The following is a portion of an edited transcript from a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/mrn-250824-member-exclusive?elementPosition=1&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+Show+Episodes+Carousel">Weekend Edition of Morning Wire</a> where Daily Wire Executive Editor John Bickley sat down with Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for Responsible Federal Budget.
* * *
JOHN: Joining us now is Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for Responsible Federal Budget. Maya, thanks so much for coming on. First, tell us, what exactly is the <a href="https://www.crfb.org/">Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget</a>?
MAYA: Thanks for having me. Other than a mouthful of a name, it&#8217;s a bipartisan nonprofit watchdog group. Basically, we&#8217;re very concerned about fiscal policy, meaning how big our debt and deficits are and we don&#8217;t have a political agenda at all. I&#8217;m a political independent. Our board and our staff are from across the political spectrum. But we are deeply concerned that our political environment now focuses on borrowing when we shouldn&#8217;t be because of the political benefits of not actually dealing with trade-offs. And that concern has been growing over time.
JOHN: I wanted to ask you exactly about that. You&#8217;ve been warning about borrowing. Why is the growing debt so dangerous for the U.S. economy? What specific ways will it actually impact Americans?
MAYA: I think that&#8217;s one of the biggest challenges about this whole issue. It&#8217;s really not something that feels directly related to us as individuals, but it&#8217;s directly related to everything we care about. The fiscal health of the country is really the underpinning of both our economic and our national security strength. So, if your debt is too high — and ours without question is — every warning sign that there is is blinking bright, bright red right now. But if your debt is too high, it actually means that the government borrows so much money, it squeezes out the investment possibility and the private sector. It slows growth and slows productivity, it pushes up inflation, pushes up interest rates, all sorts of things that slow economic growth, which translates into lower wages, lower standard of living, and less job security. Nothing good on the economic front. That&#8217;s one. 
Two, it means that our budget has huge pressure because interest payments start to absorb more and more of our resources. Whether you want huge tax cuts or huge growth in spending, we can fight about those things, but interest payments get the first claim on the dollar in the budget. Right now it&#8217;s our second largest item in the budget and the single fastest growing item. It also means that when we have national emergencies where you should be borrowing, it&#8217;s more difficult to do so. And it means that, if you&#8217;re trying to fight a recession or a pandemic or a national emergency, you may have high pressure on upward interest rates when you&#8217;re trying to borrow. Whereas, if your debt&#8217;s lower, that doesn&#8217;t happen. 
But it&#8217;s also expanded now where it&#8217;s not just an economic issue, it is a national security issue. We are borrowing from countries with whom we are not aligned. We are not able to make our own national security decisions just from a strategic and security perspective, we have to think about budget resources and you don&#8217;t want to be in that position. So it weakens our ability to respond to emergencies, take advantage of opportunities. But bottom line, we can do fewer things and we become poor as a nation.
And finally, for those people who worry about the next generation, it&#8217;s really, really [hosing] a generation that&#8217;s already facing so many challenges. They are facing a much more difficult, fast-paced, changing world and we have tied up their budget with interest payments and promises to seniors. They don&#8217;t have the fiscal flexibility to respond and they owe a whole lot of debt because of the borrowing we took on.
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JOHN: Like you said, it&#8217;s insidious because you don&#8217;t feel a lot of the effects. There are a lot of things that we can&#8217;t do now, things that we could have done if we had more money available. And then, kicking the can down the road. We&#8217;re not feeling it now – but our kids will feel it, and their kids will feel it. Is there any progress on this in Washington? Anyone paying attention to this?
MAYA: Yes, it&#8217;s so discouraging, honestly, because the situation is getting worse. Our debt to GDP is getting worse. Our annual deficits are getting worse, and this is outside of emergencies. And, frankly, our political environment and willingness to talk about this is much, much worse. We&#8217;re so polarized. You have both parties basically fighting with each other by giving away more things. &#8220;I&#8217;ll give you tax cuts, no taxes on this.&#8221; &#8220;Well, I&#8217;ll give you bigger tax cuts, and I&#8217;ll increase the spending.&#8221; &#8220;I&#8217;ll also increase the spending.&#8221; It used to be that you thought of Republicans as wanting tax cuts and Democrats as wanting spending increases. It&#8217;s literally both now. So, they fight for these huge giveaways. 
So, no, the situation is frankly very troubling both from an economic, national security, but also a political perspective. And internally, because it&#8217;s frustrating to work on an issue where you know we&#8217;re not going to have the big debt deal that we really need to have this year, for instance, a lot of times the best we can do and sort of why we&#8217;re able to pat ourselves on the back for some work is when things would have been worse without the kind of fiscal pressure we put on. But it&#8217;s really frustrating to say, &#8220;Well, we borrowed a trillion dollars, but we might have borrowed a trillion and a half if it weren&#8217;t for our pushing against this issue.&#8221; We&#8217;ve got to do better than that. We&#8217;ve got to start actually turning the ship around and bringing the debt as a share of GDP trajectory down instead of continuing to grow it&#8230;
* * *
<h3><a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/debt-deficits-disaster-can-washington-change-course/id1576594336?i=1000723297012">Catch the full interview with Maya MacGuineas on Morning Wire.</a></h3>

National Debt

‘Blinking Bright, Bright Red’: Maya MacGuineas On America’s Debt, Deficits, And Disaster

'Blinking Bright, Bright Red': Maya MacGuineas On America’s Debt, Deficits, And Disaster

Budget

Congress

Federal Government

finance

Morning Wire

Spending Bill

U.S. House of Representatives

U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said he expects a big jump in revenues from sweeping tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump, and said the money would be used first to start paying down the federal debt, not to give rebate checks to Americans.
Bessent, speaking in an interview on CNBC&#8217;s &#8220;Squawk Box,&#8221; said he expected to substantially revise upward his earlier estimate of $300 billion in revenues from the tariffs, but declined to be more specific.
Bessent said he had not spoken with Trump about the idea of using funds from the tariffs to create a dividend for Americans, but stressed that both of them were &#8220;laser-focused&#8221; on paying down the debt.
&#8220;I&#8217;ve been saying that tariff revenue could be $300 billion this year. I&#8217;m going to have to revise that up substantially,&#8221; Bessent said. &#8220;We&#8217;re going to bring down the deficit to GDP. We&#8217;ll start paying down the debt, and then at that point that can be used as an offset to the American people.&#8221;
The U.S. economy could return to the &#8220;good, low-inflationary growth&#8221; of the 1990s, Bessent said, but he blamed higher interest rates for problems plaguing some pockets of the economy, singling out housing and lower-income households with high credit card debt.
<a href="https://get.dailywire.com/subscribe/plus/?utm_campaign=summer&amp;utm_content=editorialsummersale&amp;utm_medium=website&amp;utm_source=editorial" target="_blank" rel="noopener">End of Summer Sale – Get 40% off New DailyWire+ Annual Memberships</a>
A cut in the Federal Reserve&#8217;s key interest rate &#8211; which Trump has continually pressed for &#8211; could help facilitate a boom or pickup in home building, which would help keep prices down in one to two years, he said.
The U.S. Census Bureau on Tuesday reported a small increase in groundbreaking for single-family homes and permits for future construction in July, even as high mortgage rates and economic uncertainty continued to hamper home purchases.
Trump&#8217;s wide-ranging import tariffs have kept the Federal Reserve from lowering interest rates this year, with most central bank policymakers wary of easing borrowing costs until they have more confidence the levies will not rekindle inflation, which has yet to return to the Fed&#8217;s 2% target.
Recent indications of softening in the job market, however, have largely convinced investors that the Fed will cut rates by a quarter of a percentage point when it meets in mid-September. That expectation has helped bring down mortgage rates in recent weeks.
Bessent has previously said a 50-basis-point cut in rates was warranted.
(Reporting by Andrea ShalalEditing by Mark Potter and Leslie Adler)

