I admit it. I've been watching the progress of the so-called "Big Beautiful Bill" through Congress with bated breath and growing horror.
It's an exercise in geeking, in the flexing of Presidential authority expressed as the "Leader Principle:* can the Executive chivvy both houses of Congress into biting off the head of a live chicken?
So far, the answer is yes, barely. For both Dems and the GOP, there's a lot not to like in this bill, from the predictable scale-back (and outright elimination) of Federal services and funding predictably opposed by Democrats to massive increases in Federal spending and a mushrooming of the Federal debt and deficit that ought to give pause to any red-blooded Republican -- but only a handful of fiscal hawks on that side of the aisle appear to have noticed. By shoving millions of voters off Medicare, it has produced a ticking time-bomb for mid-term elections, and many of the more obscure provisions of this over-900-page monster are likely to have similar effects on voters and their votes.
The Senate-amended bill has now lurched back to the House, where the earlier version passed by a narrow margin. Cut in places the junior body had expanded it, puffed up where they had trimmed, it's an open question if it's still got the votes -- but the Chief Executive, who is by explicit Constitutional structure not the boss of them, is cracking the whip just offstage, and Speaker Johnson is only too happy to perform on command. Will his fractious body of Representatives go along?
I'd like to tell you no. I'd like to say they're on the whole too proud and too committed to their various individual principles to bend the knee. But I doubt that's true. Heads in the hog trough, a hand out for handouts and only too aware of Mr. Trump's willingness to primary any Congressperson who won't bend to his will, the House may squeal but I have little confidence enough of them will stand fast.
The Legislative Branch is choosing to sow the wind. The midterm results are likely to blow -- if the economy or voter reaction doesn't turn stormy even earlier.
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* The term sounds a lot zippier in the original German.