5-22-25 - 6am - The House Passes The Big Beautiful Bill

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Michael.

Speaker 2 (00:01):
I realized it's a bit premature, but I can definitely
see a vance Rubio ticket in the future. Those guys
are so plain spoken, so clear, and so articulate that
I would kind of be mind blowing to actually have
something like that in the White House.

Speaker 1 (00:18):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (00:20):
What fascinates me about the entire conversation I actually heard
in personal conversations yesterday with a couple of people that
subject came up, and I've heard it on a couple
of the news shows last night as I was putting
around the house. I find it fascinating that today is Thursday,

(00:41):
May twenty second, and we're talking about twenty twenty eight.

Speaker 1 (00:47):
Yeah. Wow, it never ends.

Speaker 4 (00:53):
It's never too early to start, never.

Speaker 3 (00:54):
Too early to start. In fact, today's never too early
to start. You may have heard that last night overnight,
you know it was it was pretty disgusting. So I'm
driving in and I'm I'm listening to h I flipped
over from Fox Headlines Headline News over to uh regular

(01:16):
Fox because I wanted to hear what they were saying,
and they had broken into a press conference being held
by House Speaker Mike Johnson, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise
and and then everybody else and everybody else and everybody.

Speaker 1 (01:33):
You know.

Speaker 3 (01:35):
I obviously I'm not watching and I'm just listening to it,
but I'm in my head. Speaker Johnson is in the
in that briefing room on Capitol Hill, and he walks in,
you know, and everybody you can you can just picture
everybody walks in and stands behind him, and they've all
got big smiles on their face because they've just had.

Speaker 1 (01:57):
The greatest sex ever.

Speaker 3 (02:00):
They've just had the most magnificent orgasm you can possibly imagine,
and they are just ecstatic about it. And every person
that you know, after after Johnson speaks, the next person
is I went to introduce the great Majority Leader, Steve Scalise,

(02:20):
you know, a great American and a great this and
a great this. And I'm thinking, is he going to
turn to Mike Johnson and say was it as good
for you as it was for me?

Speaker 1 (02:31):
About it? That's how they acted today. Now I know that.

Speaker 3 (02:39):
I I know based on my life experiences that anytime
a member of Congress tells me that, oh, look, the
son's coming up in the east, I checked to make
certain that the sun's really coming up in the east,
because I can't.

Speaker 1 (02:56):
I can.

Speaker 3 (02:57):
I know there's some good members of Congress, don't get
me wrong, but generally speaking, they're all a bunch of
dirt bags.

Speaker 1 (03:03):
So I have.

Speaker 3 (03:06):
I've this morning gone on to Lexus and Texas, and
I've dug through to get as much detail as I
can about House Resolution one, you phemistically referred to as
the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. I mean that's what
they actually called it, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

(03:26):
House Resolution one passed overnight.

Speaker 1 (03:30):
Now.

Speaker 3 (03:30):
It is a reconcilient It's a budget reconciliation bill. The
purpose was what to advance Trump's agenda. The legislation is
more than eleven hundred pages long. It was approved on
a party line vote. One member of Congress voted present
and Thomas Massey voted no to all Democrats voted no.

(03:55):
So let's walk through some key provisions of the bill,
which are you know, generally speaking, I would say, okay,
there's one that personally affects me, which I find interesting.
I mean, I never thought it was going to happen anyway,

(04:16):
so I guess I'm not surprised.

Speaker 1 (04:18):
But it's kind of like when you.

Speaker 3 (04:21):
When when someone says, you know, we're thinking about getting
you a pony for Christmas. Now, we don't know, but
we're gonna see if we can't get you a pony
for Christmas. Well, where does your brain go? Your brain goes,
So you're going to get a pony for Christmas. You
don't hear that we're trying. You don't hear that we might.
You don't hear Mom and Dad say, you know, if

(04:43):
we can save enough money. All you hear is we're
going to get a pony for Christmas. Well, I guess
personally speaking, and I have to confess it's it's personal
to me because I'm at the age where I've elect
to start taking Social Security. But it's always even before,

(05:06):
it's always pissed me off on behalf of other people
that social Security a tax forcibly taken from you and
then used to spend on other things. Not put in
that lock box that Al Gore always used to talk
about back during the two thousand campaign. It doesn't really exist.