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent

Bessent Says U.S. Tariff Revenues To Rise ‘Substantially,’ Focus On Reducing Debt

Economy

Scott Bessent

Tariffs

Trump Administration

U.S.

We are not solving our deficit problem.
You can see what&#8217;s going to happen to the United States down the line, because no one takes this problem seriously. Most Republicans don&#8217;t. Most Democrats don&#8217;t. The American people certainly do not. 
All you have to do is take a look across the ocean at Great Britain. On Wednesday, there was a shocking and fraught moment that happened there. The Wall Street Journal <a href="https://www.wsj.com/world/uk/britains-chancellor-in-tears-as-investors-turn-on-government-22aee17f?gaa_at=eafs&amp;gaa_n=ASWzDAjZpkxEZH_qTxXcl-zvbi7np_J3qYRtV5gD99cAFFKx9W04z7JDoMWZ-xkzK3w%3D&amp;gaa_ts=6866caec&amp;gaa_sig=0k3E5u5VSkXj7mYSs0Q3EQLJqtEknleCqra4ptlRa79N59RLrBTHOVLmsAPH4A3zsL6rpF65FSo9B8cDPH9nDA%3D%3D">reported</a>:
<blockquote>Investors sold off British government bonds and the pound fell sharply on Wednesday after the Labour government abandoned plans to cut ballooning welfare costs and the country’s Chancellor of the Exchequer was seen crying in parliament. The selloff came hours after the government of Prime Minister <a href="https://www.wsj.com/topics/person/keir-starmer">Keir Starmer</a> shelved a plan to cut disability payments following a rebellion by Labour’s own lawmakers. 
The U-turn raised the prospect of the government hiking taxes or issuing more debt to fund its welfare system. It also casts doubt over the future of Rachel Reeves, the U.K. chancellor, who took the job just over a year ago promising a return to economic stability in Britain by<a href="https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/stock-market-today-dow-sp500-nasdaq-live-01-23-2025/card/u-k-will-stick-to-fiscal-rules-reeves-tells-wsj-lyApDGigeve1oDWxyzwP?mod=article_inline"> sticking to strict spending rules. </a> The pound sank in value, losing more than 1% to trade at $1.36. U.K. government bonds, too, tumbled in price, sending the yield on 10-year gilts up 0.12 percentage point to 4.581%. That far outpaced the more muted gains for yields in the U.S. and in other major markets. 
“Markets have latched onto the idea that Reeves’s departure might be much more imminent,” said Mark Dowding, chief investment officer for fixed income at RBC BlueBay Asset Management. “That is unsettling investors in terms of what that means of the Labour government’s commitment to the fiscal framework.” </blockquote>
Of course, the Labour Party didn&#8217;t have any commitment to the fiscal framework; they are a far-Left party. They were never going to be fiscally responsible.  
This is demonstrative of a crisis that is eventually going to face every Western government, including the government of the United States. “The government’s climbdown points to a broader truth for governments across Western Europe, where weak economic growth means countries are struggling to raise enough revenue to pay for rising costs from an aging population, the Journal stated “With voters largely wary of spending cuts, that leaves higher taxes, which could hurt growth further, as the most likely outcome.”
“Britain is already on course to register the <a href="https://www.wsj.com/world/uk/britains-labour-party-bets-on-big-taxes-borrowing-to-boost-economy-5d3eba82?mod=article_inline">highest tax burden</a> since World War II thanks to big spending during the pandemic and paying out for energy subsidies after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Meanwhile its growth prospects remain meager,” the Journal noted.
If you look into the future for the United States, this sort of thing could happen here, too. The United States is demographically growing only because of immigration.
<h3><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/bss-ep-2231?elementPosition=5&amp;row=2&amp;rowHeadline=Latest+Episodes&amp;rowType=Horizontal+Show+Episodes+Carousel">WATCH: The Ben Shapiro Show</a></h3>
The reality is that the fertility rate in the United States is actually below replacement levels, at 1.66 births per woman. The United States is not replacing its own population. The only way we are able to do that is through large-scale immigration, which we have stopped, which means we have a shrinking tax base, an aging population, just like Western Europe, slower but similar.
We also have the possibility of serious economic stagnation, absent a massive breakthrough in AI that suddenly translates into higher productivity.
If all of that materializes and we don&#8217;t cut any of the massive welfare state that we have built, we are going to end up inflating our way out of this. That&#8217;s the reality. As I&#8217;ve said myriad times, there are only three solutions to massive debt: inflation, massive tax increases, or austerity. Our population is so used to its benefits that they do not want austerity.
But eventually, the West is going to have to grow up and recognize that the welfare state has costs attendant upon it. And those costs are going to have to be paid for by someone; they can&#8217;t be kicked down the road indefinitely. You can&#8217;t just magically manufacture money and hope the economy is going to continue to sail forward.
So, what does the United States need? It needs massive economic growth, and eventually it&#8217;s going to need some real cuts to the size and scope of government.
The kind of cuts in the Big, Beautiful Bill are not going to do it. They need to be a lot larger than that.
I know that&#8217;s an unpopular view. It also happens to be an economically sane view that very few people in politics are willing to take because most people don&#8217;t want to hear it.
But we must be willing to listen to reality, even if it’s painful, for one reason, and one reason alone: In the end, reality always wins.

