I'm not sure what being a patriot means in Trump's America. Are you? Tell us.
It seems you can't go anywhere the week of the Fourth of July without coming face-to-face with the Stars and Stripes.
Independence Day always ushers in a collection of red, white and blue words whose meanings have morphed over the years – hardening some as they seem to become more insidious and far removed from our Founding Fathers: patriotism, nationalism, freedom, liberty.
America.
I've been thinking a lot about what it means to be a patriot in this 2025 version of our American experiment – President Donald Trump's America, which more often than not seems so divorced from the ideals and the very Constitution I grew up revering. The things that made us American: freedom of speech, a melting pot of ideas, the pursuit of happiness.
Acceptance.
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I'll be honest. I don't have any easy answers. And as we approach our nation's 249th birthday (though she doesn't look a day over 240), we want to know what you think. What does being an American, and being a patriot, mean to you?
Do you think our country is headed in the right direction? Are you worried about our democracy? Amid this holy week of hot dogs and hamburgers, fireworks and flags on every corner, "America the Beautiful" and "God Bless the U.S.A.," are you proud to be an American?
Take our poll below or send us an email to forum@usatoday.com with the subject line "Forum patriotism." We'll publish a collection of opinions from all sides of the conversation. And stay safe out there this July Fourth.
Janessa Hilliard is the director of audience for USA TODAY Opinion and Opinion at Gannett.
Do you want to take part in our next Forum? Join the conversation by emailing forum@usatoday.com.You can also follow us on X, formerly Twitter, @usatodayopinion and sign up for our Opinion newsletter to stay updated on future Forum posts.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: What does it mean to be an American? Tell us | Opinion
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Yahoo
25 minutes ago
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Trump tariffs live updates: Trump threatens to send Japan new tariff rate; EU open to universal tariffs
President Trump's self-imposed July 9 deadline on tariffs is fast approaching, with the president and top administration officials providing mixed signals on its malleability while countries race to finalize talks. Trump said Sunday that he didn't think he'd "need to" extend that deadline, while Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Monday warned "recalcitrant" countries that a return to steep "Liberation Day" tariffs looms. In another sign on Monday that the president was moving forward on his threat to send letters to countries rather than waiting to finalize interim deals, Trump posted on Truth Social that he would be sending Japan a letter with a new tariff rate, citing an unwillingness by the country to accept US rice exports. The comments were the latest signs of ambiguity around the firmness of the self-imposed deadline, when Trump's "pause" on his April 2 duties expires. Meanwhile, the European Union signaled it was willing to accept a 10% universal tariff on many of its exports but is seeking exemptions for pharmaceuticals, alcohol, semiconductors, and commercial aircraft as part of a trade deal, Bloomberg reported. The EU is also seeking quotas and exemptions to lower duties on autos, steel, and aluminum, the report said. On the North American front, Canada scrapped its digital services tax on US technology companies, such as Apple (AAPL), Amazon (AMZN), and Alphabet (GOOG, GOOGL) late on Sunday, just hours before it was set to start. The White House said trade talks between the two countries had resumed after Trump threatened to cut off trade talks. Countries are struggling to get over the finish line on deals, with just over one week until the deadline. So far, Trump has only firmed up one signed trade deal with the United Kingdom. Read more: What Trump's tariffs mean for the economy and your wallet Here are the latest updates as the policy reverberates around the world. The European Union, looking to clinch a trade deal with the US before a July 9 deadline, is prepared to accept a "universal" tariff of 10% on goods exported to the US, according to a Bloomberg report Monday. But the bloc is seeking exemptions on key sectors, including pharmaceuticals, alcohol, semiconductors and commercial aircraft. From Bloomberg: Read more here. President Trump said on Monday afternoon he was willing to impose a higher tariff rate on Japan, saying the country refused to accept US rice exports. "To show people how spoiled Countries have become with respect to the United States of America, and I have great respect for Japan, they won't take our RICE, and yet they have a massive rice shortage," Trump posted on Truth Social. "In other words, we'll just be sending them a letter, and we love having them as a Trading Partner for many years to come." Trump's statement that he would send a letter to Japan outlining the new tariff rate comes a little more than a week before a July 9 deadline and after months of being locked in trade talks with Japanese leaders. Trump has threatened to send letters to trading partners should negotiations break down. During trade talks, Japan has sought an exemption from the Trump administration's 25% auto duties. Broad tariffs on Japanese goods were set to jump back up to 24% on July 9 if no deal is reached and the tariff pause is not extended. Read more here. