The great limitation of the MAGA Movement is that its principles exist mostly in President Trump’s head. The 2024 Republican Platform was a squishy mush of platitudes that could have underpinned a campaign for President of a local Chamber of Commerce. And, while candidate Donald Trump’s speeches contained many promises on issues both large and small they were by necessity short on specifics on how they would be accomplished and metrics as to what constituted a promise fulfilled.
It may not be obvious to all, but our system of government requires that a President’s campaign promises be fulfilled – or not – by an entirely separate branch of government, the Congress.
So, to those – like Mr. Musk – with a less than full understanding of the limits of what Congress can or is willing to try to accomplish through the “Big Beautiful Bill” President Trump’s desire to make a “deal” and willingness to embrace all the transactional trade-offs in the House-passed version undoubtedly looks like a sellout or abandonment of key campaign promises.
Except it is not.
The Big Beautiful Bill is only one part of a very complex and well-thought-out, but so far somewhat poorly articulated, reorganization of the American government and economy. This video produced by the White House is by far the best explanation yet of what the bill does and how it works, we urge you to watch it in its entirety.
As the video explains, the Big Beautiful Bill’s tax cuts and economic growth incentives are just the crucial first step in this process. By law the Big Beautiful Bill can only deal with so-called mandatory spending, so the discretionary spending part of the deficit-reduction plan must be accomplished by a series of “recission” bills to implement the DOGE-inspired spending cuts; the first one of those just arrived on the Hill at the end of last week.
Likewise, the tariffs are already producing revenue, and discomfiting our enemy Communist China, even as the courts try to overturn them through patently unconstitutional interference in the exercise of the clear Article II constitutional powers of the Executive Branch. The fact is we have collected about 60 billion dollars in tariff revenue so far and every measure if inflation is the lowest that it's been for more than four years.
Indeed, the Congressional Budget Office put out a 10-year estimate that says that the tariff revenue that's already in place right now is going to raise $2.8 trillion over the next 10 years. That's more than their estimate of the increase in the deficit attributable to the bill’s new spending – that’s deficit reduction right there.
The same goes for the border and immigration policies in the Big Beautiful Bill – the extra spending on those needs, and the military budget, only work without driving up the deficit if the Big Beautiful Bill’s economic growth policies are implemented and the economy takes off.
And as Kevin Hassett, Director of the National Economic Council, explained on Sunday’s Face the Nation, “if the bill doesn't pass, then they estimate that this would cause a reduction of GDP by 4 percent. We'd be in a deep recession. We'd lose six or seven million jobs…”.
So, we’re ignoring the ups and downs of the Trump – Elon bromance and focusing on what really matters – passing the economic growth provisions of the Big Beautiful Bill.
We urge all CHQ readers and friends to share this important information widely. The Capitol Switchboard is (202-224-3121), we urge CHQ readers and friends to call their Senators to demand they pass the Big Beautiful Bill NOW, so a final version can be on the President’s desk by the July 4 Independence Day holiday.
George Rasley is editor of Richard Viguerie's ConservativeHQ.com and is a veteran of over 300 political campaigns. A member of American MENSA, he served on the staff of Vice President Dan Quayle, as Director of Policy and Communication for Congressman Adam Putnam (FL-12) then Vice Chairman of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee's Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs, and as spokesman for retired Rep. Mac Thornberry formerly a member of the House Intelligence Committee and Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee.
- Trump Musk feud
- Donald Trump
- Elon Musk
- Big Beautiful Bill
- House BBB bill
- MAGA movement
- federal budget
- national debt
- House version
- Government reorganization
- tax cuts
- Economic growth
- recission bill
- tariffs
- Congressional Budget Office
- Deficit reduction
- border policies
- immigration policies