NATO Leaders Attend 2025 Summit In The Hague

Reality And The Fiscal Wake-Up Call From Britain

England

Entitlement Reform

Europe

Great Britain

Keir Starmer

London

Opinion

Parliament

Welfare

Elon Musk and President Trump are at it again.
A rift has emerged in the Republican caucus between some of the tech bros and populist economists in the Trump coalition.
The Senate passed the “Big, Beautiful Bill,” but you have the economic populists who&#8217;d like lower taxes and big spending, and then you have the tech guys, and what they&#8217;re mostly concerned about is deregulation; they would like some subsidies aimed at things like AI and green energy.
Thus, we are seeing that all break out into the open with regard to Elon Musk.
“Critics say that President Trump&#8217;s mega bill amounts to an abject surrender in the battle for the future of energy,” <a href="https://www.axios.com/2025/07/01/trump-clean-energy-tax-credits-renewables">Axios reported</a>. “The consequences for U.S. jobs, electricity prices and the arms race could reverberate for decades.”
Musk <a href="https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1939390933205991585">tweeted</a>, “A massive strategic error is being made right now to damage solar/battery. That will leave America extremely vulnerable in the future.”
Jason Bordoff, who leads the Columbia University energy think tank, said the bill could <a href="https://www.axios.com/2025/07/01/trump-clean-energy-tax-credits-renewables">hinder the United States</a> in the AI race with China. He said, “Winning that race is going to require we increase electricity generation capacity in the US really fast by a lot. That soaring demand is creating tailwinds for natural gas and nuclear. But even those great sources cannot ramp up fast enough to meet the urgent near-term needs of data centers and AI infrastructure.&#8221;
He&#8217;s saying you need to throw everything at energy, including so-called renewable energy.
So this is a major battle that&#8217;s broken out again inside the tech-centric part of the Republican Party.
<h3><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/bss-ep-2230-member-exclusive?elementPosition=0&amp;row=0&amp;rowHeadline=The+Ben+Shapiro+Show&amp;rowType=Horizontal+Show+Carousel">WATCH: The Ben Shapiro Show</a></h3>
Beyond that, there was supposed to be an amendment to the &#8220;Big, Beautiful Bill&#8221; in the Senate that was going to protect the development of AI in the United States by creating a federal moratorium to bar state-level experimentation with regulation on AI. Florida couldn&#8217;t have its own AI rules; California its own AI rules.
The idea was that there would be a federal ban on state-level legislation. The federal government could still legislate and regulate with regard to AI, but you don&#8217;t want AI companies having to navigate the thickets of 50 different state regulatory structures in order to develop, because we are in a national competition with China on the development of AI.
But the Senate voted 99-1 to strip a provision that would have blocked states from regulating artificial intelligence for the next ten years.
This is definitely going to hold up the development of AI on a national level.
All of this led to the massive clash now occurring between President Trump and Elon Musk. What exactly happened?
Musk decided that he was going to go to war with the bill again. He threatened to primary senators and congresspeople who voted for the bill. He also vowed to help Thomas Massie — the Republican congressperson who truly gets on President Trump&#8217;s nerves by voting against everything Trump wants — saying he&#8217;s going to help him in a primary.
President Trump then hit back with a long social media post of his own, seeking to frame Musk&#8217;s opposition as a bid to cling to his electric vehicle subsidies. <a href="https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/114776149269773065">He wrote</a>:
<blockquote>Elon Musk knew, long before he so strongly Endorsed me for President, that I was strongly against the EV Mandate. It is ridiculous, and was always a major part of my campaign. Electric cars are fine, but not everyone should be forced to own one. Elon may get more subsidy than any human being in history, by far, and without subsidies, Elon would probably have to close up shop and head back home to South Africa. No more Rocket launches, Satellites, or Electric Car Production, and our Country would save a FORTUNE. Perhaps we should have DOGE take a good, hard, look at this? BIG MONEY TO BE SAVED!!!</blockquote>
He went right at Elon&#8217;s jugular, basically saying, “Listen, you started DOGE. Why don&#8217;t we examine the cost structure on the Tesla EVs? Why don&#8217;t we examine the cost structure on SpaceX and all the rest?”
This followed Musk pledging he would form a new party he calls the America Party. He wrote, “Nearly the entire House and Senate GOP will lose their primary next year if it&#8217;s the last thing I do on this earth.” He went out of his way to call out House Republicans who call themselves budget hawks, such as Andy Harris of Maryland, and Chip Roy of Texas, as well as Senator Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma.
Trump is saying, “Listen, buddy, you know, we are friends. We&#8217;re on the same side of this. But if you keep going after this bill and you&#8217;re doing so because you want a subsidy, we could just remove all of those subsidies.”
Musk <a href="https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1940025317701148864">responded</a> on X/Twitter, “So tempting to escalate this. So, so tempting. But I will refrain for now.” 
 
There are a few different factors clashing here, as I’ve said before. On an ideologically and politically pure level, Elon complaining about the “Big Beautiful Bill” is not wrong. It spends far too much money.
But that&#8217;s true for virtually every bill passed at the federal level. That&#8217;s just the reality.
I wish the American people approved of Elon&#8217;s spending plans. I do. I wish we were restructuring our entitlements in a serious way. I wish we weren&#8217;t going to sleepwalk our way like Thelma and Louise right over the cliff, that fiscal cliff that is going to come sometime in the next few years.
I wish we did all these things, but the American public simply is not prepared to do any of those things. And that&#8217;s where you enter the realm of the pragmatic, where President Trump lives.
Is this fight really about EV subsidies? Is this fight truly about political purism, or is it something more personal?
As I&#8217;ve suggested before, the fact that the Trump administration decided they were going to get rid of Elon&#8217;s hand-picked head for NASA — which Sergio Gore was apparently behind — is what ticked Elon off. He hasn&#8217;t let go of it. He&#8217;s still going after the bill. Because of that incident, as well as Elon&#8217;s idealistic view of how politics should work, it should not be a shock that Elon is now attempting to wield his power in a kind of blunderbuss fashion.
It&#8217;s also not a shock that President Trump is slapping back, essentially saying, “Listen, I&#8217;m the president of the United States. Thank you for your help. But I&#8217;m the president. I&#8217;m the one who has to do all this stuff. I&#8217;m the one who has to cut the deals, and I&#8217;m the one who has to live with it if we don’t make the tax cuts permanent.”
This bill indeed has a lot of pork, but so does every single government funding bill of my lifetime. There has yet to be a major government bill that is not a big-spending government bill because the American people lie to themselves all the time. We say we want lower spending, but when asked what we would cut, we start scratching our heads and looking around.
That is the problem if you wish to build a cohesive movement for serious cuts to the government.
That was never the MAGA movement. It wasn&#8217;t. I’ve been speaking publicly about not loving that about MAGA since 2016. President Trump was the one candidate declaring back in 2015 and 2016 that he was not going to touch entitlements. Although I am indeed a big fan of Trump, I’ve criticized him for that position for a decade, because I would love to touch the entitlements.
I think entitlements are a disaster area. They are bankrupting the country. They&#8217;re wildly ineffective as they currently stand. I think there are fixes that could be made to them. I think many of them can be delegated back to the state or local level. And I don&#8217;t think it&#8217;s the proper function of the federal government to be involved in three-quarters of this stuff.
But my opinion is not the MAGA opinion. If you&#8217;re going to be politically pragmatic about this, you have to recognize that what this bill effectively is about, more than anything else, is making sure the tax cuts don&#8217;t go away, making sure defense is paid for, and making sure immigration is paid for, among other things.
Is Elon going to force Trump to fight again? I want to know what the endgame is. What is it that Elon is really looking for here?
If he wants to build a popular movement outside the government in favor of slashing and burning large swaths of the federal government, sign me up today. But if we are talking about the idea that someone like Chip Roy is unsuitable for big government, or if we&#8217;re saying the choices here are letting the tax cuts expire and taxes radically increase, and you still don&#8217;t get lower spending, I think most Americans will choose the bill.
That doesn&#8217;t mean that the bill polls particularly well, because the bill&#8217;s been criticized every which way.
But I guarantee you: If Republicans don&#8217;t get this done and the taxes do increase, that&#8217;s going to be even more unpopular.

