Tag: congress
Even 'Fox & Friends' Can No Longer Deny Tax Bill Will Explode Deficit

Even 'Fox & Friends' Can No Longer Deny Tax Bill Will Explode Deficit

Reality crept into Fox News’ coverage of the Republican tax bill on Monday when a Fox & Friends co-host acknowledged that the legislation will increase the budget deficit because the GOP Congress is prioritizing President Donald Trump’s tax cut agenda.

The White House and House Republican leaders seem to have adopted a strategy of flatly lying about the deficit implications of their “Big, Beautiful Bill.” Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought falsely claimed that the bill “doesn’t increase the deficit or hurt the debt” while House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) falsely claimed it is “not going to add to the debt” in June 1 appearances on Sunday morning political talk shows.

But Fox & Friends' Ainsley Earhardt acknowledged the following morning that the bill will cause the deficit to increase due to its tax cuts — though she minimized by how much.

“I don't think anyone wants the deficit to go up,” Earhardt said. “But more importantly, it was the permanent tax cuts, it was no tax on tips, no tax on overtime, no tax on Social Security, that’s more important to the American people than seeing the deficit go up a little bit.”

“No one wants that, but they prefer to have these other things,” she added.

While Earhardt claimed that the bill would cause the deficit to rise only “a little bit,” nonpartisan budget analysts say it would “balloon federal deficits by well over $1 trillion.” The Congressional Budget Office, for example, found that the legislation’s “tax provisions would increase the federal deficit by $3.8 trillion over the decade, while the changes to Medicaid, food stamps and other services would tally $1 trillion in reduced spending,” for an overall increase in the debt of over $3 trillion over 10 years.

The legislation’s proposed spending cuts — while much too small to make the bill deficit-neutral given the mammoth size of the tax cuts — would nonetheless be devastating to millions of Americans. The bill would “reduce federal spending on Medicaid by at least $600 billion over a decade and reduce enrollment by about 10.3 million people,” according to the CBO, and “take food assistance away from millions of low-income families” through the “deepest cut” to food stamps “in history,” the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities found.

And while Earhardt directed attention to Trump’s campaign promises about cutting taxes on tipped income, overtime income, and Social Security, those account for a tiny fraction of the bill’s tax cuts. The bulk of the deficit increase is caused by the bill’s extension of Trump’s 2017 tax cuts, which disproportionately benefit the wealthiest Americans.

The CBO combined the impact of the tax and spending portions of the bill and found that it would reduce resources for the poorest households while increasing them for the richest.

At the same time, the bill is projected to fuel little economic growth and could trigger a bond market meltdown that could raise interest rates for consumers, increase borrowing costs, and threaten the broader economy.

As Earhardt might say, “no one wants that, but they prefer to have” tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans.

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters.

How Six Republicans In Congress Will Profit From Broken Medicaid Promise

How Six Republicans In Congress Will Profit From Broken Medicaid Promise

Just five weeks after pledging that they would not support the Republican Party's budget reconciliation package if it included cuts to Medicaid, six GOP lawmakers ultimately did just that on Thursday morning—and an analysis by government watchdog Accountable. US suggested they voted for the legislation to benefit themselves, despite the suffering it would cause for their constituents.

Along with cutting Medicaid for close to 14 million Americans and slashing nearly $300 billion in food assistance, the bill Republicans voted on in the early morning hours after weeks of deliberation included a tax policy proposal to expand a provision called Section 199A, which was previously introduced during the first Trump administration as part of the GOP's original law providing tax breaks for corporations and the wealthy.

The bill that passed in the House Thursday would raise the percentage of qualifying business income—such as rental income—people can deduct from their taxes from 20% to 23%. The provision is now set to expire at the end of the year.

If it's extended as written in the reconciliation bill, Accountable.US identified six Republican House members who could directly benefit from the expansion of the "pass-through deduction": Reps. Rob Bresnahan of Pennsylvania, Rob Wittman of Virginia, Jen Kiggans of Virginia, Young Kim of California, Juan Ciscomani of Arizona, and Jeff Van Drew of New Jersey.

Those six lawmakers were among the 12 who last month wrote to GOP leaders to say they represent "districts with high rates of constituents who depend on Medicaid" and to "reiterate our strong support for this program that ensures our constituents have reliable healthcare."

