So far the new admin has done little to reign in spending despite all the discussion about DOGE in the first few months. Not all that surprising given congress extended '25 spending at current law. pic.twitter.com/QRX5ejWpES
— Bob Elliott (@BobEUnlimited) May 12, 2025
They promised discipline, then threw it out the window. While headlines screamed about tariffs and trade talks, lawmakers quietly set fire to what remained of fiscal restraint. Last week, House Republicans finalized a budget that not only extends the Trump tax cuts but adds up to two trillion dollars in fresh deficits. Bob Elliott flagged it while everyone else was distracted.
The Ways and Means bill does not trim around the edges. It supercharges the red ink. This is not a pause or freeze. It is a commitment to permanent fiscal sprawl. The same party that once campaigned on cutting waste just backed a plan that adds more to the deficit than any peacetime policy in memory.
What changed? Everything. Just weeks ago, the House floated a budget that included two trillion in cuts to help offset tax cuts and rising defense costs. That is gone now. The new version falls in line with the Senate’s looser blueprint and then adds another trillion and a half for good measure.
The shift is not subtle. It is a two point five trillion dollar reversal in less than a month. At this point, the idea of fiscal prudence is ceremonial. Even the so-called conservative bloc in the House went along. The budget is not just expanding the tax cuts, it is rewriting the path of the national debt for a generation.
The administration, for all its early talk of restraint, has done little to slow spending. Current law funding has been rolled forward. Nothing serious has been cut. The deficit holds steady near two trillion, contradicting forecasts that expected even modest reduction efforts. April’s deficit will be announced today. The number is two hundred sixty billion dollars, up one hundred billion from March and fifty billion higher than the same month last year.
Any hope of tariff revenue offsetting the damage has faded. The United States just agreed to a ninety-day pause on most new tariffs targeting China. That means no fresh income, no deficit relief, and no pressure release. The tariffs already in place are still driving up prices. Companies are not absorbing them. Apple is considering hiking iPhone prices this fall even with the pause in place.
Inflation will not wait. The costs are rolling downhill and landing on the consumer. There is no end in sight. The deficit is now structural. It is not about emergencies or pandemics. It is baked in. Populist demands for lower taxes, higher defense budgets, and no entitlement reform have won. Prudence lost.
This was the most conservative wing of Congress. They blinked first. The rest of the government never stood a chance.