy. No government program has really ever fixed any problem. They just create more, then they grow. The DOE is a prime example. So if we are looking for a Dem, a Rino, or a Rep to fix any problems we have in our culture you are just feeding the fish.
Yep ,toilet is plugged,,no prob/hers a million bucks,just fix it .
I also trust Bessent & Trump
Most of the time, all this information about fiscal issues makes my brain freeze over to the point where it becomes gobbledegook. But one thing did jump out at me. Why, oh, why are Medicaid and Food Stamps “mandatory spending”?
Obesity is the biggest health issue among the “poor”. Why am I being taxed to feed all these obese people? Every church I’ve ever attended has a food bank. That’s where assistance should come from. And one of the reasons my health care is so expensive is to pay for treating all of those same people who show up at the ER with a cold or an upset stomach.
Maybe I sound like one of those “mean spirited” Republicans the left likes to talk about but I well remember the days when our daughter was a child and we lived paycheck to paycheck, and our only “vacations” were to visit family who lived far away. And we payed for our own food, our own medical care and we paid our taxes. We are the forgotten people that President Trump talks about. Senators like Paul, Massie and McConnell need to remember. Maybe we should send them a few bottles of ginkgo biloba.
A politician that only complains about things and does not offer solutions is a waste of tax payer money. They need to fix problems not just identify problems then walk away feeling good about their noble deed.
Republicans didn’t get the moniker “Stupid Party” for nothing.
They earned it. They even learned to live with the stench. Kinda turns conservatives off, but who needs 'em?
I am afraid, or maybe just certain, we are approaching a fracturing of the Republic. Maybe we should find Scott Coleman to start enforcing term limits. (Ref: Vince Flynn)
HA! LOVE THAT BOOK, and Vince Flynn’s other books!!
What a tragedy we lost him far too soon! 😢
Other books you might know are Kurt Schlichter’s ‘Kelly Turnbull’ novels depicting the national divorce of America. Not as well written as Vince, but compelling nonetheless.
Why is Mitch McConnell still there? Or Rand Paul? Or Schumer? Or Pelosi? Or any of the rest? McConnell is another FJB as far as I can tell. We definitely need term limits on all politicians, and that should be a box to check on the next presidential ballot. Eight years is enough time for the truly gifted to do something to help the country and return to their previous life with a Corona to acknowledge their excellence. They don't need to continue to line their pockets at the expense of their constituents. Their worthy excellence can be passed to their successor whom they endorse. If they can't provide a list of accomplishments at the end of their first term, un-elect them by choosing someone who will. The same OLD politicians keep doing the same old things for pride and self gratification, voting raises for themselves, and practicing their own form of insider trading. I say get rid of them, and with term limits and the idea that one needs to do some good when elected, more people will be interested in wearing that leafy crown to insure their political afterlife is a glorious one.
Term limits already exist, in that the people are completely free and capable of NOT voting for bad congresspeople.
If you are upset with certain congresspeople, work for and donate to their opponent in the primary. If you don't think the opponent is any better (which is often the case), then look at the process for how candidates are selected. Nothing is stopping you from getting involved in your local Republican Party apparatus, and influencing it for the better.
With respect— everyone says that. ‘They already exist.’ Well, yes and no. Yes we can vote them out of office BUT — both parties DO NOT primary the incumbent if they choose to run for another term. People in power-like China Mitch won’t allow it and won’t fund someone to run against a ‘homeboy’ so to speak’. So then your only option is to vote for the ‘other guy/gal of the other party’. So no in reality term limits do not already exist.
So we as conservatives hold our nose and vote for the Republicans -even the lousy incumbent-rather than turn the seat over to a Democrat. Lousy option.
Term limits need to be in place for ALL elected positions in the government. IMHO
That is exactly why MAGA has to get involved in the state Republican Party apparatuses--to change that "old-boy-network" convention of not primarying an incumbent. And actually, many state parties are silent (supposedly neutral and uninvolved) in the primary stage, feeling that the Republican voters should select the candidate during the primary, then the Party itself throws money behind the Republican candidate who wins the primary.