(05:28):
The only thing that's in if there were a physical
lock box for social Security, you know what would be
in it. You know the little slips of paper that
the fortune cookies have in them, you know, with your
little fortune on it. You'd have those little slips of
paper that just says I owe you from the US
Congress a bazillion dollars.

Speaker 5 (05:46):
I picture those little moths when you open up your wallet,
and they used to fly out those Yeah.

Speaker 3 (05:51):
Yeah, that's a good one too, Yeah, except that they
would spray the moths as soon as they started flying out,
and they would all just crashing and instantly, so they
don't even want the moths in there. There's there's virtually
nothing in there. So it it permanently extend extent. It
permanently extends the Trump tax cuts. So it's going to

(06:14):
keep the top marginal rate at thirty seven percent. The
threshold for that is set at a slightly of more
than seven hundred and sixty seven thousand dollars for a
joint filer in twenty twenty six. So it does prevent
They are correct when they say that this prevents a
humongous tax increase that would have affected probably sixty seventy

(06:39):
percent of all taxpayers in the country. And they have
framed that. You know, again, I'm trying to I'm trying
to find something good, and that is a correct statement,
and they should use that and hammer the Democrats with
it who voted against it. Because those Democrats who voted
against maintaining the current tax structure, we're, in essence, voting

(07:03):
for a tax increase not just on millionaires and billionaires, Bernie,
but on everyone. It maintains the double standard deduction. It
increased it to twenty six thousand dollars for a joint filer,
nineteen five hundred dollars for heads of household, and I
think around thirteen thousand dollars for everybody else. But here's

(07:25):
what's interesting about that. It's for tax years twenty twenty
five through twenty twenty eight. Now I don't know, because
I can't ascertain yet in the legislation, because you know,
legislation is very difficult to read. So I'm looking at
two things. I'm looking at for the Lexus Nexus summary,

(07:46):
and I've got the bill over here in another window.
And I can't tell if that means that all of
the standard deductions revert back to the current standard or
does it just mean they expire and they have to
come up.

Speaker 1 (08:02):
With new ones.

Speaker 3 (08:03):
Who knows. But all they've done is they they haven't
made it permanent. Unless you think that the period from
twenty twenty five to twenty twenty eight.

Speaker 1 (08:12):
Is well, that's.

Speaker 3 (08:14):
That's that's the amount of time left for humanity to exist.
See it's such a crap. It permanently, permanently eliminates Now
see Now that's interesting because lexis nexus. It says it
permanently eliminates the personal exemption and increases thresholds for the

(08:36):
AT for the AMT, the Alternative minimum tax. So they
can if they want to permanently eliminate something. So if
they wanted to permanently double the standard deduction, they could
have done so, but they didn't. They just made it
from twenty five through twenty twenty eight. You see, never

(08:57):
believe anything they'll talk to you about. Oh you we
increased your standard deduction for those that you don't itemize.
We increase that to twenty six thousand for a joint filer. Yeah.
Uh for the tax year twenty twenty five, which we're
currently in, which you haven't fired your taxes for yet,
and through only twenty twenty eight. Why why Now, there

(09:21):
are some new tax breaks, and this is where it
starts to get interesting. The new tax breaks come in
two categories. It temporarily dragon temporarily it temporarily eliminates taxes

(09:43):
on tips and overtime pay. I thought we were going
to eliminate taxes on Social Security, and the elimination of
the taxes on tips and overtime is temporary. Yes, So
that's not a permanent tax decrease. It's a temporary tax decrease.

(10:10):
It increases the Section one deduction for things like you know,
pass through businesses dividends, increases that from twenty to twenty
three percent. It reduces the effective tax rate to a
twenty eight point four to nine or so percent. It

(10:30):
expanded to include certain dividends from business development companies, So
there's there's a few token things in there for businesses.
That's it in terms of why we categorize as tax breaks.
So all you seniors out there who thought that finally

(10:53):
they would stop the double taxation of your social security
will dream on. They only care about tips and overtime. Now,
I suppose you could be on Social Security and working
overtime somewhere. You probably could be doing that. But yeah,
the seniors, Yeah, you're gonna die off pretty soon anyway,

(11:15):
so you know who cares.

