Buy Now, Pain Later
Trump's budget bill is a smash-and-grab codified into law.
For the last few years, you couldn’t pull up to the gas station without finding a goofy Joe Biden cartoon next to rising prices at the pump announcing, “I did that!”
TikTok was awash with angry videos from grocery shoppers contemplating if they should sell a kidney just so they could buy a dozen eggs. Basically, we were bombarded with messages that the Biden economy was a train-wreck of epic proportions, a glorified rerun of the Great Depression.
Here's the inconvenient truth: It wasn't.
The U.S. actually achieved the best post-COVID economic recovery of the major industrialized countries.
Unemployment was remarkably low under Biden and more than 16 million jobs were added — far outpacing job growth during the full terms of former Presidents Trump, Obama, or George W. Bush. The stock market broke records. The number of people without health insurance fell to an all-time low.
By most objective measures, the economy was kicking. (This isn’t an anomaly — the economy really does do better under Democrats than Republicans.) But high interest rates squeezed homebuyers and nobody enjoyed watching Doordash prices double. So inflation became the only metric that we heard about from news anchors and social media influencers alike.
Donald Trump has always been a master of exploiting discontent, so he ran those ads lampooning Kamala Harris chirping about “Bidenomics” on loop last year. He peeled off enough folks who bought into the “Vibecession” and wanted something new (even though he’d already had the job and bolloxed it, particularly during COVID.)
Fast forward to today. Inflation is ticking up and spending is slowing down. Retailers like Walmart and Shein are already passing on the cost of Trump’s tariffs onto you by jacking up prices.
The hottest trend in the salon is “Recession Hair,” a method of strategically coloring your locks so you don’t have to come back for touchups as often (or, heaven forbid, pick up a box of Nice ‘n Easy at CVS.)
So in other words, Trump’s economy is looking like a Temu version of Biden’s economy that everyone detested.
Trump's Budget Bill Puts Project 2025 into Law. It's a Tyrant's Dream Come True.
Social media is not real life. Nothing made that point more clearly last week than the Musk-Trump breakup. Even the New York Times thought it was worth putting their nasty Twitter posts in print — as if their meanness,…
And now Trump is on the brink of ramming his 940-page budget reconciliation bill through the morally flexible Republican Senate (hi, Lisa Murkowski!) that promises to make everything so much worse. The GOP-controlled House has already rubber-stamped the legislation (whose official name is the One Big Beautiful Bill Act because Trump brings an Orwellian flair to everything.)
So what will this bill do? We're talking about eye-popping hikes to your electricity bill, not to mention huge cuts to popular programs. Millions will be broomed from Medicaid, college loans and grants will disappear, and food stamps will be axed for millions.
Oh, and the legislation essentially crowns Trump king. His stacks of executive orders will become the law of the land, rendering Articles I and III of the Constitution as mere afterthoughts. While it’s true that the current iterations of Congress and the Supreme Court haven’t been inclined to restrain Trump, this legislation is extremely dangerous nonetheless. It’s a bold attempt to hamstring future institutions from checking his power.
But don’t worry. Your favorite Bond villain-style billionaires like Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk will be able to buy even more private islands and space rockets (one really can never have enough) because they’re being gifted tax cuts beyond their wildest dreams.
We talk a lot about the redistribution of wealth in this country, which is conservative shorthand for giving the filthy poors more than they deserve. But this bill shows that phenomenon also works the other way and with laser-like precision.
The signs of impending economic doom are already here. Businesses are girding for the slowdown from Trump’s tariffs and budget bill. Need proof? Look no further than the deluge of commercials urging you to "buy now, pay later." That flight to Fiji you've been eyeing, that designer dress you saw on Instagram — just put it on a payment plan! The message is clear: Don't cut back, even as your bank account is drained. Just finance the lifestyle you want, but can no longer afford. It’s the American way.
Of course the bill is wildly unpopular, but that just seems to make Republicans want to pass it even more.
Why does Trump think he can get away with it? Because Americans already thought a good economy was trash, fueled by neverending social media outrage.
So he figures all he needs to do is rev up the White House’s MAGA propaganda machine and he’ll be able to convince a plurality of people (or close enough) that his bill really is beautiful and any of the ensuing fallout is still Sleepy Joe’s fault.
And just for good measure, the deepest cuts to health care apparently won’t go into effect until after the 2026 election, as North Carolina Senator Thom Tillis revealed in a fiery (but possibly too late) floor speech shortly after announcing his retirement.
Republicans tried to run the bill during a summer weekend when few people were paying attention (and were only thwarted by Democrats who finally woke up long enough to play some procedural hardball and demand the legislation be read out loud.)
By the time you realize how badly MAGA is swindling you, it will be too late. Your pocket’s already been picked. And they think you’ll forget by the midterms because you’re too busy watching the latest Jake Paul fight.
But most of all, they don’t care if you do. It’s a smash-and-grab codified into law. And as we’ve seen, time and time again, the conservative Supreme Court is content to indulge Trump’s every power grab and destructive whim.
H.L. Mencken once opined, “Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard.”
He penned those words over a hundred years ago — but they may as well have been written today.
There's so much difficult truth in this column that I'm afraid people won't read it through to the end. This is the kind of dinner table conversation that NONE of your relatives want to hear, because it forces them to consider their fascination with 'celebrity' and how (as a small example of the downstream effects) all those exotic seafood confections we consume in imitation of their lifestyle depend on the de facto enslavement of fisherfolk in SE Asia. And I wonder just how much garbage and pollution was generated by Bezos' wedding? We do know that he previously asked for a historic bridge to be demolished along the waterway where he docks his half billion dollar party boat because it's superstructure is so tall it wouldn't fit under it. We watch, we buy the magazines, we gossip about their doings, and all the while our Republic is burning. I'm mostly mum at family gatherings now,. Like Cassandra standing on the wall of Troy, pointing at the coming Armageddon, I know I won't be heard. But at least there's Substack.
I read the entire essay. Painful yes. Crucially important you bet! I’m shocked and aggrieved by the mendacity. HCR letters from an American outlined the 4 major issues in front of us. DWORKIN says keep calling and writing Congress. I don’t want to see these atrocities fade out with more spewing from the White House cesspool.