"We cannot and will not support a final reconciliation bill that includes any reduction in Medicaid coverage for vulnerable populations," wrote the lawmakers last month. "Cuts to Medicaid also threaten the viability of hospitals, nursing homes, and safety-net providers, nationwide. Many hospitals—particularly in rural and underserved areas—rely heavily on Medicaid funding, with some receiving over half their revenue from the program alone."

"It is the peak of hypocrisy that the loudest and most vocal opponents of Medicaid cuts cowered in a matter of days in favor of a bill that will make the largest cuts to Medicaid in modern history—all to pay for lower taxes for the richest."

With the six Republican members poised to earn thousands more each year from the pass-through income deduction, those concerns appeared to have evaporated on Thursday.

"It is the peak of hypocrisy that the loudest and most vocal opponents of Medicaid cuts cowered in a matter of days in favor of a bill that will make the largest cuts to Medicaid in modern history—all to pay for lower taxes for the richest," said Tony Carrk, executive director of Accountable.US. "Even worse, those very members stand to financially gain from those tax cuts, while their own constituents lose their healthcare. Their votes aren't just a flip-flop; they are a betrayal to hardworking Americans everywhere who will be worse off because of this bill."

Accountable's Cash in Congress project found that for the 2023 tax filing year, the six members of Congress earned a combined $327,000 in pass-through income, according to financial disclosures.

Bresnahan stands to benefit the most from the extension of Section 199A, The American Prospectreported, as he earned at least $137,000 from rental properties. Out of the six lawmakers, he also represents the most Medicaid beneficiaries: 230,000.

Wittman reported $105,000 or more in pass-through rental income, and represents 125,000 people who receive Medicaid. Kiggans reported $50,000 and represents 130,000 people who use the healthcare program for low-income Americans.

All together, reported The American Prospect, the lawmakers represent 971,000 Medicaid beneficiaries who could be affected by a work requirement amendment that would go into effect at the end of 2026 and other provisions.

"Millions of Americans will see their healthcare, food, and education costs skyrocket, all so House Republicans can hand themselves and their wealthiest donors a huge tax break," said Accountable. "The only 'winners' in this bill are the billionaires that paid for it."

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Qatari government

Trump's 'Palace In The Sky' Is A Constitutional Affront -- But Who Will Stop It?

Having brought Congress completely to heel in the political sphere, Donald Trump is now seeking to write them out of the Constitution. Both of his biggest moves of the past week entail the evisceration of a constitutional role the Framers very plainly and expressly wanted Congress to play.

That is the case for the flirtation with suspension of habeas corpus, which only Congress can do. And it’s even more manifest in Trump’s plan to accept a $400 million (or is it $625 million?) jumbo jet “palace in the sky” from the Qatari government.

On the suspension issue, Stephen Miller’s pompous primer on suspension of habeas corpus, coupled with the announcement that “we’re actively looking at [it],” was risible and unsettling in equal measure. The constitutional command he was mangling is directed to Congress, not the Executive—which is why it is in Article I along with other definitions of congressional power.

The recognition that only Congress can suspend is essentially universal, consistently reaffirmed in Court opinions from early in the 19th century, which themselves apply the previously ensconced practice from England. (Lincoln’s wartime suspension during the Civil War is not to the contrary: Congress was out of session; it later ratified the suspension; and many scholars still contend that Lincoln violated the Constitution.)

Moreover, Miller ham-handedly slices off the limiting half of the Clause in the second half—that suspension can occur only when “the public Safety may require it.” Whatever national crisis Trump is attempting to manufacture about the presence of immigrants in the country, the public safety does not require that courts not consider the due process rights of detainees.

Miller’s ensuing suggestion that the decision not to suspend is contingent on “whether the courts do the right thing” is a thuggish non sequitur. Whether courts remain available to entertain writs of habeas corpus cannot turn on the content of their decisions. This is no more than another “heads I win, tails you lose” suggestion from a lawless Administration.