President Trump Attends NCAA Division I Wrestling Championship In Philadelphia

Elon Musk, Trump, And The Future Of The GOP

Ben Shapiro

Debt Ceiling

Elon Musk

President Trump

The most radical thing Washington can do right now is stop spending. President Trump’s proposed $9.4 billion rescissions package won’t accomplish that on its own, but it at least, finally, moves us in the right direction.
For decades, members of both parties have treated spending growth as a measure of success. The assumption has been that government must grow, and that any program, once funded, must be permanent. That mindset has left us with a bloated federal bureaucracy that has replaced free-market policy and individual freedom with centralized control and pushed the country to <a href="https://www.usdebtclock.org/">nearly $37 trillion in debt</a>.
Still, most sitting lawmakers have never voted to cut a single dollar of federal spending. This package gives them that chance. More than that, it gives them an opening to start restoring the habits of a functioning legislature.
It’s also the first time the Department of Government Efficiency has had its work put into legislative form. Elon Musk built and led DOGE under the simple premise to stop wasting taxpayer money. Musk has since returned to the private sector, but he and the president have made clear that the mission remains. The rescissions package, which would codify spending cuts proposed by DOGE, reflects that mission. It targets corrupt USAID programs, taxpayer subsidies for ideologically biased public broadcasters NPR and PBS, and other programs that fail even a basic test of necessity in a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/live/2025/05/02/us/trump-budget-2026">$1.7 trillion discretionary budget</a>.
Fiscal conservatives, especially those complaining this package doesn’t go far enough, should not let the perfect be the enemy of the essential. Fiscal discipline, like any discipline, requires a starting point. You don’t run a marathon by starting with 20 miles, you start with one. This bill is that first mile.
Congress should treat it as such: start small, bank the win, and keep cutting wherever the rules allow. That means more rescissions, which require only a simple majority to pass. It also means using the appropriations process and, when necessary, continuing resolutions, to keep pushing the issue. Not every tool requires a supermajority, but even the ones that do are worth using to force the debate. Progress in this fight can come steadily if congressional Republicans stay united and focused.
It also means that if passed, this package should be the first of a longer series of cuts. Each one can go further, targeting programs that stray from constitutional purpose or national interest. Repetition in this case can build momentum and credibility.
It can also build legislative muscle memory. Too many lawmakers now assume the only way forward is through bipartisan overspending. A successful rescission would challenge that assumption. It would remind Congress that not every federal dollar is sacred and that cutting even a fraction of the budget is still possible with political will.
Moreover, follow-through matters just as much as passage. House and Senate Republicans must ensure these cuts aren’t restored elsewhere. Cuts that DOGE has made or proposed shouldn’t be backfilled through continuing resolutions or omnibus bills, especially those that are widely popular across America. What gets cut should stay cut. The goal is a permanent shift in direction.
DOGE’s broader purpose has always been to realign government toward greater efficiency and accountability. That vision reflects a basic expectation of public service – that government should function effectively, that leaders should make responsible decisions rather than defer them, and that taxpayers should have confidence their money is being used with care, not lost to inefficiency or corruption.
Congressional Republicans should also keep in mind that a win here sets the tone for the 2026 midterm elections. It signals that the Trump administration’s second-term agenda, as well as the party’s broader movement, is not just about executive action but real, legislative reform. Therefore, they should view these cuts not as the finish line, but as the starting point.
The stakes are about whether the federal government serves the American people or the other way around; whether Congress retains the capacity to exercise restraint, or whether inertia has become the default; and whether a new generation of lawmakers can relearn the forgotten skill of saying no.
This rescissions bill offers the chance to begin answering those questions. Conservatives should take it, and then keep going.
* * *
Paul Teller is the Executive Vice President of Advancing American Freedom.
John Shelton is a policy director for Advancing American Freedom. 
The views expressed in this piece are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

House Republicans

Why The First Spending Cut Is Worth Making

DOGE

Republicans

Taxes

USAID

President Donald Trump singled out Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) for criticism on Tuesday in a dispute over the &#8220;One Big, Beautiful Bill.&#8221;
The scolding took place on Truth Social shortly after Paul made an appearance on TV in which the senator said he would not support the legislation in its current form because it aims to raise the debt ceiling by several trillion dollars.
&#8220;Rand Paul has very little understanding of the BBB, especially the tremendous GROWTH that is coming. He loves voting &#8216;NO&#8217; on everything, he thinks it’s good politics, but it’s not. The BBB is a big WINNER!!!&#8221; Trump <a href="https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/114619628833129608" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a> in one post.
Trump <a href="https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/114619648032728687" target="_blank" rel="noopener">declared</a> in another post, &#8220;Rand votes NO on everything, but never has any practical or constructive ideas. His ideas are actually crazy (losers!). The people of Kentucky can’t stand him. This is a BIG GROWTH BILL!&#8221;
On CNBC&#8217;s &#8220;Squawk Box,&#8221; Paul <a href="https://x.com/RandPaul/status/1929908175748088234" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a> the &#8220;main thing&#8221; he objects to in the massive bill, which contains many provisions in line with Trump&#8217;s second-term agenda, is how it would raise the debt ceiling by another $4-5 trillion. As it stands, the national debt is approaching $37 trillion.
&#8220;That&#8217;s an indication that we&#8217;ll borrow that much. It&#8217;s an indication that we&#8217;ll put the debt on the back burner,&#8221; said Paul, who added that he did not join &#8220;most of the Republicans&#8221; who voted to &#8220;continue the Biden spending levels&#8221; with the six-month continuing resolution Congress passed in March.
Paul said he believes there are three or four Republicans in the Senate who might oppose the bill as it stands. That amount could be enough to stall the legislation&#8217;s progress, given the GOP has only a 53-45 <a href="https://www.senate.gov/history/partydiv.htm" target="_blank" rel="noopener">majority</a>.
&#8220;If there are four of us who want it to be more fiscally conservative, I think we can really reduce the spending levels and perhaps separate out the debt ceiling as well,&#8221; Paul said.
The senator also noted that he is &#8220;pretty much open to compromise on everything else in the bill,&#8221; specifically expressing support for how it seeks to retain the 2017 tax cuts.
Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) also defended the legislation from Paul&#8217;s <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/rand-paul-warns-big-beautiful-bill-explode-debt" target="_blank" rel="noopener">critique</a> on the debt ceiling in a recent &#8220;Fox News Sunday&#8221; interview. He alluded to how the reconciliation process Republicans are using allows Congress to bypass the Senate&#8217;s 60-vote filibuster threshold.
&#8220;We have to do it,&#8221; Johnson <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/speaker-johnson-rebuts-rand-pauls-debt-warning-big-beautiful-bill" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a>. &#8220;We&#8217;re not going to get any Democrats to assist on that. So, to get it through the Senate and make sure we don&#8217;t crash the U.S. economy and default on our debts for the first time in history, it has to be part of the reconciliation package.&#8221;

