It’s Wednesday…
President Shitshow’s public schedule for…
| Wednesday, June 4 2025 |
| 9:00 AM In-Town Pool Call Time The White House In-Town Pool |
| 2:00 PM The President recieves (their typo not mine) his Intelligence Briefing Oval Office Closed Press |
| 3:00 PM The President signs Proclamations Oval Office Closed Press |
| 7:00 PM The President participates in a Summer Soirée South Lawn White House Press Pool |
Good morning/afternoon…
I had a semi-plan this morning, but things happened and that plan isn’t a thing.
This morning, the CBO released their estimate on what the BBB would do now that it’s passed the House.
CBO is out with its final cost estimate of the tax-and-spending bill passed by the House.
— Ben Casselman (@bencasselman) June 4, 2025
– Revenue ⬇️ by $3.7 trillion over 10 years
– Spending ⬇️ by $1.3 trillion
– Debt ⬆️ by $2.4 trillion over 10 years
– Uninsured pop. ⬆️ by 10.9 million in 2034
Full analysis:…
Show more =’s Full analysis: https://cbo.gov/publication/61461
Note that these estimates don't take into account the macroeconomic impacts of the policy changes (it is not "dynamic" in wonk parlance). So to the extent tax/spending cuts affect economic growth, that will also affect revenues. CBO is working on an analysis that estimates these…
— Ben Casselman (@bencasselman) June 4, 2025
Yesterday, Press barbie was asked about the old projection where the CBO said the deficit would increase by $3 trillion over the next 10 years.
She was asked if Senators Johnson and Paul were wrong that the spending bill would add to our deficit (it would) and then went on some random “rant” about how the CBO is partisan and that they support only Democratic candidates.
COLLINS: Republicans like Ron Johnson and Rand Paul say the bill will add to the deficit. Is the White House's position that those Republicans are blatantly wrong?
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) June 3, 2025
LEAVITT: It is … there hasn't been a single staffer in the entire CBO that has contributed to a Republican since… pic.twitter.com/taPONRZwo2
She earned herself a rare Washington Post fact-check as noted in the article they tend to not fact-check the spokespeople of the admin as they are usually are going to spin things and such.
The White House’s disingenuous claim about CBO’s political leanings https://t.co/KnCaigKYJI (gift link)
— Newshound (@NewsiesNeighbor) June 4, 2025
When we asked about this claim, a White House official defended it as “a verifiable fact” and she provided a link to Federal Election Commission records, showing 250 contributions since 2000 made by people who listed the CBO as their employer.
But there are also stupid facts — and this one is remarkably dumb.
The records show that, yes, all of the contributions were made to Democrats or Democrat-leaning causes, such as gay rights. But upon studying the list, we discovered that many of these donations were made by the same people. Going back to 2015, when Trump first entered the political scene, we counted 210 contributions, mostly $10, $20, or smaller — by just 16 people. Going all the way back to 2000 only added eight more people.
The Congressional Budget employs about 275 people, and of course there’s a lot of churn, so hundreds of people would have worked at the agency since 2015 — let alone 2000. This is scarcely a representative pool. What’s striking is how such a small percentage of CBO staff members made political contributions, presumably because most did not want their neutrality to be questioned.
We checked the background of each of the 16 people who made contributions since 2015. Many have moved on to other jobs, retired or even died. Most held relatively low-level positions, unlikely to be involved in a major budget analysis.
Moreover, only three people — two editors and an agricultural analyst — made donations in the 2024 cycle. The biggest donation was for Vice President Kamala Harris ($100), but the rest were donations under $30 to congressional candidates or to Harris ($25).
Washington Post. 06/04/2025.
This is the part that stuck out to me, because it’s always this way it seems with this admin…
She failed to mention that the CBO director, Phillip Swagel, served in the George W. Bush administration. Campaign records show he donated $1,000 to a Republican candidate for governor in 2014.
The CBO director is chosen by the House and Senate Budget Committees, under an informal arrangement in which the lead role alternates between the House and Senate Budget chairs. In 2019, he was chosen for a four-year term by then-Sen. Mike Enzi (R-Wyoming). He was reappointed in 2023, when he was recommended by Rep. Jodey Arrington (R-Texas).
The White House did not respond to questions about Swagel’s Republican background.
Washington Post. 06/04/2025.
Yesterday, as Tony said, was a real bad deal for the One, Big, Beautiful Bill Act of Bullshit.
Even Elon Musk attacked the stupid bill.
It will massively increase the already gigantic budget deficit to $2.5 trillion (!!!) and burden America citizens with crushingly unsustainable debt https://t.co/dHCj3pprJO
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 3, 2025
I didn’t pay much attention to the replies yesterday, but guys, omg, guys, this morning, as I expanded the tweet to place here, I saw this…
It’s almost like they’re tanking the economy on purpose🤔 so they can blame it all on Trump later.
— Desiree (@DesireeAmerica4) June 3, 2025
Run up the debt, crush the middle class, then point fingers.
We see the setup.
And Elon’s just pulling the curtain back
Two days ago…
May 31st…
But sure, it’s “they” that are trying to tank the economy to hurt TACO…
Speaking of the economy…
This morning ADP released their report on payroll numbers for May. President TACO was not a fan of the numbers released by ADP so of course he targets the Federal Reserve Chairman…
CNBC News: Private sector job creation slowed to a near-standstill in May, hitting its lowest level in more than two years as signs emerged of a weakening labor market, payrolls processing firm ADP reported Wednesday. Payrolls increased just 37,000 for the month, below the downwardly revised 60,000 in April and the Dow Jones forecast for 110,000. It was the lowest monthly job total from the ADP count since March 2023.
Notes: The jobs report is scheduled for release on Friday. The ADP and the jobs reports usually do not match. Both are just snap shots of our economy for the month of May.
Speaking of the terrible bill, MTG announced to the world via twitter that she didn’t read the bill before she voted “yes” on the bill and is now begging the Senate to get it out of the bill, she already voted yes for.
Full transparency, I did not know about this section on pages 278-279 of the OBBB that strips states of the right to make laws or regulate AI for 10 years.
— Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene🇺🇸 (@RepMTG) June 3, 2025
I am adamantly OPPOSED to this and it is a violation of state rights and I would have voted NO if I had known this was in… pic.twitter.com/bip3hztSGq
Show more =’s I am adamantly OPPOSED to this and it is a violation of state rights and I would have voted NO if I had known this was in there. We have no idea what AI will be capable of in the next 10 years and giving it free rein and tying states hands is potentially dangerous. This needs to be stripped out in the Senate. When the OBBB comes back to the House for approval after Senate changes, I will not vote for it with this in it. We should be reducing federal power and preserving state power. Not the other way around. Especially with rapidly developing AI that even the experts warn they have no idea what it may be capable of.
One more thing on the spending bill…
Analysis of the immigration provisions in the bill find that giving ICE billions of dollars and charging immigrants billions in fees would still net out to an increase in the budget deficit of $9 billion over 10 years. https://t.co/N8Go9nOteP pic.twitter.com/aeaidVu0hm
— Aaron Reichlin-Melnick (@ReichlinMelnick) June 4, 2025
This is an open thread