Miller’s Suspension Clause rhetoric is of a piece with his assurance to Trump that the Supreme Court had ruled unanimously for him in its Alien Enemies Act opinion—when the opposite was the case. All nine justices agreed that the Administration has to provide due process to detainees. If the Administration continues to let Miller, a non-lawyer and faintly reptilian figure, announce its legal analyses, it’s going to suffer further embarrassment in the courts when actual lawyers have to disavow Miller’s legal twaddle.

But the Qatari 757 deal is even more blatant. The plane would replace Air Force One during the pendency of Trump’s tenure and then be given to his presidential foundation created after his presidency—presumably for his use.

There is, however, a small constitutional snag.

Article I, Section 9, Clause 8 of the Constitution—the Foreign Emoluments Clause—says that no person holding an office of the United States shall, without the consent of Congress, accept any present “of any kind whatever” from any foreign state.

Trump's first term was a serial violation of the domestic and foreign Emoluments Clauses, as influence seekers of all stripes clamored to support his Washington, D.C., hotel and other businesses. But the business profits he pocketed from people seeking his goodwill in the first term are chump change next to the gaudily lavish, gold-plated (and possibly bugged) Qatari luxury jet.

There is no serious argument that Trump’s acceptance of the plane does not violate the Emoluments Clause. Trump has tried to trot out an argument that it's really a gift to the government and not to him. But if it's partly for his personal enjoyment—and very clearly if it winds up with his foundation and not the government after his tenure—the law is quite clear that it falls within the Clause.

As usual, Trump is his own worst enemy in clarifying just what’s going on. Speaking to reporters on Monday, Trump noted, “I think it’s a great gesture from Qatar. I appreciate it very much. I would never be one to turn down that kind of an offer.”
He also justified the decision by saying he would have to be a “stupid person” not to take the plane, and he analogized the decision to agreeing to a gimme putt in golf. And we further know that Trump toured the jet in February. If Trump is the one to solicit and accept the offer, then it is not a gift to the federal government.

There is apparently an opinion blessing the deal from Attorney General Pam Bondi, who herself garnered six-figure fees from Qatar for lobbying on their behalf starting in 2019. We haven’t seen the analysis yet, but since Bondi sees it as her job to fight for Trump the person—as opposed to the office—you can bet that it’s at most as good an argument as can be made for a client, but a total loser.

The argument that Trump can be expected to rely on in the coming cluster of lawsuits from NGOs and state attorneys general is that the various plaintiffs lack standing. That was the central issue in most of the Emoluments Clause litigation during Trump 1.0. The courts were divided on the question, and eventually the Supreme Court dismissed the various cases as moot because Trump had left office.

In fact, properly understood, the standing issue only reinforces the unconstitutionality of what Trump is doing. It's true that it's hard to conceptualize the injury of the constitutional violation in terms of a pocketbook loss to, say, an individual state attorney general. It requires ingenuity and a court that takes a somewhat elastic view of standing.

That's precisely because the constitutional injury entailed by Trump’s acceptance of the palace in the sky is social, absorbed by all of us. It’s precisely for that reason that the Framers specified that Congress, the representatives of the people, must determine whether a particular gift may be accepted.

After all, not all gifts to officials are objectionable. Most famously, Congress in 1791 passed a resolution allowing Ben Franklin to keep a gold snuff box given to him by Louis XVI. On the other hand, Congress never exercised its authority to approve President Lincoln’s request in the middle of the Civil War to keep an elephant tusk from the King of Siam (along with an elephant, which Lincoln politely declined).

Consider the example of the Statue of Liberty, which Trump defenders are wont to proffer in his defense for keeping the plane—but which actually cuts sharply in the other direction.

The statue was a gift from the French people to the American people, not to a particular official. Moreover, Congress ratified its receipt.

But suppose Trump decided to transfer the Statue of Liberty to the Rose Garden, to gaze on and continually remind him of the grander purpose of his presidency. The injury of its removal from Liberty Island—and make no mistake, it would be an injury—would be to all of us, equally. And it would not really be a pocketbook injury, of the sort that confers standing in the federal courts, but an injury to our shared civic sense.

In the same way, Trump's acceptance in the people’s name of this gaudy showpiece would pose severe problems to the nation, even if no individual could demonstrate a particular monetary loss.