"People in power", like Mitch McConnell, don't actually have any power to "not allow" financing a challenger to an incumbent. Long-standing incumbents are NOT invulnerable from being challenged by the state Party apparatus. In fact--the state Party apparatus is probably the MOST effective influencer or control on a wayward Congressperson.
It's just that too often, the state Party apparatus is too much made up of the incumbent's lackeys, or of people that are new in the Party apparatus and AFRAID to call out an incumbent. That is why confident and independent MAGA people have to get into the state Party hierarchy. MAGA people who are active inside the state Party apparatus can put huge pressure on an incumbent RINO--even publicly shaming them and calling for a replacement. In some states, you can even recall a senator.
Just because normal people (like us) are not currently very active in the state Republican Party apparatuses, does not mean that there is any "law" enabling RINO's to keep running RINO candidates. We have "ceded" this territory to the RINO's, and only WE can take it back.
And these Party positions are often publicly-elected positions, which are as easy to win as local school board elections. Few people pay attention to or vote in these races. Start at the county level (easier). The state level is usually filled by a long-time lackey whom people are afraid to offend by challenging.
Not just elected positions. Term limits for judges of all levels sounds like a great idea to me as well. No building of private lifetime fiefdoms.
Can't fight science, Gal-it's called inertia.
Good thoughts!
I do understand the frustration, though!
Perhaps Grok and his brothers will show mercy and just run for all the Senate seats. Who could debate them?
Excellent and insightful analysis, as we have come to expect. (Which explains why we come here and stay here.) My personal observation is that any system that becomes too large for a single person to understand it is prone to fraud and corruption. The bigger the system, the more lacunae exist where hiding, cheating and stealing can be accomplished with little fear of being found out. Ask yourself, are you more likely to be successful in hiding in your bedroom closet or in a closet in one of the rooms in a hotel? Would you be found sooner in your closet or in one of those hotel room closets? The federal government is that hotel--the biggest hotel in the world--and each of the rooms in it has a closet. Or perhaps you could use the old "needle in a haystack" analogy, where the federal haystack conceals all kinds of financial needles. At any rate, as long as the federal government remains a gargantuan Leviathan, the opportunities for theft will remain nearly unbounded for those whose proclivities run in the direction of selfishness, which is to say, everybody. What is to be done? I have no idea, but am inclined to trust Trump's business instincts on this one. I find it too convenient that some people who have been in government for a sufficiently long time to have done something about the mounting debt have failed to implement their alleged desire to economize until now. On the other hand, I sincerely wish them success in their efforts to control our budgetary extravagance in a system where we elect representatives on the basis of their promise that, "You get a car... and YOU get a car...AND YOU GET A CAR".
UUFFFDAAAA !
“Whether you favor or oppose the Big Beautiful Bill depends on whether you trust Trump or you trust Democrats.”
That is over simplification. Why at this point would we trust anyone in government? This bill is an abomination. We have gotten to a point where our congress can no longer argue the merits of anything important. 75% of this bill should be debated and voted on separately. But here we are, with the GOP no better than the Dems at articulating an argument about merit. Now real conservatives are turning on our own because they dissent. We went to a fulltime congress because of workload it was said. BS. They have the time, they just choose to waste it. Their lazy. Paul and Massie are not the problem. Take the bill apart and really sell it to Americans as pieces. 95% of those on this blog arent sure what is in the bill. Maybe it is high time we demanded to know the answer and hear some real debate, not political BS talking points. I do trust Mr Trump, but I also understand his weaknesses. Lets debate this bill and clean it up instead of attacking people in our own party for trying to be honest.
Reddog, respectfully, you are UTTERLY MISSING THE FOREST FOR THE TREES.
House has a 3 vote GOP majority and Senate has about the same?
Trump KNOWS that ALL THE PIECES ARE INTER-RELATED: tariff success, ending wars in Israel and Ukraine, increasing domestic ENERGY production, reducing over-regulation, bringing manufacturing BACK to the U.S. — ALL OF WHICH WILL LEAD TO A SUPER-CHARGED ECONOMY, and a YUUUUGE MID-TERM WIN FOR GOP, at which time he will have the biggest baddest sledgehammer to beat the enemies from within into submission for his final two years and truly Make America Great Again!
