Loading the Elevenlabs Text to Speech AudioNative Player...

Trump’s much-ballyhooed big, beautiful bill may have passed the lower chamber of Congress – barely – but what little chance it initially had in the upper chamber now seems to be slipping away. Half-a-dozen Senate Republicans have spoken out against the spending package in its current form, and the majority can afford to lose only three. Even if it is retooled eventually into something all – or nearly all – GOP senators can vote for, it would then have to go back to the House for approval because of the changes. The more time that goes by, the more it seems budget reconciliation may be out of reach for what has become a big, beautiful boondoggle.

Technically, a bill only needs a simple majority – that’s 50% plus one vote to put it over being tied – to pass in either chamber of Congress. However, the Senate has an additional rule that allows any lawmaker to tie up the pre-vote discussion in what’s called a filibuster. It takes a 60% supermajority – that’s 60 votes in a 100-member Senate – to break a filibuster, or “invoke cloture,” as it is called in the rules. That’s why there are often two full floor votes on bills in the Senate – the first is to force an end to discussion and cue the final vote, and the second is the final vote itself, which only has to be a simple majority.

One might think this means that, so long as nothing is ruled a non-budget measure, even a slim majority can bulldoze through the opposition and pass whatever it wants. Well, it has worked that way in the past – but so far, that hasn’t been the case with this year’s budget reconciliation attempt.

The spending package barely passed the House back in May, 215-214, with every Democrat and two Republicans in opposition. And it only passed after a marathon session of amendment attempts stretching through the night. The result was a very tight bill that satisfied precisely as many representatives as it had to, no more and no less. Even the slightest change could completely derail it, sending lawmakers back to the drawing board and sinking any hopes of having a big, beautiful bill by Independence Day.

In the Senate, Republicans enjoy a 53-47 majority, meaning they should be able to lose three to the opposition and still win if Vice President JD Vance bails them out with a tie-breaking vote. The problem, however, is that twice that number of GOP senators are speaking out against the bill in its current form.

Liberty Nation depends on the support of our readers. Donate now!

Budget hawks demand more deficit reduction and oppose the House-passed increase on the maximum State and Local Tax (SALT) deduction cap, while others are worried about the spending cuts to Medicaid and SNAP benefits (more commonly known as “food stamps”). Others still want to “root out” as much as $200 billion in waste and fraud in Medicare.

Senators Susan Collins (R-ME), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), Jerry Moran (R-KS), and Josh Hawley (R-MO) are threatening to oppose the bill if it reduces Medicaid benefits at all. Rand Paul (R-KY) has consistently said he would vote “no” because the legislation includes language that raises the debt ceiling by another $4 trillion. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) also announced that he’s a “hard no” on the House-passed bill because it doesn’t do enough to bring America back to pre-pandemic spending levels. If more than half of these disgruntled legislators oppose the budget, it’s dead in the water.

There’s something to this whole “we should spend less” idea. The US Office of Management and Budget (OMB) released stats on total annual federal outlays and tax revenue ranging from 2000 to last year, along with projections running through 2029. It’s important to note, by the way, that this data was released in April 2024, so it does not include the estimated $2 trillion-plus increase to the deficit.

In 2000, the United States government took in just over $2 trillion in tax revenue and only spent about $1.79 trillion. $2 trillion is a massive number – either for outlays or revenue – when compared to past years, but it’s also considerably better than where we stand today. The national debt was around $5.6 trillion at the time. If that seems like a big number, just wait. You haven’t seen anything yet.

Federal spending continued to grow over the next 20 years – as one might expect for a nation at war – topping out at $4.45 trillion in 2019. In fact, expenses outpaced income in 2006 and never returned to anything like a balance. In 2019, the US took in $3.46 trillion in taxes – resulting in a deficit of $990 billion. And after nearly a decade-and-a-half of deficits, the national debt had risen to a whopping $22.7 trillion.

But then the pandemic struck. The federal government spent a massive $6.55 trillion and took in only $3.42 trillion in 2020. The next year was worse – and that worsening trend continued. 2023 saw $4.44 trillion in tax revenue – four times the burden borne by the taxpayers 20 years earlier. It spent a whopping $6.13 trillion. The national debt was over $33 trillion.

Each year, lawmakers agree to increase the size of the budget – then they raise the debt limit in order to borrow more money to pay for it. Everything just gets more expensive after that – from groceries and gas to housing and basic services. Even relatively well-paid Americans are stretched to their limits, living paycheck to paycheck despite bringing in wages that would have landed them comfortably in the middle class or even upper middle class at the turn of the century.

Meanwhile, the base pay for the elected members of Congress – both House and Senate – is $174,000 a year, and many make more than that due to leadership positions and committee membership. Don’t be distracted by any posturing over protecting the little guy. As they continue to legislate and spend the nation deeper and deeper in the hole, these lawmakers will never feel the sting. And there appears to be no end in sight.