These examples illustrate that the appropriateness of a particular gift is a nuanced, contextual, political question. The Framers were extremely concerned about the prospect that gifts could be used corruptly to buy and sell influence. But they declined to constitutionalize a categorical rule against gifts, instead opting for greater flexibility and political accountability by insisting on an overall political judgment by the body best positioned to deliver it.

That judgment, by the way, is pouring in—and it’s largely negative. Many people on the right and left are expressing grave reservations about Trump’s excitement. Conservative commentator Ben Shapiro wrote that “[t]aking sacks of goodies from people who support Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood, Al Jazeera, all the rest—that's not America First.” No less staunch a Trumpista than Laura Loomer called the Qatari officials “jihadists in suits” and disparaged the idea as “a stain on the administration.”

The chorus of critics now includes a number of elected Republicans. On Tuesday, the Senate Majority Leader, John Thune of South Dakota, said of the jet, “I can assure you there will be plenty of scrutiny of whatever that arrangement might look like.” Republican Senator Ted Cruz, a strong Trump ally, expressed national security concerns. “I also think the plane poses significant espionage and surveillance problems.”

All of this suggests that political pushback may eventually doom Trump’s cherished idea. If so, that's the sort of national judgment that the Constitution contemplates.
It goes without saying—anywhere but in Trump World—that the last person to decide whether a gift should be kept is the putative recipient. That means that, questions of standing aside, Trump’s plain constitutional responsibility is, as with Franklin and Lincoln, to serve up to Congress the question of whether he gets to keep his gold-plated palace in the sky.

And if he fails to do that, the plain reading of the Constitution is that he may not keep the plane. To do so would be to accept a present without the consent of Congress.
It’s not an anomaly but a matter of constitutional design that the charter establishes a limit that falls to the political branches to enforce. This being America in the twenty-first century, there surely will be lawsuits attempting to get at the constitutional problem.

But the fundamental dereliction is by our political leaders: If Congress fails to take up the question of whether Trump can keep the plane, it’s a fundamental disregard of its constitutional duties; likewise, if Trump tries to keep his latest and greatest toy without submitting it to Congress, he is flouting the Constitution, whatever Pam Bondi may say. The question, as always with Trump, is not what’s right or lawful or even decent, but whether anybody can stop him.

Harry Litman is a former United States Attorney and the executive producer and host of theTalking Feds podcast. He has taught law at UCLA, Berkeley, and Georgetown and served as a deputy assistant attorney general in the Clinton Administration. Please consider subscribing toTalking Feds on Substack.

Reprinted with permission from Substack.

Irritated Senators Ask Clueless Director Patel: Where's The FBI Budget?

Irritated Senators Ask Clueless Director Patel: Where's The FBI Budget?

If you thought FBI Director Kash Patel had any competence whatsoever, think again.

Appearing before the Senate Appropriations Committee on Thursday, Patel was unable to provide a timeline for when his department’s budget—which was required by law to be submitted more than a week ago—would finally be delivered to Congress.

Democratic Sens. Patty Murray of Washington and Chris Van Hollen of Maryland noted that the hearing was essentially pointless, since Patel failed to provide critical spending and budget documents.

“How do we, as Congress, do our budget and our work without that request and without the spend plan?” Murray said, calling Patel’s lack of preparedness “insufficient and deeply disturbing.”

Patel’s signature dunderheaded combativeness was on full display during a tense exchange with Democratic Sen. Jeff Merkley of Oregon, who asked whether people deported under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 have the constitutional right to due process under the Fifth Amendment.

“It’s not for me to call the balls and strikes on it,” Patel responded.

“You haven't read the Constitution?” Merkley asked, citing the Supreme Court ruling in Reno v. Flores as part of the settled law on the matter.

“It concerns me that you're not familiar with the core concept of due process applying to all persons as written in black and white in the Constitution,” Merkley added.

After the hearing, Murray called out Patel’s incompetence and the threat it poses to the United States.

“Kash Patel, the conspiracy theorist that Republicans made FBI Director, came to a Senate hearing on the budget—with NO budget, NO timeline, and NO clue. It's downright incompetent, and it's making America less safe. We need serious leadership at the FBI,” she wrote on Bluesky.

No budget? Check! Equivocating statements about the Constitution? Check! Seems like Patel’s competence is perfectly in line with the rest of the Trump administration.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

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