Speaker 1 (11:17):
Now, let's get to.

Speaker 3 (11:19):
The state and local tax deductions. You've mystically referred to
as the salt deductions. It raises the salt deduction cap,
meaning the maximum by which you can deduct your state
and local taxes from ten grand to forty grand starting
in this tax year, only four taxpayers earning less than

(11:41):
five hundred thousand dollars. Okay, so you know what we
don't We don't want to give it to the wealthy
with the cap and income limit increasing one percent annually
for I think ten years. I don't it's nothing in
those but I thought I read somewhere that that cap
is for ten years. Now what's that really for. Well,

(12:03):
that's a concession to Republicans from high tax states like
New York and New Jersey.

Speaker 1 (12:09):
And I've always been kind of.

Speaker 3 (12:14):
Conflicted over the state and local tax deduction because who
benefits most from that. Democrat politicians in high tax states
that know that they can increase taxes and then tell
their constituents, oh, but don't worry, we're going to increase
your taxes, but you can deduct it off your federal

(12:34):
income tax. Instead of Republicans standing strong and saying no,
you know what, we should just eliminate the state and
local tax deduction for everybody, and then everybody will understand
what they're actually.

Speaker 1 (12:46):
Paying in state and local taxes.

Speaker 3 (12:49):
It phases down to ten grand for incomes above four
hundred thousand dollars if you're a joint filer, and two
hundred grand for a single filer. There are a couple
of other tax provisions. It caps the home mortgage interest deduction.
Now I have I've not used that deduction for a
decade or longer, but I remember, you know, as a

(13:13):
youngster that it was always nice to see, oh, I
can deduct that mortgage interest that I'm paying, but since
I don't pay any mortgage interests and blah blah blah.
But it's also capped at seven hundred and fifty thousand
dollars of indebtedness. So, in other words, to buy you know,
like a average home in uh, you know, Islands Ranch,

(13:36):
Colorado or Castle Pines or somewhere, well, you're not going
to get it. Yeah, yeah, you're not going to get
it because it's captain seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars.
And I know kind of what some of the comps
are in my neighborhood, and none of them are going
to get it. It extends the fifteen million dollars state
and gift tax exclusion. It's indexed for inflation starting to

(14:00):
from now, so yeah, we're going to push that off
for a while. It restores and expands the bonus depreciation temporarily.
It expires completely after twenty twenty nine, and maintains lower
tax rates on multinationals when that's special. Then it increases

(14:20):
because we got to go after those, which which I
don't have a problem with this. I just find it
funny that they make a big deal out of it.
They've increase the excise tax on private university endowments and
private foundations. It's a tiered system up to twenty one
percent for endowments over two million dollars. So it's going
to hit Harvard and Princeton and Yale and you know

(14:41):
stand from all the all the colleges that have big endowments.
That's going to hit them fairly substantially. So let's think
for a moment about what's the economic impact to this,
because after all, this is, you know, we're supposed to
be entering the gold right. It's estimated to reduce federal

(15:05):
tax revenue by four point one trillion. If you use
CBO's conventional calculations, or it'll reduce federal tax revenue by
three point three trillion if you use their dynamic accounting system,
which is a system that accounts for a certain percentage

(15:25):
of GDP growth every year, and their growth period is
from twenty twenty five to twenty thirty four, a nine
year period. At the same time that it reduces federal revenues,
it adds anywhere from three point three to three point
eight trillion dollars to the federal deficit over the next
ten years. So we're going to take away over here

(15:48):
and pilot up over there. It does benefit now, let
me just in fact, let me just read this verbatim
from Lexus and Texas. It benefits high income earners significantly,
with the top zero point one percent gaining from restored

(16:10):
corporate tax provisions. Low income households in the bottom quintile
may lose approximately one thousand and thirty five dollars parentheses
ten point eight percent income reduction because of spending cuts.
I'd have to think that went through. I'm not really sure.

Speaker 1 (16:32):
Now. It does do things that obviously we all voted for.

Speaker 3 (16:39):
It allocates forty six and a half billion dollars for
enhanced border security.

Speaker 1 (16:44):
But of course I always want to know, what does
that mean you're going to enhance it? What does it mean?