It is all EITHER an UPWARD SPIRAL, or a DOWNWARD SPIRAL.
You choose.
There is NO time right NOW to navel-gaze, pearl-clutch or otherwise dilly-dally before the mid-terms!
Just as with the illegal alien deportations, the ENEMY (from within) knows if they can succeed in demanding a granular approach “Everyone must have ‘Due Process’”, “Take the bill apart and really sell it to Americans as pieces” IT IS ALL D.O.A.!!!
Open your eyes to REALITY.
Well said.
We have met the enemy, and the enemy is us. Pogo. Damn you, Rinos-hold your nose and pass this bill-let the three traitors bloviate-50-50. And VP Vance cements his presidential bonafide's. A win for the country-how quaint.
I really don’t like the idea of huge omnibus bills, period. They should just vote straight up on individual issues: “Here’s a really simple issue. Yeah or nay? Next topic…” In reality a bill can be big or beautiful, but not both, with the way so much crapola gets rammed through.
Yes, I see from the comments to my comment above the “you don’t get it” folks and the “this is a special circumstance” folks disagree with my view. Thats okay. But if I wasn’t so busy I would go back and note how many times this virtually same circumstance has happened before. When isn't the situation a crisis? I get it, but we are always in crisis situations because we don’t do the right thing. This is just the latest. We have allowed the congress, both sides of the aisle, to make it just about politics, forgetting the fact that they are the ones we elected to prevent these crisis situations. So now when good people try to make some commonsense arguments for fiscal sanity, Rand Paul and other dissenters must be banished or primaried. Insanity, until it happens yet again down the road.
I hear you Reddog, I truly do. But here’s my final point…
I do not think we have been in THIS exact circumstance before.
The circumstance we’re in now is having a president who TRULY dies NOT GIVE A **** about anything other than MAKING AMERICA GREAT AGAIN.Yes, yes, his ego, blah, blah, blah. But I’m sure he knows that if he makes America great again his legacy will take care of itself, thus satisfying his ego.
SO, we have a truly UNIQUE president who has no more f’s to give after being: impeached twice over manufactured bs, having a fraudulent election steal the reelection from him, lawfared to death in multiple states on bs charges in an attempt to keep him off the campaign trail IN THE MIDDLE OF THE CAMPAIGN / and tie up his entire working capital with whatever the hell Leticia James wanted him to pay / throw him in jail, attempt to ASSASSINATE HIM TWICE.
SO, there’s NOTHING LEFT they can do to him.
He’s LEARNED in the intervening 4 years who’s good, who’s bad and how to work (around) the system.
All this adds up to if Congress will JUST GIVE HIM THIS WIN, WE FINALLY HAVE A PREZ WHO WILL de-RINO DC.
And their resistance merely undermines Trump succeeding AND will NEVER achieve what the few resisters want either. It’s a lose-lose.
Instead, let’s all be for ‘holding a tough position’ down the road, like after the midterms, when it can possibly or even probably can result in a WIN!
This is not that time.
I agree with you on the “why”. But Im convinced the House and Senate is not committed to reducing the debt. Now you have GOP Senators like Ron Johnson, RINO, speaking out against it. 50% if the GOP members do not want to stop the spending because the spending is what keeps them in office. They don’t pick up the office phone when Reddog calls but they sure as hell pick it up when Mr. Deep Pockets from XYZ defense contractor or healthcare company calls. We no longer are represented by a congress of the people. The big bill is horribly flawed and loaded with spending. Mr Trump knows it and it pisses mr off he wont at least acknowledge it. Im 77 and a life long conservative who has voted GOP but become sick of his party. They are only by degree different from the Socialist Dems. Lets just agree here to disagree but that we both want the same thing but our idea of how to change it is different. Say a prayer, we are going to need it.
Well if the Butler PA event suggests anything it is that forces bigger and badder than us puny humans seem to be on DJTs side, so we can hope that is true. 🙏
We can surely agree on that one. Stay safe and keep voting for commonsense and the country. No more fake Republicans.