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent warned "recalcitrant" countries that their tariff levels could soon snap back to "Liberation Day" levels, the latest sign of ambiguity in President Trump's firmness around a July 9 deadline. Via Reuters: Administration officials — and Trump himself — have sent mixed signals on whether he may look to extend that deadline. Trump on Sunday suggested he didn't think he'd "need to" extend it. Tariffs pressures have started to hit goods, with prices on products made in China sold on Amazon (AMZN) rising faster than overall inflation, according to 1,400 different items which were analysed by DataWeave and provided exclusively to Reuters. Reuters reports: Read more here. CNN reports: Read more here. The European Union is pushing back against the US and its criticism of the bloc's tech rules, which many feared may have been included as part of trade negotiations. Reuters reports: Read more here. There is a belief among economists that President Trump's tariffs will help boost inflation over the next few months. But so far, muted price increases have called that belief into question. This has helped to embolden Trump, causing divisions with the Fed. Bloomberg News reports: Read more here. South Korea is looking for an extension to the July 9 tariff deadline as talks continue. The US has raised concerns over non-tariff barriers and broader defence. South Korea is not the only country looking to reach a deal with the US before the tariff deadline on July 9. "It seems some countries will reach a deal by July 8, some might be granted an extension to continue negotiations, while others will decide if they want to continue negotiating under tariffs or not," the South Korean official told a briefing. Here's how some of the other trading partners are managing the deadline. China The US and China reached a deal to resume rare earth exports in London this month, resolving delays in implementing the Geneva agreement, which was established in May. Both sides are keen to ease tensions before tariffs rise further on August 9, when broader duties could rise 50%. Canada Canada scrapped its planned digital services tax targeting US tech firms on Sunday in an attempt to revive stalled talks. President Trump threatened new tariffs within a week if no deal is reached. According to Reuters, talks aim for an agreement by July 21. EU EU negotiators are pushing to keep reciprocal tariffs below 10% but Washington is pursuing a 10% baseline rate on most goods. Talks continue as the EU faces a looming deadline of July 9. UK The US-UK trade deal was cemented at the G-7 Summit this month. The deal came into force this week, reducing levies on cars and aircraft parts but keeping 10% tariffs on exports. Steel and aluminium tariffs remain unresloved ahead of the July 9 deadline. Japan Japan is seeking exemption from US auto tariffs, which currently stand at 25%, while also facing a new 24% reciprocal tariff from July 9. Trump wants Japan to import more US energy to reduce its trade surplus. Mexico The US and Mexico are negotiating a quota deal to reduce Trump's 50% steel tariffs. An agreement may allow for lower import rates. As earning season approaches, Goldman Sachs (GS) said on Monday that US profit margins will be tested as investors await to see how President Trump's war has hurt companies. Goldman's David Kostin said Q2 earnings will show the immediate impact of tariffs, which have risen about 10% this year. Most costs will be passed on to consumers, but margins will suffer if firms absorb more than expected. Early results are mixed: General Mills (GIS) stock fell 5% last week due to a weak forecast and tariff warning, while Nike (NKE) rose 15% after announcing it will offset higher duties. Bloomberg News reports: Read more here. Canada scrapped its planned digital services tax on US tech firms late Sunday, just hours before it was due to start. The move aims to revive stalled trade talks with the US, which halted on Friday over the tax, with President Trump calling it a "blatant attack." Canada's finance ministry said Prime Minister Mark Carney and Trump plan to reach a deal by July 21. Trump warned on Friday he would set new tariffs on Canadian goods within a week, risking fresh tension between the two countries. The 3% tech tax would have hit firms like Apple (AAPL), Google (GOOG), and Amazon (AMZN), but Canada will now bring forward legislation to cancel it. "The DST was announced in 2020 to address the fact that many large technology