Speaker 3 (16:50):
You know, they're always there, you know around here at iHeart,
they're always going to enhance something. And then you kind
of look over your shoulder at what the enhancement was,
and it's like, oh, as the old thing. It's just
they polish it up a little bit. Forty six and
a half billion to enhance border security. It includes, without

(17:14):
specifying the who, what we're winning why, completion of the
US Mexico border wall. I had no clue what that means.
Is that a physical wall? Is it a combination of
physical wall technology patrol?

Speaker 1 (17:32):
What is it? I don't know.

Speaker 3 (17:34):
They're going to hire more than forty one hundred additional
border patrol agents. They're going to deploy artificially artificial intelligence
powered fentinyl scanners at border crossings. Okay, I guess that's
some new screening method using AI to detect fentanyl.

Speaker 1 (17:56):
At border crossing. Of course, the first.

Speaker 3 (17:59):
Thing I is, and I haven't had time obviously look
it up, how much findel's actually brought across at a
border crossing. You know, like hidden in the back of
an eighteen week Oh I'm not done yet.

Speaker 6 (18:12):
So we were told just in the last few months
that there's going to be more police in downtown Denver.
But after mismanaging the city of Denver and businesses leaving
and revenue decreasing, they're making budget cuts. So the visibility
of the police in downtown Denver on sixteenth Street has

(18:35):
now been reduced from unlimited or up to two thousand
hours to just two hundred hours a month.

Speaker 3 (18:42):
And that special, I mean everywhere everywhere we turn. We
just live in a world that is just We're just
being gas lipped from every angle. It's no, it's inappropriate joking.
I won't say that. So the we're going through the
big beautiful bill, which is not quite so beautiful big.

(19:08):
Oh yeah, it's pretty damn big. So it funds mass
deportation programs for illegal aliens, something that Trump wanted, Trump
demanded and Trump got. I haven't found the specifics yet
about the dollar amount, but there it is. But the
Democrats attempted to put in the bill a provision which

(19:33):
now just listened closely. This provision, which was voted on
by the Rules Committee. I don't close that tap voted
on by the Rules Committee last night. This provision was
removed on a vote of eight to four. In the

(19:54):
middle of the night, the Democrats were trying to insert
a provision that would prohibit Immigrations and Customs Enforcement from
detaining or deporting US citizens. Oh, why would the Democrats
want to put that in there as a campaign point? Oh,

(20:16):
we had to put this in the bill to prevent
ICE from deporting US citizens. Let's scare everybody into thinking
that we're all going to be you know, the Democrats
want us to They're gas lighting us and want us
to believe that we live in communist China. Although we're
getting close to it, we're not quite there yet. Where indeed,

(20:37):
they do just snatch people off the streets because they
might need a liver or a kidney or you know,
a heart transplant, and they just cut you open there
and take it out and dump you off and they
move on. So maybe that's what the Democrats were afraid that,
you know, ICE was going to start doing. But that
provision was removed. But let's get to the spending cuts
and the program reforms. Because here's where, once again, let

(21:07):
me just tell you their let's go to Medicaid. They
now have a work requirement for Medicaid eligibility. Now I've
heard two versions. One is for everyone, the other is
for able bodied men. I would like to think that

(21:30):
it's for able bodied men, because if you are you've
got extreme deformities, you have lots of disabilities that keep
you from working, then obviously this should not apply, or
if you're elderly, imported should not apply. So I'm going

(21:52):
to make a big ass assumption that the work requirement
really is for able bodied men. However, if it is
for able bodied men, it should also be for able
bodied women. But what's our rule about? Butts, this doesn't start,

(22:13):
and even when it does start, it's a phase in,
and the phase in doesn't start until twenty twenty nine.
Checks calendar, dragon, Are we still in twenty twenty five?
Did I oversleep?

Speaker 5 (22:28):
I think we determine that yesterday to that last year
as well as five months ago was twenty twenty four,
So that would make this year right now twenty twenty five.

Speaker 3 (22:39):
Okay, so twenty twenty nine would be on a future
calendar four years from now. Yeah, okay, okay, I just
want to make sure I understood this, because sometimes. You know,
reading this legislation is kind of difficult. When I read
that it's phased in starting in twenty twenty nine.

Speaker 4 (22:58):
Your math is mathing correctly today.

Speaker 3 (23:00):
I'm mathing correctly today, okay, which then really pisses me off,
because why do we need to phase it in?

