Permanent Tax Cuts, Permanent Stupidity— Trump's And The GOP’s Economic Con-Job, Fiscal Illiteracy

32GOP’s Latest Scam To Please The Billionaire Class While Bankrupting America

Officially, Musk isn’t even the head of DOGE, let alone a member of the Trumpanzee Cabinet. But Trump trotted him out yesterday at his first cabinet meeting— and, unsurprisingly, Musk dominated it. Brett Samuels reported that he was the firsts to speak after Señor T. Referring to himself as “humble tech support,” Musk said that “The overall goal here with the DOGE team is to help address the enormous deficit. We simply cannot sustain as a country $2 trillion deficits… We wish to keep everyone who is doing a job that is essential and doing a job well. But if the job is not essential or they’re not doing the job well, they obviously should not be on the public payroll.”

Without offering any proof, he claimed that “There are fictional individuals collecting paychecks. Are they alive, and can they write an email?” Asking his cabinet secretaries if anyone disagreed with Musk, he warned that if they did, they would be kicked out of the meeting. 

As far as the House passing the Project 2025 slash and burn budget framework, Republican senators are getting a little nervous that it’s about to be dropped into their laps. Even as much of an asslicker as Lindsey Graham, the Budget Chair, said there are problems that have to be fixed, whining that the tax cuts aren’t permanent. Just hours after the nail-biting House passage, Jordain Carney, Katherine Tully-McManus and Benjamin Guggenheim reported that, generally, Senate Republicans are looking for “contentious changes to policy choices embedded in the House plan.” Thune called the House package “a first step in what will be a long process, and certainly not an easy one.” This is before Trump gives them their marching orders.

Some senators want to appear more right-wing than the House bill by insisting on “permanent” tax cuts— whatever that means— while others don’t want to seem as extreme when it comes to ripping away people’s healthcare. “It’s not just the tax extensions that get scrutiny from Senate Republicans,” wrote Carney, Tully-McManus and Guggenheim. “The House framework also includes a provision calling for a minimum of $880 billion in cuts from the committee overseeing some health care programs. Critics argue that it paves the way for deep cuts into Medicaid and other social programs— something some GOP senators strongly oppose. ‘There might be a lot of things’ we change. ‘There are going to be a lot of concerns over the Medicaid cuts,’ said Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO). ‘I realize it’s just a broad instruction to that committee, but I think there will be concerns about that and what that may lead to.’ Hawley said he expected Republicans to support work requirements for Medicaid beneficiaries but reject any cuts that would hit working Americans. Hawley added it was still to be determined how Senate Republicans address those concerns, but he suggested guardrails could be written into the final budget plan guaranteeing that spending cuts would be ‘not to include the following.’”

Others, however, want even deeper cuts to spending. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) said the reductions set out in the House budget are “just not adequate.” He said he wants to bring federal spending levels down to where it was before the 2020 Covid pandemic.

Senate Republicans also aren’t committing to keeping the House’s planned $4 trillion debt ceiling hike. Some Senate conservatives have warned they won’t support a budget resolution that includes a debt-limit hike, though most of the House’s hard-liners ultimately accepted it.

“Acquiescing to a $4 trillion increase in the debt ceiling is for me a non-starter,” said [Rand] Paul, who voted against the Senate GOP budget adopted earlier this month. “It basically acknowledges that this year the government’s going to be $2 trillion short.”

Instead, Senate GOP leaders are still discussing instead tying a debt ceiling increase to the government funding talks now underway— which would require Democrats to help support it. Raising the debt ceiling outside of reconciliation would also allow Congress to temporarily suspend the borrowing limit rather than engaging in the politically risky act of voting on a specific number.

No Congress can actually bind future Congresses from repealing or modifying tax laws. The phrase “permanent” is a political talking point, not a legal reality. Any tax cut passed by one Congress can be undone by another, just as the Bush tax cuts were partially rolled back by Obama, and the Trump tax cuts for individuals are set to expire in 2025 unless Congress extends them.

What Republicans really mean by "permanent tax cuts" is that they want to eliminate the automatic expiration dates that were put in place for budgetary reasons—often to comply with Senate rules that limit how much a tax cut can increase the deficit outside a 10-year window. Even if they succeed in making the cuts indefinite, a future Democratic Congress could repeal them, just as they could repeal any other law. That said, once tax cuts are in place, they create a political challenge. Republicans count on the fact that rolling back a tax cut can be framed as a “tax hike,” making it harder for Democrats— especially corporate Democrats— to act… even when those cuts overwhelmingly benefit the wealthy and explode the deficit.

Of course, all of this Republican handwringing over deficits is nothing more than performative nonsense. If they truly cared about fiscal responsibility, they wouldn’t be demanding these “permanent” tax cuts for billionaires while pretending that slashing Medicaid and other social programs will magically balance the budget. The last time they tried this scam— Trump’s 2017 tax cuts— the deficit exploded by nearly $2 trillion, and the economic benefits they promised never materialized. But here they are again, shilling the same trickle-down voodoo, hoping no one remembers the mess they created.

And let's not pretend Senate Republicans are independent thinkers in this process. They’re all just waiting for Trump to give them their marching orders, terrified of crossing him. Even the ones who recognize how politically toxic these cuts are— especially in states where rural hospitals and Medicaid expansion have kept their constituents alive— won’t say a word unless they get permission from their criminal-in-chief. The so-called "Party of Freedom" is now just a collection of bootlickers too afraid to defy a guy facing 91 felony charges.

If they really want to see how this ends, they should look across the Atlantic. The UK tried this exact strategy under Liz Truss— massive tax cuts for the wealthy, deep public spending cuts, and an ideological war on government itself. It took just six weeks for the economy to collapse, the markets to panic, and Truss to resign in disgrace. But Republicans don’t care about governing; they care about looting. And unless they’re stopped, they’ll drive the U.S. economy into the same ditch— just so they can keep their billionaire donors happy.