companies operating in Canada may not otherwise pay tax on revenues generated from Canadians," a statement from the Canadian finance ministry said. "Canada's preference has always been a multilateral agreement related to digital services taxation." Despite predictions from members of President Trump's administration that it could complete "90 deals in 90 days," the White House doesn't appear to be anywhere close to the sweeping global trade reform it was seeking, Bloomberg reports: Read more here In a wide-ranging interview during which he also said he had a buyer for TikTok (whom he did not name), President Donald Trump he did not think he would need to extend a July 9 tariffs deadline, Bloomberg reports: Read more here As the Independence Day holiday approaches, the fireworks used in displays across the US likely won't be affected by President Trump's tariffs, at least, not yet. A 90-day pause on the levies slated for imports from China is in effect, but such tariffs would hit the fireworks industry hard. Nearly all the fireworks used in the US are imported from China, the Associated Press reports. The price tag on future fireworks displays, however, are up in the air: Read more here The market's task of planning for how tariff developments will play out this summer got more complicated Friday as President Trump and his team offered a host of options for what to expect in the months ahead. First, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent raised eyebrows when he suggested that his focus could be on an end-of-summer deadline, saying, "I think we could have trade wrapped up by Labor Day." But any hopes for a summer lull between now and then were short-lived when, just a few hours later, Trump offered multiple other scenarios during a wide-ranging press conference. At one point, the president reiterated his plan to send letters to dictate tariff rates for at least some countries, perhaps as soon as next week, saying, "It's going to go very quickly." Minutes later, he said that a July 9 deadline to raise "reciprocal" tariffs is not set and perhaps could move, but in an unpredictable direction. "We can do whatever we want," he told reporters of that deadline. "We could extend it, we could make it shorter," adding that his preference was to make it shorter. Read more here President Trump on Friday said he is cutting off all trade talks with Canada, threatening to set a new tariff rate on goods imported from the country within the next week. The reason, according to Trump: Canada's plan to implement a digital services tax, which could affect US tech companies. Trump's about-face throws a potential wrench in weeks of trade progress. Just hours earlier, the US and China cemented the trade truce first agreed to last month in Geneva. Here's Trump's Truth Social post on Canada, in full: On Friday afternoon, President Trump touted tariff revenue and an influx of domestic manufacturing but offered few details on the state of tariff negotiations ahead of the July 9 deadline, when the tariff pause expires. The president acknowledged that the administration won't be able to reach deals with 200-plus countries over the next week and a half. But he did not definitively say whether tariff rates would jump back up to "Liberation Day" levels. "We can do whatever we want," Trump told reporters in a press briefing, referring to the tariff pause. "We could extend it. We could make it shorter — I'd like to make it shorter. I'd like to just send letters out to everybody: 'Congratulations, you're paying 25%'" So far, the Trump administration has confirmed preliminary trade agreements with China (as of today) and the UK. Trump noted that officials are in the process of negotiating other deals, which he said are "going to go very quickly." In particular, Trump again teased a potential deal with India, which has faced roadblocks in recent weeks over some of the country's protectionist policies for certain sectors. "Some of the bigger countries, India, I think we're going to reach a deal where we have the right to go in and trade," Trump said. "Right now, it's restricted. ... We're looking to get a full trade barrier dropping, which is unthinkable, and I'm not sure that that's going to happen, but as of this moment, we've agreed to go into Indian trade." US and EU officials are confident of clinching a trade deal before a July 9 deadline, Bloomberg reported Friday. Amid continued progress on China, the US-EU talks have come in high focus ahead of that deadline, with US tariffs of up to 50% looming on EU imports. From the report: Read more here. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on Friday that the US could wrap up its most important trade deals by Labor Day. "Secretary Lutnick said yesterday that he expects 10 more deals," Bessent told Fox Business Network in an interview. "So if we can ink 10 or 12 of the important 18, there are another important 20 relationships, then I think we could have trade wrapped up by Labor Day." Bessent's comments come after the US and China signed an interim trade agreement on Friday that would reduce tariffs while the two sides work toward a formal deal. Trump administration officials have softened their stance toward the July 9 deadline they set for themselves to hammer out trade pacts. On Thursday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the early July deadline "is not critical" while Trump's top economic adviser said he expected the US to extend the pause for countries negotiating "in good faith." The other shoe has dropped: Beijing has backed up the plans for trade easing laid out by the US, signaling warmer relations between the recently feuding sides. Bloomberg reports: Read more here. The European Union, looking to clinch a trade deal with the US before a July 9 deadline, is prepared to accept a "universal" tariff of 10% on goods exported to the US, according to a Bloomberg report Monday. But the bloc is seeking exemptions on key sectors, including pharmaceuticals, alcohol, semiconductors and commercial aircraft. From Bloomberg: Read more here. President Trump said on Monday afternoon he was willing to impose a higher tariff rate on Japan, saying the country refused to accept US rice exports. "To show people how spoiled Countries have become with respect to the United States of America, and I have great respect for Japan, they won't take our RICE, and yet they have a massive rice shortage," Trump posted on Truth Social. "In other words, we'll just be sending them a letter, and we love having them as a Trading Partner for many years to come." Trump's statement that he would send a letter to Japan outlining the new tariff rate comes a little more than a week before a July 9 deadline and after months of being locked in trade talks with Japanese leaders. Trump has threatened to send letters to trading partners should negotiations break down. During trade talks, Japan has sought an exemption from the Trump administration's 25% auto duties. Broad tariffs on Japanese goods were set to jump back up to 24% on July 9 if no deal is reached and the tariff pause is not extended. Read more here. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent warned "recalcitrant" countries that their tariff levels could soon snap back to "Liberation Day" levels, the latest sign of ambiguity in President Trump's firmness around a July 9 deadline. Via Reuters: Administration officials — and Trump himself — have sent mixed signals on whether he may look to extend that deadline. Trump on Sunday suggested he didn't think he'd "need to" extend it. Tariffs pressures have started to hit goods, with prices on products made in China sold on Amazon (AMZN) rising faster than overall inflation, according to 1,400 different items which were analysed by DataWeave and provided exclusively to Reuters. Reuters reports: Read more here. CNN reports: Read more here. The European Union is pushing back against the US and its criticism of the bloc's tech rules, which many feared may have been included as part of trade negotiations. Reuters reports: Read more here. There is a belief among economists that President Trump's tariffs will help boost inflation over the next few months. But so far, muted price increases have called that belief into question. This has helped to embolden Trump, causing divisions with the Fed. Bloomberg News reports: Read more here. South Korea is looking for an extension to the July 9 tariff deadline as talks continue. The US has raised concerns over non-tariff barriers and broader defence. South Korea is not the only country looking to reach a deal with the US before the tariff deadline on July 9. "It seems some countries will reach a deal by July 8, some might be granted an extension to continue negotiations, while others will decide if they want to continue negotiating under tariffs or not," the South Korean official told a briefing. Here's how some of the other trading partners are managing the deadline. China The US and China reached a deal to resume rare earth exports in London this month, resolving delays in implementing the Geneva agreement, which was established in May. Both sides are keen to ease tensions before tariffs rise further on August 9, when broader duties could rise 50%. Canada Canada scrapped its planned digital services tax targeting US tech firms on Sunday in an attempt to revive stalled talks. President Trump threatened new tariffs within a week if no deal is reached. According to Reuters, talks aim for an agreement by July 21. EU EU negotiators are pushing to keep reciprocal tariffs below 10% but Washington is pursuing a 10% baseline rate on most goods. Talks continue as the EU faces a looming deadline of July 9. UK The US-UK trade deal was cemented at the G-7 Summit this month. The deal came into force this week, reducing levies on cars and aircraft parts but keeping 10% tariffs on exports. Steel and aluminium tariffs remain unresloved ahead of the July 9 deadline. Japan Japan is seeking exemption from US auto tariffs, which currently stand at 25%, while also facing a new 24% reciprocal tariff from July 9. Trump