Speaker 1 (23:11):
Huh?

Speaker 3 (23:13):
It cuts some medicaid funding. I haven't been able to
quite ascertain what the medicaid funding is yet, but I'll
keep digging see if I can find that. Let's get
to the SNAP programs, the you know, the food stamp programs.
It tightens eligibility for food assistance to offset the tax
cut costs. And that made the Democrats criticize us for

(23:37):
We're going to increase hunger in the country. No, what
it will do is it will give an added incentive
and an added reason for people to donate to food banks.
Nobody's nobody's going to starve to death. It's just not
gonna happen.

Speaker 1 (23:57):
It aims. I shouldn't laugh about this.

Speaker 3 (24:03):
You know, I actually taught a class in law school
called legislation, and the purpose was to teach lawyers both
how to write and to read legislation. I would I
would have failed a student for writing this in a bill.

(24:30):
We will restore integrity to Snap. Oh look, dragons have
an aneurysm.

Speaker 4 (24:38):
Yeah, what what exactly does that mean?

Speaker 3 (24:41):
Well, it's very plain. They're going to restore integrity.

Speaker 4 (24:44):
To snap, to snap for everyone.

Speaker 1 (24:49):
No, just whatever Snap there is, it's going to have integrity.

Speaker 4 (24:53):
And it's going to be restored, Yes to points.

Speaker 3 (24:58):
Whatever the integrity is that they're going to now implement,
it's a restoration of the old integrity, which assumes that
there ever was integrity to begin with.

Speaker 4 (25:08):
Accurate.

Speaker 3 (25:09):
Okay, thank you, Yes, you would have gotten an ay
in a class for that if I ask you those questions.
Very good, Very good. Now let's get to the part.
Well I was gonna say, let's get to the part
that really bugs me because all of this so far
as way just made me ecstatic.

Speaker 1 (25:27):
Clean energy rollbacks.

Speaker 3 (25:34):
I told you this was coming, and I bet there
are people in this audience.

Speaker 1 (25:38):
That said, oh, there goes Brown again, his hyperbole.

Speaker 3 (25:41):
There he goes He thinks he knows everything about how
Congress works, he thinks he knows about how things go
in DC. He's so full of crap and full of himself. Okay,
I told you that when it came to the Inflation
Reduction Act and the Clean energy bull crap.

Speaker 1 (26:00):
It phases out drag and I'm sorry, dear, I.

Speaker 3 (26:05):
Know, I'm I'm I'm interrupting your morning and I apologize.
Could you then Layman's terms, because the lawy, your brain's
all working right now. What I when we're when you're
going to phase out something?

Speaker 4 (26:18):
What does that mean get rid of but at a
slow pace?

Speaker 3 (26:21):
Oh okay, so you're gonna get rid of something, but
over a maybe a lengthy period of time time, okay,
all right, So everything that's caused all of this inflation,
all of this bull craft that we're spending money on
under the Inflation Reduction Act, we're going to phase it out,
particularly the clean energy tax credits like for clean electricity

(26:46):
I hate dirty electricity hydrogen production starting after twenty twenty
eight oh after the next presidential election, and then try
to fully repeal by twenty thirty one. So everything that

(27:13):
the demented old fart or his staff got passed because
we now know that he was not doing a damn thing,
all of the Inflation Reduction Act, green energy scam, bull crap.

Speaker 1 (27:27):
My god, I want to use the other word today,
is going.

Speaker 7 (27:31):
To be phased out starting after twenty twenty eight, and
hopefully done fully by twenty thirty one.

Speaker 3 (27:44):
All of the other green energy subsidies are phased out
or curtailed. I did not use the word eliminated, because
they are not eliminated. They're there having a press conference
this morning, patting themselves on the back for having worked

(28:06):
all night long, as if nobody's ever pulled an all
night or except them. They're having an orgasm among each other,
patting themselves on the back.

Speaker 1 (28:15):
Hole was it as good for you as it was
for me? And I'm telling you we're getting gaslighted.

Speaker 6 (28:23):
Now.

Speaker 1 (28:24):
Let me tell you.