Senator Rand Paul

Trump Puts Rand Paul On Blast Over ‘Big, Beautiful Bill’

Donald Trump

Executive

Mike Johnson

Politics

Rand Paul

Tax Cuts

U.S. Senate

President Donald Trump&#8217;s budget chief delivered on Sunday a counterargument to Elon Musk&#8217;s <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/elon-disappointed-by-one-big-beautiful-bill" target="_blank" rel="noopener">warning</a> that the House-passed version of the &#8220;One Big, Beautiful Bill&#8221; would further expand the federal deficit.
On CNN&#8217;s &#8220;State of the Union,&#8221; anchor Dana Bash showed Russ Vought, the director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), a clip of Musk telling &#8220;CBS Sunday Morning&#8221; in a recent <a href="https://x.com/CBSSunday/status/1927535075144421527" target="_blank" rel="noopener">interview</a> of his concern that the legislation will inflate the federal deficit that has already blown past $1 trillion in recent years. Musk also referred to the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) initiative that he oversaw for the past few months.
&#8220;I was like — disappointed to see the massive spending bill, frankly, which increases the budget deficit, not just decrease it. And it undermines the work that the DOGE team is doing,&#8221; Musk said.
&#8220;I love Elon,&#8221; Vought responded. &#8220;This bill doesn&#8217;t increase the deficit or hurt the debt. In fact, it lowers it by $1.4 trillion. What some of the watchdogs have done is, they have used CBO&#8217;s artificial baseline, which doesn&#8217;t allow and assume that current tax law will be extended because of sunsets that are in the law.&#8221;
Vought added later, &#8220;When you assume the extension of the president&#8217;s tax relief from 2017, this budget or this bill, and it&#8217;s really a reconciliation bill — it&#8217;s not really a budget bill. It is using a budget process. This is a $1.4 trillion over 10 years deficit reduction. It&#8217;s $1.6 trillion in mandatory savings. Obviously, we have a little bit of spending in there as well for border and defense. But that is the biggest mandatory savings package that we have seen since 1997. It&#8217;s very historic.&#8221;
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The &#8220;One Big, Beautiful Bill,&#8221; which is moving through Congress through the reconciliation process that will allow the Senate to bypass the filibuster threshold, aims to advance Trump’s priorities on border security, energy, and national defense. It also seeks to retain tax cuts from 2017 that are set to expire at the end of this year, raise the debt limit by trillions of dollars, and much more.
Trump has <a href="https://x.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1925548216243703820" target="_blank" rel="noopener">called</a> the bill &#8220;arguably the most significant piece of Legislation that will ever be signed in the History&#8221; of the United States, but has given his <a href="https://www.dailysignal.com/2025/05/26/make-changes-they-want-trump-gives-senate-go-ahead-take-red-pen-big-beautiful-bill/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">blessing</a> to GOP senators, some of whom have also raised <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/speaker-johnson-rebuts-rand-pauls-debt-warning-big-beautiful-bill" target="_blank" rel="noopener">objections</a> to the bill in its current form, to &#8220;make the changes they want.&#8221;
Musk, who just ended his stint as a special government employee, also said in the CBS interview that when the bill came along, he thought &#8220;everything&#8221; accomplished by DOGE would get &#8220;wiped out&#8221; in the first year. He also said, &#8220;I think a bill can be big or it can be beautiful, but I don’t know if it can be both. My personal opinion.&#8221;
Last week, Vought <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/trump-budget-director-confirms-first-targets-for-clawing-back-spending" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a> the White House planned to send its first rescissions package of the year to Congress on Monday or Tuesday, aiming to claw back spending for U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and NPR — programs that Republicans view as being wasteful and partisan. Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) has listed rescissions as being one of two actions the House will take based on findings from DOGE, in addition to using the appropriations process to “swiftly implement” Trump’s proposed 2026 budget.
<iframe loading="lazy" title="Meet the man behind President Trump&#039;s scorched-earth agenda" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/WfFfQJp23kA?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>

White House OMB Director Russ Vought

Trump’s Budget Chief Responds To Elon’s ‘Big, Beautiful Bill’ Critique

Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)

Office of Management and Budget (OMB)