wants Japan to import more US energy to reduce its trade surplus. Mexico The US and Mexico are negotiating a quota deal to reduce Trump's 50% steel tariffs. An agreement may allow for lower import rates. As earning season approaches, Goldman Sachs (GS) said on Monday that US profit margins will be tested as investors await to see how President Trump's war has hurt companies. Goldman's David Kostin said Q2 earnings will show the immediate impact of tariffs, which have risen about 10% this year. Most costs will be passed on to consumers, but margins will suffer if firms absorb more than expected. Early results are mixed: General Mills (GIS) stock fell 5% last week due to a weak forecast and tariff warning, while Nike (NKE) rose 15% after announcing it will offset higher duties. Bloomberg News reports: Read more here. Canada scrapped its planned digital services tax on US tech firms late Sunday, just hours before it was due to start. The move aims to revive stalled trade talks with the US, which halted on Friday over the tax, with President Trump calling it a "blatant attack." Canada's finance ministry said Prime Minister Mark Carney and Trump plan to reach a deal by July 21. Trump warned on Friday he would set new tariffs on Canadian goods within a week, risking fresh tension between the two countries. The 3% tech tax would have hit firms like Apple (AAPL), Google (GOOG), and Amazon (AMZN), but Canada will now bring forward legislation to cancel it. "The DST was announced in 2020 to address the fact that many large technology companies operating in Canada may not otherwise pay tax on revenues generated from Canadians," a statement from the Canadian finance ministry said. "Canada's preference has always been a multilateral agreement related to digital services taxation." Despite predictions from members of President Trump's administration that it could complete "90 deals in 90 days," the White House doesn't appear to be anywhere close to the sweeping global trade reform it was seeking, Bloomberg reports: Read more here In a wide-ranging interview during which he also said he had a buyer for TikTok (whom he did not name), President Donald Trump he did not think he would need to extend a July 9 tariffs deadline, Bloomberg reports: Read more here As the Independence Day holiday approaches, the fireworks used in displays across the US likely won't be affected by President Trump's tariffs, at least, not yet. A 90-day pause on the levies slated for imports from China is in effect, but such tariffs would hit the fireworks industry hard. Nearly all the fireworks used in the US are imported from China, the Associated Press reports. The price tag on future fireworks displays, however, are up in the air: Read more here The market's task of planning for how tariff developments will play out this summer got more complicated Friday as President Trump and his team offered a host of options for what to expect in the months ahead. First, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent raised eyebrows when he suggested that his focus could be on an end-of-summer deadline, saying, "I think we could have trade wrapped up by Labor Day." But any hopes for a summer lull between now and then were short-lived when, just a few hours later, Trump offered multiple other scenarios during a wide-ranging press conference. At one point, the president reiterated his plan to send letters to dictate tariff rates for at least some countries, perhaps as soon as next week, saying, "It's going to go very quickly." Minutes later, he said that a July 9 deadline to raise "reciprocal" tariffs is not set and perhaps could move, but in an unpredictable direction. "We can do whatever we want," he told reporters of that deadline. "We could extend it, we could make it shorter," adding that his preference was to make it shorter. Read more here President Trump on Friday said he is cutting off all trade talks with Canada, threatening to set a new tariff rate on goods imported from the country within the next week. The reason, according to Trump: Canada's plan to implement a digital services tax, which could affect US tech companies. Trump's about-face throws a potential wrench in weeks of trade progress. Just hours earlier, the US and China cemented the trade truce first agreed to last month in Geneva. Here's Trump's Truth Social post on Canada, in full: On Friday afternoon, President Trump touted tariff revenue and an influx of domestic manufacturing but offered few details on the state of tariff negotiations ahead of the July 9 deadline, when the tariff pause expires. The president acknowledged that the administration won't be able to reach deals with 200-plus countries over the next week and a half. But he did not definitively say whether tariff rates would jump back up to "Liberation Day" levels. "We can do whatever we want," Trump told reporters in a press briefing, referring to the tariff pause. "We could extend it. We could make it shorter — I'd like to make it shorter. I'd like to just send letters out to everybody: 