The Trump administration is spending more than the Biden administration, compared to the same period last year. This is no small feat, as the proxies that stood in for the senile and incontinent former president spent at an extravagant pace in their final year, even by federal government standards.
Fiscal year 2025 is virtually guaranteed to produce a deficit in excess of $2 trillion. The current year-to-date deficit stands at $1.05 trillion seven months in, with the April surplus now behind us.
The continuing resolution passed in March guaranteed continuation of the spending status quo for the remainder of the fiscal year, ensuring no coming to grips with the fundamental problems at issue despite full Republican control of the Congress and the executive branch. When Thomas Massie—the lone dissenter in the House—pointed this out, he was pilloried by Trump.
Looking into the future, we now have the “Big Beautiful” spending bill currently circulating through the US congress. The results of this bill—which specifically includes a $1 trillion defense budget—are certain to increase deficits and debt further. The CBO estimates it will have a marginal impact of +3.8 trillion on the US debt balance over the next 10 years.
And yet, many believe the Trump administration remains sincere about their overtures toward substantial spending cuts, also known as “draining the swamp.” Stubbornly ignoring reality, some even believe they have delivered on such promises. By their lights, the administration has already made—and continues to make—substantial spending cuts while shrinking the size and scope of government.
What are we to make of these seeming contradictions? Is the Trump administration trying in earnest—but failing—to shrink the size of government? Or is there a better explanation? …
Burnham distinguished the propaganda, or formal meaning, of political communication with the real meaning—the practical and intended results of that communication. And the real meaning in misleading those that are so easily misled is the buying of time, sympathy, and approval. All of which are currencies that the Trump administration can spend on their real goals—the attainment of political legacy and the enrichment of close groups and supporters through policies that are necessarily inflationary and wasteful. …
To cut government spending is quite a simple idea. It requires no performance artists and no public relations campaign. Congressmen and private citizens alike have made countless suggestions over the years that could have been implemented. But they weren’t. That is because asking those in government power to cut costs is asking them to act against their own interest. That interest is not about putting America first, or draining the swamp, or making government more “efficient,” it is about a group of bureaucrats accruing and wielding political power at the expense of others.
When any politician—or their chosen crony—speaks in ways that stir the masses, it should be understood that such professed beliefs are not convictions, but instruments used in the pursuit of power. Those who value liberty should know this instinctively, and meet every political pronouncement with a simple, reflexive response: “I don’t believe you.”
Wow, this article hits the nail on the head, perfectly!! You should not trust in government to do anything that the politicians and bureaucrats say that they will do. It is all a game to get power, not make things more efficient, not relent on the taxpayers and not to deliver on promises. The purpose is to demagog the politicians way to power and only to get power. Whether that drains the economy of wealth or spends taxpayer money that could be used for better purposes or even makes the people less wealthy is not a consideration, at all. Getting power is the consideration. This is the pure political means in the economy according to the Austrians.