Russ Vought

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) is defending the House-<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/house-passes-one-big-beautiful-bill-in-massive-win-for-trump" target="_blank" rel="noopener">passed</a> version of President Donald Trump’s “One Big, Beautiful Bill” from <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/rand-paul-warns-big-beautiful-bill-explode-debt" target="_blank" rel="noopener">criticism</a> that it would dangerously inflate the national debt from Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY).
Speaking on &#8220;Fox News Sunday&#8221; with anchor Shannon Bream, moments after Paul’s interview on the same program, Johnson diplomatically rebutted the senator’s claims that the bill features “wimpy and anemic” spending cuts and poses a national security threat by “exploding” the national debt.
&#8220;I agree wholeheartedly with what my dear friend, Rand Paul, said. I love his conviction and I share it. The national debt is &#8230; the greatest threat to our national security and deficits are a serious problem,&#8221; the speaker said. &#8220;What I think Rand is missing on this one is the fact that we are quite serious about this. This is the biggest spending cut, Shannon, in more than 30 years, we&#8217;re going to cut over $1.5 trillion in spending, and it&#8217;s a big leap forward.&#8221;
He continued: &#8220;The last time we had a spending cut was three decades ago, and it was only 800 billion, even adjusted for inflation. This is the biggest spending cut, I think, in the history of government on planet earth. Now, is it enough? Of course not. But we have a very delicate balance and we have to start the process. I liken this to an aircraft carrier. You don&#8217;t turn an aircraft carrier on a dime. It takes a mile of open ocean. And so, it took us decades to get into this situation. This is a big step to begin to turn that aircraft carrier.&#8221;
The speaker also took a moment to address &#8220;one important point&#8221; made by Paul.
&#8220;It sounds like his biggest objection is the fact that we are extending the debt ceiling,&#8221; Johnson said. &#8220;That&#8217;s a critically important thing to do. We have to do it. We&#8217;re not going to get any Democrats to assist on that. So, to get it through the Senate and make sure we don&#8217;t crash the U.S. economy and default on our debts for the first time in history, it has to be part of the reconciliation package. And that&#8217;s why the president, Trump, and all the other Republicans in Congress, House and Senate, understand the necessity of this.&#8221;
He added: &#8220;Real quick, important point here. It does not mean that we&#8217;re going to spend more money. We&#8217;re extending the debt ceiling to show to creditors, the bond markets, the stock market, that the Congress is serious about this. President Trump is dialed in 100%. He is a visionary leader. He does not want to spend more money. And he has the same concern about the national debt that Rand Paul and I do. That&#8217;s why we&#8217;re not going to be spending to that level. We&#8217;re just sending a message to our creditors around the world that we&#8217;re serious about all of this.&#8221;
<iframe loading="lazy" title="Speaker Johnson live with Shannon Bream on Fox News Sunday" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/sr9NXt9-CZE?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Paul, who lamented that the U.S. deficit remains about $2.2 trillion, said he would consider backing the legislation if its proposed $4-5 trillion debt ceiling increase is removed.
&#8220;There&#8217;s got to be someone left in Washington who thinks debt is wrong and deficits are wrong and wants to go in the other direction,&#8221; he said. &#8220;The idea that we&#8217;re going to explode deficits and the projections are now looking at over $3 trillion in deficits over the next 10 years. I think it&#8217;s just &#8230; not a serious proposal.&#8221;

Speaker Mike Johnson

Mike Johnson Rebuts Rand Paul’s Debt Warning On ‘Big, Beautiful Bill’

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) criticized the version of President Donald Trump&#8217;s &#8220;One Big, Beautiful Bill&#8221; <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/house-passes-one-big-beautiful-bill-in-massive-win-for-trump" target="_blank" rel="noopener">passed</a> by the House last week, warning that it would significantly increase the national debt.
In a Sunday interview with anchor Shannon Bream on &#8220;Fox News Sunday,&#8221; Paul expressed support for the bill&#8217;s tax cuts but described its spending cuts as &#8220;wimpy and anemic.&#8221; Even so, Paul said he could support the bill — if not for concerns about it adding to the nearly $37 trillion national debt.
&#8220;The problem is the math doesn&#8217;t add up,&#8221; Paul said. &#8220;They&#8217;re going to explode the debt by — the House says $4 trillion, the Senate&#8217;s actually been talking about exploding the debt $5 trillion.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-media-max-width="560">
Great joining <a href="https://twitter.com/ShannonBream?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@ShannonBream</a> on <a href="https://twitter.com/FoxNewsSunday?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@FoxNewsSunday</a> to talk about why I oppose the Big Beautiful Bill. <a href="https://t.co/ylvf4TKXrz">pic.twitter.com/ylvf4TKXrz</a>
— Senator Rand Paul (@SenRandPaul) <a href="https://twitter.com/SenRandPaul/status/1926639668960883102?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 25, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Proponents <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/trump-budget-chief-responds-fiscal-hawk-heartburn-over-big-beautiful-bill" target="_blank" rel="noopener">tout</a> how the bill aims to make reforms to rein in spending programs, such as kicking illegal immigrants off Medicaid, and foster economic growth. Yet that may not be enough. Like the House, the Senate has a slim GOP majority, and it&#8217;s not guaranteed the bill will prevail in its current form.
Paul, who lamented that the U.S. deficit remains about $2.2 trillion, said he would consider backing the legislation if its proposed $4-5 trillion debt ceiling increase is removed.
&#8220;There&#8217;s got to be someone left in Washington who thinks debt is wrong and deficits are wrong and wants to go in the other direction,&#8221; he said. &#8220;The idea that we&#8217;re going to explode deficits and the projections are now looking at over $3 trillion in deficits over the next 10 years. I think it&#8217;s just &#8230; not a serious proposal.&#8221;
Confronted with the prospect of a coming U.S. default, Paul said he proposed an amendment that would raise the debt ceiling every three months to leverage spending cuts. However, Republicans are adopting the &#8220;same playbook&#8221; as the Democrats and keep avoiding the issue, he said.
Paul cautioned that borrowing to fund &#8220;free stuff&#8221; such as healthcare drives a $3 trillion deficit, triggering inflation that harms beneficiaries, and he bemoaned a failure to advance DOGE-proposed spending cuts or rescission packages.
The national debt, with $7 trillion in spending against $5 trillion in revenue, is the &#8220;greatest threat&#8221; to U.S. national security, Paul said.
&#8220;Conservatives do need to stand up and have their voice heard,&#8221; he declared. &#8220;This is a problem we&#8217;ve been facing for decades now, and if we don&#8217;t stand up on it, I really fear the direction the country is going.&#8221;

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY)

Rand Paul Warns ‘Big, Beautiful Bill’ Will ‘Explode The Debt’