'Congratulations, you're paying 25%'" So far, the Trump administration has confirmed preliminary trade agreements with China (as of today) and the UK. Trump noted that officials are in the process of negotiating other deals, which he said are "going to go very quickly." In particular, Trump again teased a potential deal with India, which has faced roadblocks in recent weeks over some of the country's protectionist policies for certain sectors. "Some of the bigger countries, India, I think we're going to reach a deal where we have the right to go in and trade," Trump said. "Right now, it's restricted. ... We're looking to get a full trade barrier dropping, which is unthinkable, and I'm not sure that that's going to happen, but as of this moment, we've agreed to go into Indian trade." US and EU officials are confident of clinching a trade deal before a July 9 deadline, Bloomberg reported Friday. Amid continued progress on China, the US-EU talks have come in high focus ahead of that deadline, with US tariffs of up to 50% looming on EU imports. From the report: Read more here. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on Friday that the US could wrap up its most important trade deals by Labor Day. "Secretary Lutnick said yesterday that he expects 10 more deals," Bessent told Fox Business Network in an interview. "So if we can ink 10 or 12 of the important 18, there are another important 20 relationships, then I think we could have trade wrapped up by Labor Day." Bessent's comments come after the US and China signed an interim trade agreement on Friday that would reduce tariffs while the two sides work toward a formal deal. Trump administration officials have softened their stance toward the July 9 deadline they set for themselves to hammer out trade pacts. On Thursday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the early July deadline "is not critical" while Trump's top economic adviser said he expected the US to extend the pause for countries negotiating "in good faith." The other shoe has dropped: Beijing has backed up the plans for trade easing laid out by the US, signaling warmer relations between the recently feuding sides. Bloomberg reports: Read more here. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Washington Post
26 minutes ago
- Washington Post
Decision time on the One Big Beautiful Bill
You're reading the Prompt 2025 newsletter. Sign up to get it in your inbox. On Monday, the Senate is voting on amendments to its version of the One Big Beautiful Bill. Leaders seem confident it will pass despite some expected 'no' votes and arguments over last-minute changes. It's a behemoth of a bill: headlined by an extension of President Donald Trump's 2017 tax cuts, steep cuts to health care coverage, and a potpourri of additional items that includes everything from a senior-citizen tax deduction to a new benefit for Alaskan whalers. Despite some popular provisions, the bill's overall polling is poor; it has also drawn bipartisan criticism over budget gimmicks that downplay its cost. I'm joined by my colleagues Ramesh Ponnuru and Catherine Rampell to discuss what's going down on Capitol Hill. — Benjy Sarlin, assignment editor 💬 💬 💬 Benjy Sarlin What's the one-paragraph summary you'd give to a voter trying to figure out what this bill means for them? Ramesh Ponnuru This bill extends the tax cuts that passed during Trump's first term, so you will avoid a tax increase. It also makes some spending cuts, importantly including changes to Medicaid that will result in fewer people having health insurance coverage. And because the spending cuts are not nearly as large as the tax cuts, it widens an already large deficit with consequences that are unknown but seem unlikely to be happy. Catherine Rampell Less access to health care. Less access to food assistance. More expensive energy. Bigger debt, which you or your grandkids will eventually have to pay back. Story continues below advertisement Benjy Let's talk about the health care part. Sen. Thom Tillis (R-North Carolina) announced he was opposing the bill. Trump threatened him with a primary challenge, and now the senator is not running for reelection. Tillis gave a speech warning that Trump was betraying the Medicaid recipients he had promised not to harm. Is he right? And is this a bellwether for political problems to come in the midterms? Ramesh First, a minor point: Some of the Medicaid recipients who will 'lose coverage' under the bill are people who don't have Medicaid now, but who the Congressional Budget Office thinks might get it in the future if the bill doesn't pass. That effect matters but may not be what people are thinking when they see the quoted numbers. Then the bigger point: This bill polls terribly and is unlikely to get better. And even without the bill there are reasons to think the midterms will go poorly for Republicans — as they usually do for the party in power. But they might go even worse if Republicans let taxes rise as they are scheduled to. Catherine Tillis is correct. Trump and congressional Republicans have