Charles’ Note: Game six of the Eastern Conference Finals is tonight. My younger son has become quite the basketball fan this year, so we’ll be parked on the couch watching the Knicks and Pacers slug it out to see who faces the Oklahoma City Thunder in the finals.
I still pretend I can play… while I sit on my couch with ice packs on both knees as a result. Men my age really have no business banging around in the post for rebounds or attempting to slash to the basket. Even the simple motion of shooting causes my creaky shoulder to stiffen up after a while. So here I am… iced up and reaching for the Advil.
I’m rooting for Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and the Thunder to beat whoever emerges from the East. And I’m wondering how short the window is for an athlete to win. In your first few years, you’re inexperienced. You lack the poise to get over the top. But by the time you hit 30, you’re already on the downward slope. There’s already some new phenom nipping at your heels.
Your “win” window is really just a few short years.
In presidential administrations, your “win” window to really make a difference is shorter. I’d argue it’s effectively closed after you’ve passed your first budget.
After that first budget, you’ve largely spent your political capital. Congress has identified your weaknesses and knows your negotiating moves. And you’re only a year away from the next midterm election. Your window to make meaningful reform is effectively closed.
So… here we are.
The Senate is debating the Big, Beautiful Bill.
And what has effectively changed?
Nothing.
Deficits are larger than ever.
The debt continues to snowball.
The bond market is starting to revolt.
And there’s no light at the end of the tunnel.
For all the sound and thunder of hacking away at it … Big Government is bigger than ever. The Leviathan won.
So, what happens next?
I turn to my fellow Freeport traveler Bill Bonner for guidance. As founder of Bonner Private Research, Bill has dedicated his life to understanding market insanity and using that knowledge to invest successfully.
Take it from here, Bill!
It’s Over
By Bill Bonner, Bonner Private Research
A bill can be big. Or it can be beautiful. I don’t know if it can be both.
—Elon Musk
News Flash: The whole program is falling apart.
Over the course of the last fourteen days, federal judges have made it clear that the U.S. still has a constitution, and nowhere in it does it give Elon Musk’s DOGE the power to cut federal programs without Congressional action…
Or give the president the right to set taxes and trade policies as he pleases.
But these developments leave poor Elon out.
What was he doing?
For whom?
Why?
And is he now personally responsible for the billions in losses the states say they have suffered?
Now it’s official. The Trump/Musk duo has broken up. The Washington Post:
Elon Musk is leaving his role in the Trump administration
A day earlier, in a major break with the president and Republicans, Musk said he did not approve of Trump’s spending bill – officially known as the One Big Beautiful Bill – with its massive tax cuts.
“I was disappointed to see the massive spending bill, frankly, which increases the budget deficit, not just decreases it, and undermines the work that the DOGE team is doing,” Musk said in an interview with CBS News.
And this from Bloomberg:
Musk leaves Washington pretty much as he found it.
Poor Elon. He never understood what government is all about… or his role in it.
There he was… out on the front lines… exposed to ridicule, widely reviled, the target of the feds, the media… the enemy of the “casta politica” and all of the freeloaders and parasites who want to live at others’ expense.
Musk took the lead – as an unpaid volunteer. It was he who put together a team and revealed billions in “waste, fraud, and inefficiency” in federal spending.
In business, cutting the “fat” can be key to making a profit. Companies struggle to provide the best products and services at the lowest cost. “Fat” is an enemy.
But in politics, the “fat” is the juiciest part… it’s what the politicians most want.
If you take money from taxpayers to conduct a war, for example, and you spend the money efficiently, what do you get? Dead bodies. Piles of rubble. Flattened buildings. Just look at what the U.S. gets for its money in Gaza.
If the money were “wasted,” on the other hand, it would do less damage. Plus, more of it would go where it was really intended to go – into the pockets of politicians, cronies, and favored clients.
Elon’s lieutenants found billions that could be cut. There were “foreign aid” programs, for example, where the money never left the Washington DC area. This was, from the feds’ point of view, an ideal program.
Some of the money was supposed to go to train “African circus performers.” Again, a perfect swindle. Those clowns weren’t going to complain!
Elon’s team even found $4.7 trillion in payments that were practically untraceable.
But after Elon busted his hump and endured so many slings and arrows, did the nation say “thank you for your service?”
Did the Republicans incorporate even one penny of the many money-saving examples he uncovered in their “big, beautiful bill?”
No, they did not.
Charlie Bilello:
What about the DOGE spending cuts? None of them were codified in the bill, meaning that any savings announced over the past few months could just be temporary.
The Republicans’ “big, beautiful bill” extends the 2017 tax cuts… adds new cuts (for tips, etc)… increases spending… and ends up with bigger deficits than ever.
And now, they are going to hang Musk out to dry. The Independent:
Judge spares Trump from massive DOGE lawsuit – leaving Elon Musk holding the bag for “unauthorized role.”
Musk – tapped by the president to lead the so-called Department of Government Efficiency – is facing a lawsuit from a group of 14 states arguing that the world’s wealthiest person lacks any legal authority to carry out mass firings, terminate grants, and access sensitive government information and taxpayer data.
Musk thought he was doing the country a favor. He thought the MAGA folks really wanted to curb U.S. debt. As it turned out, they didn’t. Now, in addition to his other problems, Musk faces a lawsuit charging that he “lacked any authority” to do what they asked him to do.
And the White House has pulled the rug out from under his defense, specifically stipulating that he had “no actual or formal authority to make government decisions.”
For all his trouble, despite all his money, and all his expensive lawyers… and all his success in business… Musk is just another casualty of politics.
Regards,
Bill Bonner