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent argued on Friday that the country&#8217;s massive debt can be controlled by growing the U.S. economy.
Bessent addressed concerns over President Donald Trump&#8217;s &#8220;Big, Beautiful Bill&#8221; adding to the national deficit during a segment with Fox News host Bill Hemmer. A Congressional Budget Office <a href="https://www.cbo.gov/system/files/2025-05/61422-Reconciliation-Distributional-Analysis.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">report</a> released earlier this week said the Republican bill passed by the House on early Thursday morning will add $3.8 trillion to the deficit over the next decade. The national debt is <a href="https://www.usdebtclock.org/index.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">rapidly approaching</a> $37 trillion as the federal deficit currently sits at over $2 trillion.
&#8220;We think that we can both grow the economy and control the debt,&#8221; Bessent said. &#8220;And what&#8217;s important, Bill, is that the economy grows faster than the debt.&#8221;
He added that Americans should focus on the debt-to-GDP ratio &#8220;because we can grow our way out of this.&#8221; In December, U.S. debt accounted for <a href="https://www.ceicdata.com/en/indicator/united-states/government-debt--of-nominal-gdp#:~:text=United%20States%20Government%20Debt:%20%25%20of%20GDP,-1969%20%2D%202024%20%7C%20Quarterly&amp;text=United%20States%20Government%20debt%20accounted,Mar%201969%20to%20Dec%202024." target="_blank" rel="noopener">124%</a> of the nation&#8217;s nominal GDP, which was down from the all-time high of 130.4% in March of 2021.
&#8220;If we change the growth trajectory of the country, of the economy, then we will stabilize our finances and grow our way out of this,&#8221; Bessent continued.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
.<a href="https://twitter.com/SecScottBessent?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@SecScottBessent</a>: &quot;What&#39;s important is that the economy grows faster than the debt&#8230; If we change the growth trajectory of the country, of the economy, then we will stabilize our finances and grow our way out of this.&quot; <a href="https://t.co/aplXNS5mLP">pic.twitter.com/aplXNS5mLP</a>
&mdash; Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) <a href="https://twitter.com/RapidResponse47/status/1925907334640865476?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 23, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
The approach touted by Bessent focuses on reducing taxes, a major part of Trump&#8217;s &#8220;Big, Beautiful Bill.&#8221; The idea is that lower taxes and deregulation will create a thriving economy and boost manufacturing, sales, and consumer spending, which will in turn increase tax revenue without raising taxes.
Last year, however, the Congressional Budget Office <a href="https://www.cbo.gov/publication/59711" target="_blank" rel="noopener">projected</a> that the deficit would continue to outpace economic growth over the next 30 years.
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&#8220;The deficit increases significantly in relation to gross domestic product (GDP) over the next 30 years, reaching 8.5 percent of GDP in 2054,&#8221; the office stated. &#8220;That growth results from rising interest costs and large and sustained primary deficits, which exclude net outlays for interest.&#8221;
During the 2024 campaign, Bessent said that his goal is to &#8220;cut the deficit to 3% by 2028; achieve 3% real economic growth, largely through deregulation; and then add 3 million new barrels of energy per day.&#8221; He told <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-08-07/five-questions-for-trump-adviser-and-key-square-group-founder-scott-bessent?sref=17aozLHf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Bloomberg</a> that Trump is concerned about addressing the national debt and wants to get it under control &#8220;without causing a recession.&#8221;
Some conservative Republicans raised concerns about Trump&#8217;s &#8220;Big, Beautiful Bill&#8221; not doing enough to cut back on government spending. Two House Republicans, Reps. Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Warren Davidson of Ohio, <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/gop-holdouts-sound-alarm-36t-debt-crisis-trumps-big-beautiful-bill-passes-house-vote" target="_blank" rel="noopener">voted against</a> the legislation, citing the federal deficit.
&#8220;While I love many things in the bill, promising someone else will cut spending in the future does not cut spending. Deficits do matter and this bill grows them now. The only Congress we can control is the one we’re in. Consequently, I cannot support this big deficit plan. NO,&#8221; Davidson said on Thursday.
The White House called the two GOP congressmen &#8220;grandstanders.&#8221;
&#8220;I don&#8217;t think he likes to see grandstanders in Congress,&#8221; White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said of Trump&#8217;s thoughts on Massie and Davidson. &#8220;What&#8217;s the alternative? I would ask those members of Congress. Did they want to see a tax hike? Did they want to see our country go bankrupt? That&#8217;s the alternative by them trying to vote ‘no.’ The president believes the Republican Party needs to be unified.&#8221;
In the Senate, the bill faces more hurdles as multiple Republicans have raised concerns on numerous topics. Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/5314189-rand-paul-house-gop-budget-bill/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a> he will vote against the bill unless they &#8220;take the debt ceiling off of it.&#8221;
“We’ve never, ever voted to raise the debt ceiling this much. It’ll be a historic increase. I think it’s not good for conservatives to be on record supporting a $4 [trillion] or $5 trillion increase in the debt ceiling,” Paul said.

Bessent Says U.S. Can ‘Grow Our Way Out Of’ National Debt Crisis By Focusing On Economy

spending

House Budget Chairman Jodey Arrington (R-TX) chided House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) for resorting to &#8220;fear-mongering&#8221; when discussing Medicaid in the GOP budget reconciliation budget plan.
On the latest episode of &#8220;Fox News Sunday,&#8221; anchor Shannon Bream played a clip of Jeffries warning about what Republicans intend to do with Medicaid as the House and Energy and Commerce Committee, which oversees the program, has been tasked with cutting $850 billion.
&#8220;They want to end Medicaid as we know it,&#8221; Jeffries said. &#8220;They&#8217;re going to hurt children, hurt families, hurt seniors, hurt people with disabilities, close hospitals, shut down nursing homes, and people will die.&#8221;
Arrington dismissed the top House Democrat&#8217;s dire assessment.
&#8220;The question is, will we be susceptible to the fear-mongering and the false rhetoric that you just heard from the Democrat minority leader in the House? And this is the same tired play they run and unfortunately, Republicans haven&#8217;t collectively leaned in and just done the right thing,&#8221; Arrington said.
&#8220;We will be rewarded because we&#8217;re doing this for the sustainability of these programs for the most vulnerable, as well as being fiduciaries for tax dollars,&#8221; he added. &#8220;And this moment will not happen in my political lifetime again, so we have to seize it, do the right thing and go educate and sell what we did to the American people. And the benefits that accrue, I think will come to fruition by the midterms and it will go well for our party.&#8221;
Lawmakers in Congress are working to <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/trump-2-0-in-100-days-one-big-beautiful-bill-comes-together" target="_blank" rel="noopener">devise</a> a budget reconciliation bill after passing a blueprint last month. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent recently <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/trump-2-0-in-100-days-one-big-beautiful-bill-comes-together" target="_blank" rel="noopener">suggested</a> the legislation could be complete by Independence Day.
All the details of the final bill have yet to be ironed out, but President Donald Trump has repeatedly insisted he would not touch Medicaid, along with Medicare and Social Security. Trump also has said fraud and illegal immigrants will be rooted out of the system.
The question of whether Republicans will &#8220;surrender the opportunity to actually bend the curve on entitlement spending and enact entitlement reforms&#8221; was one that, according to Arrington, has him using &#8220;if&#8221; conditional language when discussing the prospect of achieving the framework&#8217;s goals.
&#8220;Because there is a tremendous amount of waste and fraud,&#8221; he said. &#8220;In fact, the Government Accountability Office says upwards of $500 billion over the 10-year budget window just in Medicaid, you&#8217;ve got hundreds of billions siphoned out for other purposes than serving the Medicaid beneficiary,&#8221; he said. &#8220;There is no work requirement for able-bodied adults like there is in every other means-tested welfare program.&#8221;
Arrington continued: &#8220;And, in fact, Medicaid — because we give a higher federal match to able-bodied adult population, this is the Obamacare expansion population — we actually hurt access to the pregnant, blind, disabled, the most vulnerable, the poorest and sickest among our fellow Americans as a result of the structure of the program. We can save over $1.5 trillion without touching a dime of the benefit funding.&#8221;
<iframe loading="lazy" title="&#039;THE SAME TIRED PLAY&#039;: Lawmaker rips Dems for &#039;fear mongering&#039; Medicaid cuts" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/mPkJL6XeixA?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Rep. Jodey Arrington