portrayed this bill as not kicking anyone off insurance, or only kicking off supposedly undeserving freeloaders — not, of course, any of their hardworking voters. In reality, nearly 12 million Americans will lose insurance. And many will be Trump voters. (Fun fact: About half of Medicaid recipients voted for Trump in 2024.) However, many of the significant changes don't start right away. So it's possible the actual harm to voters — and GOP candidates — arrives after the midterms. Ramesh There's an odd House-Senate dynamic here too. The House has assumed that its narrow margin gave it the whip hand in negotiations. The Senate seems to be largely dismissing that idea. I think the net effect of Tillis's decision not to run for reelection will be to strengthen Trump's hand within the GOP — even if his poll numbers continue to be lackluster. Benjy To that point: I'm a little surprised by the process on this bill. Going in, moderate Republicans sounded worried about the House's cuts to health care and energy; conservatives sounded worried about the deficit. The Senate bill somehow hits health care and energy even harder and adds even more to the debt. How did the talks end up here? Catherine I think the reason we got a more expensive bill with even bigger Medicaid cuts is related to these slim majorities. Senate leadership is trying to give some concessions to Republicans who might stray, and that's resulted in a bill that's even worse on many dimensions. Ramesh And yet they shrank the child tax credit increase! Catherine What's that line that Joe Biden used to use — show me your budget, and I'll tell you what your values are? Story continues below advertisement Advertisement Benjy So, you've both been very critical of the procedural tricks around this bill, especially asking budget scorekeepers to ignore the cost of making existing tax cuts permanent. What do you think the implications will be for future Senates, beyond just the short-term hit to deficits? Catherine I think this is effectively the end of any attempt at honest accounting. Politicians often use gimmicks to make their expensive goodies look cheaper — gaming the budget window, claiming gangbusters growth, etc. But this time, they're not even pretending to care anymore. I do wonder how much attention the bond market is paying to this. U.S. Treasury bonds have long been considered the safest assets to invest in. This is despite the fact that we've run big deficits before — people continued to lend to us because the dollar is the world's reserve currency and we were trusted to pay debts back. Now we are signaling we're not really attempting to keep track of how much debt we're adding. Ramesh To the extent some Trump administration officials have wanted to see the dollar weaken — or other currencies strengthen, as Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent put it — they seem to be succeeding. It will be interesting to see if this bill has any effect there, too. Benjy This bill also challenges some political assumptions about these big policy bills. Elon Musk and others on the tech right are currently railing against it for not only cutting energy subsidies, but adding new taxes on wind and solar. Biden's idea behind passing those subsidies was that they'd get too much buy-in from businesses to be repealed. Yet even the top 2024 GOP donor is helpless to protect them. What's up there? Ramesh Culture war trumps all. Catherine It was a reasonable assumption, under any presidency other than Trump's. He has astonishing control over his party. There are so many Trump policies that I would have expected the business community to loudly object to (tariffs, immigration policy, general uncertainty), yet they have been astonishingly meek. Why should energy policy be different? Story continues below advertisement Advertisement Benjy It sounds like you're both expecting this bill to reach the president's desk in some form. Are there any last twists you expect on the Senate or House side, or do you think this is mostly what we should expect to see become law? Ramesh It will probably pass, but I expect there to be some drama before it does. That margin in the House is still very narrow. Catherine I think we know directionally what the bill will look like, but specifics may change. Will Medicaid cuts get more heartless? How much more red ink will they ultimately decide to spill? I agree with Ramesh that we'll probably have some continued drama over these details, but eventually everyone will cave.
Wall Street Journal
26 minutes ago
- Wall Street Journal
Trump, Paramount Engaged in Advanced Settlement Negotiations for CBS Lawsuit
President Trump and Paramount Global have moved ahead on negotiations to settle a lawsuit involving a CBS PARA 2.95%increase; green up pointing triangle '60 Minutes' interview with former Vice President Kamala Harris. Lawyers on Monday filed a request to a Texas judge to delay court proceedings related to the lawsuit until Thursday because the parties are engaged in 'good faith, advanced, settlement negotiations.'