No one is upset with the "good people" for "trying to make some commonsense arguments for fiscal sanity". The "good people's" comments are often true and important.
But what we ARE upset about, is that they won't VOTE for a compromise bill. It's their withholding of their VOTE that lets the Democrats win, and wipes out even the opportunity for an incremental improvement, that we can build on with the next incremental improvement, etc.
Well said ladies , thank you . We won't get everything we want / need early on ; but we must move forward !
Reddog, you're making great sense here. Some of us seem to forget that our side is now using some of the cowardly tactics of the left. When they start putting huge bills together of thousands of pages, then giving members a limited time to read it, and then conduct votes in the middle of the night; you know they have something to hide. Sometimes it doesn't seem to matter if the Democrats win or the Republicans win, the citizen/taxpayer almost always loses.
You can't fix everything overnight.
Overnight has been going on since 1996.
The reason for this “Bog Bill” right now is time.
We do not have the luxury of time to debate a myriad of small bills right now.
The default deadline, I believe, is the end of July and only a Bill containing many of the very specific actions included in it, in concert with the tariff effects, will help us avert certain far more deadly consequences.
That is the urgency involved with this Bill.
Listen to Bessent and Vought and Trump: they know it is not perfect, but it is essential. Without this Bill which will set different economic parameters (i.e. the tax cuts, etc.) we will face almost certain ruin as a nation, and far more uncertain and dangerous set of problems if we don’t.
Could not agree more !!
Agree time is of the essence. That is why teetering around with this nonsense is not the answer. This legislation is just like all the others of kicking it down the road. It's the Congress being lazy and doing nothing as they've done for at least 50 years.
The bill is opposite what the masses are being told by fhe cbo,dems and msm all one and the same.
Amen, Suzie.
Gotta admit I was waffling in my support for BBB.
Then, here comes this Surber post and scales fall off my eyes....
Pass the damn bill ..
Democrat = Liar
Republican = Coward
Well, I just hung up the phone from calling both Rand Paul's Washington office and Bowling Green, Kentucky office, to register my opinion/request that he support the BBB. (Didn't get a live person at either location, and there was a less than 1 minute time limit on the voicemail. But my view will in a very small way register in their phone statistics.)
This column hits the nail on the head--nitpicking Trump's bill effectively strengthens the Democrats.
Purists who can't recognize the value of incrementalism when we are digging out of an extremely deep hole are worthless. Am usually a strong supporter of Rand Paul, but he is blowing it on this topic.
There's this tendency that sometimes happen as people age-- they get rigid about their sense of identity and their virtues, and ultimately become "caricatures of themselves". Paul is pushing so hard on his principles that he has blinded himself to being practical.
Therein lies the problem with true believers. Choose this day whom you will serve God or mammon. I don’t necessarily fault Paul, et al, in particular for his beliefs, I do fault him for choosing to play his game on another man’s field. Trump won, Paul did not.
In other words, don't let the perfect be the enemy of the possible?
Some of the Senators and "representatives" that I've liked in the past, (few as they are,) are ruining our chance for any real PROGRESS, albeit not ideal. Reagan said a "good bill shouldn't be killed just because it's not a perfect bill." We're blowing our slim majorities in both houses because a few self-identified "purists" don't understand that simple fact. They might as well call themselves "republicrats: we're against everything." They need to start enjoying their pensions!
They are not purists /they consider themselves as escorts,just not the expensive whores they truly are.
Yep , that is the crux of the problem. We must maneuver so we make inroads to stopping the stupidity of our legislative process . The huge bills bother me to no end but getting to the point to where it is preventable is the short term goal . Even so ceding anything to the Dims is not an option .
That hits the nail on the head for me. How can Trump earn more trust than he has, that we should listen to his ‘sky is falling’ opponents.
As a non-economist (which is a little something I’ve got going for me) I wonder why all the foreign investments in American jobs that Trump has been winning for us thru negotiation aren’t factoring in. He’s growing the economy, the revenue side of the business of AMERICA.