House Budget Chief Slams Hakeem Jeffries For Medicaid ‘Fear-Mongering’

Hakeem Jeffries

Medicaid

This week marks the 16th anniversary of the birth of the modern-day Tea Party, and — at long last — with an ally in the Oval Office and friends throughout his administration and on Capitol Hill helping to carry out our shared mission, we can celebrate not just our birthday, but the fruits of our labor.
President Trump’s second-term priorities on a wide range of issues — the DOGE effort to shrink the size and scope of government; the determination to secure the border; the move to end the weaponization of government; and the commitment to healthcare freedom, among others — is the continuation of what we in the Tea Party have been working for over the last decade and a half.
Across that wide range of issues and others, we are working to support his agenda on the policy and the personnel fronts — because it is our agenda.
<div id="attachment_875665" style="width: 874px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-875665" class="size-large wp-image-875665" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/02/GettyImages-2198391943-864x576.jpg" alt="Elon Musk listens as US President Donald Trump speaks in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, on February 11, 2025. Tech billionaire Elon Musk, who has been tapped by President Donald Trump to lead federal cost-cutting efforts, said the United States would go &quot;bankrupt&quot; without budget cuts. Musk leads the efforts under the newly created Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), and was speaking at the White House with Trump, who has in recent weeks unleashed a flurry of orders aimed at slashing federal spending." width="864" height="576" />JIM WATSON/AFP via Getty Images</div>
The modern-day Tea Party began in early 2009 as a natural grassroots reaction to the Washington Swamp’s response to the financial crisis of 2007-2008, and to its determination to use that crisis as a cover for expanding the size and scope of government. First, in September of 2008 the Republican-led administration proposed sending $700 billion (a then unheard-of sum) of taxpayer money to bail out Wall Street banks that had made bad decisions. Then, in January of 2009, a Democrat-led administration followed that up by proposing to spend almost $1 trillion in taxpayer funds on what it called a “stimulus” package.
It didn’t take long for grassroots anger to boil over. On February 16, 2009, the day before President Barack Obama signed the so-called “stimulus” bill into law, the first significant protest took place, in Seattle, Washington. Led by Keli Carender — who still works with me, leading grassroots activities today — it was called the “Porkulus Protest.”
Things began picking up speed. Three days later, on February 19, CNBC commentator Rick Santelli <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bEZB4taSEoA" target="_blank" rel="noopener">ranted from the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange</a>, asking the assembled traders on live television, “How many of you people want to pay for your neighbor’s mortgage, that has an extra bathroom and can’t pay their bills?” Then he half-jokingly said, “We’re thinking of having a ‘Chicago Tea Party’ in July. All you capitalists that want to show up to Lake Michigan, I’m going to start organizing.”
We took up his challenge. Precisely one day after Santelli’s rant, we held the first organizing phone call. Led by Michael Patrick Leahy (formerly of PJ Media and Breitbart, now best known for his work with Tennessee Star News), about three dozen activists got on a conference call and strategized. That led, one week later, on February 27, to what we now recognize as the first “official” tea party protests – 48 of them, all across the country, attended by about 35,000 people.
As the news from Washington got worse, the movement continued to pick up strength. Less than two months later, on April 15 (yes, the choice of Tax Day was symbolic, and strategic), FOX News hosts Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, and Neil Cavuto hosted their shows from “Tax Day Tea Parties” in Atlanta, Dallas, and Sacramento, respectively, as an estimated <a href="https://www.npr.org/2009/12/09/121237459/tea-party-activists-harness-anger-to-push-message" target="_blank" rel="noopener">1.2 million people</a> gathered to protest at more than 2,000 local tea parties nationwide.
<div id="attachment_884125" style="width: 874px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-884125" class="size-large wp-image-884125" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/02/GettyImages-170863012-864x576.jpg" alt="UNITED STATES - JUNE 19: Conservative talk show host Glenn Beck attends a Tea Party Patriots rally on the west front of the Capitol to protest the IRS's targeting of conservative political groups. (Photo By Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call)" width="864" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/02/GettyImages-170863012-864x576.jpg 864w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/02/GettyImages-170863012-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/02/GettyImages-170863012-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/02/GettyImages-170863012.jpg 1024w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 864px) 100vw, 864px" />Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call</div>
The summers of 2009 and 2010, remembered for the boisterous town hall meetings held by members of Congress during Congress’s regular recesses, saw the movement continue to grow. As it became clearer that the fight to pass ObamaCare would come down to just a few votes one way or the other, our organizing intensified. Democrats held strong majorities in both houses of Congress, though, and partisan politics eventually carried the day. Nevertheless, the Tea Party movement certainly helped many congressional Democrats to early retirement in the <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2010/11/democrats-losses-ran-wide-deep-045160" target="_blank" rel="noopener">midterm elections of 2010</a>.
The Tea Party didn’t go away. Instead, we prepared for the next battle. In 2013, Internal Revenue Service official Lois Lerner revealed that the IRS had been targeting us, demanding to know, among other things, the content of the prayers we prayed and the subject matter of the books we discussed at our meetings. Later that year we were instrumental in defeating a terrible bill establishing a mass amnesty for illegal immigrants that passed the Senate but was blocked in the House. In 2015, we fought Obama’s Iran nuclear deal, and held a protest rally on the West Front Lawn of the Capitol addressed by Donald Trump. In 2016, we fought to prevent Merrick Garland – who later revealed himself to be one of the most radical attorneys general in history – from taking a seat on the Supreme Court. In 2020 and thereafter, we maintained our long-held focus on healthcare freedom by fighting to reopen schools and against vaccine mandates.
Though the political environment in which we’ve operated has changed over the years, our dedication to our original values has not: From the start, we’ve stood for individual liberty, limited and constitutional government, and fiscal responsibility. We’ve fought to reduce the size and scope of the federal government; to secure the border; to defend healthcare freedom; and to stop the weaponization of government. We’ve won some, and we’ve lost some, and we’ve learned how to harness our passion and turn it into meaningful action.
Today, with our champion in the Oval Office, we help him wage political war against the Washington Swamp we’ve been fighting since we first organized ourselves 16 years ago. For the Tea Party, it’s a Sweet Sixteen, indeed.
* * *
Jenny Beth Martin is Honorary Chairman of Tea Party Patriots Action.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

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