Speaker 3 (28:25):
Trump's gonna come out and he's gonna praise the speaker.
He's gonna praise Steve Scalise for having done all of
this stuff. And then and Trump's gonna gaslight you too,
because if you thought that all of the stuff that
we are wasting money on, on decarbonization, on green energy subsidies,

(28:46):
on all of this, you know, net zero by whatever
year it's gonna be, is still there. I don't don't
shoot the messenger, Nope, I keep dragon day. I'm in
a good mood today. I came in feeling great. I
feel great today. Imagine if I was in the filament.

Speaker 4 (29:10):
Now, let's get to the physical savings after the breaking.

Speaker 3 (29:13):
Uh, we're going to phase in the break today. Dragon,
We're going to phase it in sometime next week.

Speaker 6 (29:21):
The marching orders from the cabal yesterday for the mainstream
news media was to use the word ambush to describe
what President Trump did when he showed the President of
South Africa the videos of leaders calling for white genocide
and stelling land of white farmers.

Speaker 3 (29:47):
Well, that didn't take long. The email from the White
House just came out for immediate release. IC why am I?
In case you missed it? Truth social posts from President
Trump quote the one big, beautiful bill.

Speaker 1 (30:04):
In all caps has passed the House of Representatives.

Speaker 3 (30:08):
This is arguably the most significant piece of legislation that
will ever be signed in the history of our country.

Speaker 1 (30:17):
Might just be a little hyperbole.

Speaker 3 (30:19):
The bill includes massive tax cuts, no tax on tips,
no tax on overtime.

Speaker 1 (30:26):
I thought there was a third one they were going
to do. What was that one?

Speaker 3 (30:30):
Oh yeah, no tax on social security for the seniors.
But who cares about the old parts? Tax deductions? When
you purchase a purchase an American made vehicle, along with
strong border security measures, pay raises for our ice and
border patrol agents, funding for the Golden Dome, Trump savings accounts.
I haven't found that one yet for newborn babies, and
much more. Great job by Speaker Mike Johnson and the

(30:53):
House leadership, and thank you to every Republican who voted
yes on this historic bill. Now it's time for our
friends in the United States Senate to get to work
and send this bill to my desk as soon as possible.
In all caps, there is no time to waste. The
Democrats have lost control of themselves and are aimlessly wandering
around showing no confidence, griant, or determination. They have forgotten

(31:13):
their landslide loss in the presidential election and are warped
in the past, hoping someday to revive open borders, for
the world's criminals, to be able to pour into our country, men,
to be able to play in women's sports, and transgender
for everybody. They don't realize that these things, and so
many more like them, will never again happen. All right,
Well told you was coming. We went through sea, we

(31:39):
were at energy, you know. Let me just say what,
Let me give the caveat before I finished this. The
caveat is I fully understand retail politics, and I fully
understand that no bill is going to be acceptable for everybody.
But there are COMPROMI made in order to get bills passed,

(32:02):
and I get that. But some of the compromises that
were made here seemed to me to have completely kind
of burst the bubble of what we were trying to
accomplish in the first place.

Speaker 1 (32:18):
It seems to me.

Speaker 3 (32:19):
That sometimes, in this case, just getting the bill was
more important than the substance of the bill, just to
claim the victory. Now, there are some political sciences, some
election experts that will argue that, yes, and that is
exactly right, because we needed to get this legislation done

(32:44):
so that we can then start working on other singular
pieces of legislation, Like they might actually do no tax
on Social Security, or they might actually go back and
immediately eliminate some of the provisions of the Inflation Weyduction Act.
But let's just get one big, broad omnibus reconciliation bill

(33:05):
and then we can start, you know, working other bills.
Now that's taking a positive viewpoint that they might actually
do that, But as one who you know, lived amongst
them for almost six years. I'm not going to hold
my breath, not at all. And as far as the
US Senate goes, oh.

Speaker 1 (33:25):
Baby, you know, there are.

Speaker 3 (33:31):
Probably people that don't understand that while this can be
claimed as a victory for the President and as a
victory for the Speaker to have gotten this gigantic, eleven
hundred page bill through, that's only half the battle. That's
maybe only a third of the battle, because the next

(33:52):
third is to get it through the Senate, and then
the final third is to actually go back and do
the things that were not done in this bill that
still needs to be done. All during the break halls.
See if there's any other thing in here that I
want to irritate you about