Budget Groundhog Day!

Chris rips GOP senators for stalling Trump’s agenda—border security, energy, and tax cuts—predicting delays past July. He blasts Senate’s “cooling saucer” excuse and fears Musk’s DOGE efforts will flop as Republicans cling to big spending. www.watchdogonwallstreet.com

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Watchdog on Wall Street podcast explaining the news coming
out of the complex worlds of finance, economics, and politics
and the impact it we'll have on everyday Americans. Author,
investment banker, consumer advocate, analyst, and trader Chris Markowski.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
Queue up, Sonny and Chair. We have budget ground hog Day.
We told you, don't doubt me. Yep.

Speaker 3 (00:25):
GOP senators warn Trump agenda will be slowed by internal divisions.
Again and again, I blasted the Trump administration and the
stupidity of not forcing cuts. You want to strike while

(00:48):
the iron is hot. You don't want to give time
for these Republicans to plot behind the scenes to keep.

Speaker 2 (00:57):
The money flow going, because that's what we're doing.

Speaker 3 (01:00):
Senate Majority Leader Tom John Thune has cautioned GOP colleagues
that the Senate isn't likely to pass President Trump's border security,
energy and tax agenda until July at the earliest, and
some Republican senators are warning the bill could drag well

(01:22):
into the fall. They're going to drag it out as
long as they possibly can, dragging out as long as
they possibly can to make sure that they can put
in all of.

Speaker 2 (01:37):
Their elephant pork. Again, surprise, surprise.

Speaker 3 (01:44):
I am just as critical, if not more critical of
Republicans than I am Democrats. Republicans will bullshit you about
a physical responsibility right right. Sure, they're saying the package
will take months longer. That has been publicly discussed due
to the sheer size of Trump's ambitious agenda and internal

(02:08):
Republican divisions over array of policy questions. Uh huh.

Speaker 2 (02:15):
Again, the House wants to get this done.

Speaker 3 (02:18):
They want to have something done by Easter, before Easter,
and Thune thinks that that's just not going to happen.

Speaker 2 (02:26):
He says they don't have their ducks in a row.

Speaker 3 (02:31):
Johnson said back in January that House Republican leaders were
targeting April for our final passage of a budget reconciliation package.
It would extend the expiring twenty seventeen tax cuts and
address border security, energy reform, and defense spending.

Speaker 2 (02:46):
I put an aggressive.

Speaker 3 (02:47):
Timetable to get a vote on the big one, the
one big beautiful bill, the reconciliation package, on the House
floor before Easter. If we do that, you're pushing it
over to the Senate for them to act upon. It's
conceivable you could get this to the President's desk by
the end of April or early May, certainly before Memorial Day.

(03:07):
This is Mike Johnson, Speaker of House.

Speaker 4 (03:11):
Republicans Senators, as they sit back in off fancy leather
chairs drinking their scotch naw, that timeline.

Speaker 5 (03:24):
Is totally unrealistic. We are we are the saucer. We
are the Senate. We are the saucer that cools the
legislation coming from the House. We are better than the House.
We have six year terms. We're senators. We are the
most important fraternity in the world.

Speaker 2 (03:43):
Anyway.

Speaker 3 (03:45):
Yep, they're saying that it's just unrealistic given internal pot
party divisions on tax policy, defense spending, and proposed cuts
to entitlement spending. Thun has been having various different they
call him small all group discussions, and Republicans are all
over the map. There's no consensus. But again, I think

(04:10):
what Republicans are kind of hoping for. I think they're
kind of hoping for maybe the President's popularity to wane
to some degree and then they're going to be able to,
you know, push what they want, which is more of
the same, more of the same, more big time government spending.

Speaker 2 (04:29):
I still't doubt me on this again.

Speaker 3 (04:34):
My my, My big fear is is and I feel
bad for Musk, I really do.

Speaker 2 (04:41):
I feel bad for the guy.

Speaker 3 (04:42):
He's doing all of this work, he's uh you know,
his cars are being attacked. All of this nonsense has
taken place, and I got a I got a funny
feeling that most of what he's done, what he's going
to do, is going to be all.

Speaker 2 (04:54):
For not.

Speaker 3 (04:57):
That's gonna be It's gonna be for nothing, okay, And
they're gonna flip that switch and Washington's backing business open,
open for business. Yep, it's gonna all open up once again,
and uh you know, all of the elites will have
their jobs and the money flows will go back to Washington,

(05:18):
d C.

Speaker 2 (05:19):
Again. I don't like being this pessimistic.

Speaker 3 (05:22):
But uh yeah, I've been around a while, and I've
watched the Republicans do the same crap again and again
and again and same playbook.

Speaker 2 (05:32):
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