Why Doesn't the Big Beautiful Bill Cut the Budget More? A Defense
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The Big Beautiful Bill is getting close to passage–maybe–and Elon Musk is very unhappy. 

And when Elon is unhappy, everybody knows it, including Donald Trump, who, in turn, is unhappy with Elon. 





And when these guys are unhappy, everybody else knows it immediately. 

Elon famously hates the Big Beautiful Bill because it blows up the deficit, although there is a lot of legitimate dispute about the extent to which that really is true. After all, the vast majority of that increase in the deficit is an accounting trick caused by extending the Trump tax cuts from his first term–tax cuts that, at least for the most part, nobody expected to expire. 

In other words, unless the bill passes, there will be a multi-trillion-dollar tax increase, and nobody wants that other than the farthest left. 

Throw in a few other things, like no tax on tips, and you could argue that the deficit is marginally increased. Still, there are some spending cuts there as well–assuming any of those survive the butchering by the Senate Parliamentarian. The problem with the bill is that it doesn’t cut spending enough, not that it increases spending substantially. 





Elon is right to be angry that Washington politicians are not running around with their hair on fire about the national debt, but unless something radical changes in the next few days, the alternative to the Big Beautiful Bill is much worse–the same amount of spending and a massive tax increase on top of that, strangling economic growth. 

Of course, those are “details” that are too in the weeds for most people to follow. The headline issue is the debt ceiling increase, which is massive–on the order of $5 trillion. Soon enough, our national debt will blow past $40 trillion, and Elon is right to be enraged that we have gotten to this point. 

Of course, we ARE at this point, and have gotten there the old-fashioned way–decades of fiscal incontinence. 

Musk’s fury and threats have awakened the never-sleeping giant, who is tossing off accusations and threats as he is wont to do. 





The accusation that Musk is just angry that his Tesla subsidies will go away has the virtue of sounding plausible, and the vice of being entirely wrong. Musk has, of course, taken advantage of the subsidies, just as Trump utilizes every advantage he can get; however, he has always been OK with eliminating EV subsidies and mandates. 

And SpaceX? It’s insane to claim it survives on subsidies–without SpaceX, the feds would be spending tens or hundreds of billions more for access to space. 

Musk is wrong that Trump couldn’t have won without him–he probably would have. Trump is wrong that Elon lives off the government tit or is a sore winner. 

The fight is stupid. Each man has a good point–Musk, that the BBB is a travesty, and Trump, that every alternative is much worse. 





This feud is bringing out the worst in both of these great men. Like the Greek gods of old, their egos are driving them to self-destructive behavior, and they have the potential to destroy the very thing they are fighting over. 





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