Today’s Difficult Budget Negotiations Will Be Far More Difficult as Shelves Go Bare
There’s a detail that often gets missed from slobbering transcription of DOGE propaganda. When Elon Musk first said DOGE would save $150 billion, he said that money would be saved in FY26 — that is, the year starting in October, the year for which Republicans are pushing through a budget now.
That’s important background to the expected release today of Trump’s topline proposed budget, which cuts … $163 billion from discretionary spending, largely consisting of the things that Elon has been putting through a woodchipper.
The fiscal 2026 budget proposal, which the White House is planning to release on Friday, is a largely symbolic wish list that lays out the president’s spending and political priorities. Congress, which Republicans control by narrow majorities in both chambers, will spend months debating which elements of the proposed plan should be turned into law.
The budget plan will propose $557 billion in nondefense discretionary spending, officials said. It would reduce nondefense discretionary spending by $163 billion, the officials said. The administration said that represents a 22.6% cut from projected spending in fiscal 2025, which ends Sept. 30. It wasn’t clear how the administration calculated that percentage.
[snip]
According to administration officials, Trump’s proposed budget cuts include:
- Eliminating offices at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency
- Defunding “environmental justice” initiatives at the EPA
- Closing USAID and reallocating grant funding
- Eliminating a federal program that provides grants to nonprofits that help people who face housing discrimination
- Defunding the National Endowment for Democracy, a nonprofit that supports democratic institutions around the world
- Cutting what it calls “wasteful and woke FEMA grant programs”
- Closing the U.S. Institute of Peace, a congressionally funded think tank that seeks to prevent global conflict
- Refocusing the National Institutes of Health on research that aligns with Trump’s “Make America Healthy Again” agenda
- Eliminating a $315 million grant program for preschool development that the administration contends pushed DEI initiatives
- Cutting $77 million in grant funding for teacher preparation and professional development the administration says pushed “Critical Race Theory” and DEI initiatives
- Eliminating the Minority Business Development Agency, which promotes minority-owned businesses
- Eliminating the Community Development Financial Institutions Fund, which promotes economic growth in poor communities
- Cutting $5.2 billion from the National Science Foundation
- Canceling $15 billion in funding in the infrastructure law signed by former President Joe Biden for renewable energy technology
- Eliminating U.S. investments in global funds to help developing countries deal with the effects of climate change
- Eliminating EPA research grants to nongovernmental organizations
- Cutting $2.5 billion from the Energy Department’s renewable energy program
- Cutting $80 million from renewable energy programs at the Interior Department
- Eliminating grants at NOAA, which forecasts weather and monitors oceanic and atmospheric conditions, among other things
If these cuts aren’t made, it’s not clear whether DOGE will have saved anything, even while incurring hundreds of billion in costs.
There’s already some discomfort between Congress and the Administration about this process.
Tom Cole and other budget Chairs were supposed to meet — and provide advance feedback — both about the prospective budget and the rescissions (the money not spent in this current year for which Trump needs Congress’ retroactive sanction). But Russ Vought rescheduled the meeting to do so from Thursday morning to Thursday afternoon, after members go home for the week.
House Appropriations Chair Tom Cole vented Thursday about the White House’s seemingly inattentive approach to its relations with congressional funders, saying that President Donald Trump is not the “commander” of Congress and that top Republicans need the White House to quickly share their funding plans.
The unusually tart comments from Cole (R-Okla.) came after White House budget director Russ Vought canceled a planned Thursday morning meeting with the House’s GOP funding leaders because of a “presidential request,” Cole said.
While a White House official said that was “fake news” and that the meeting was rescheduled for later Thursday, Cole noted that most lawmakers would already be headed back home.
“It’s not going to be happening with all the cardinals later today, because we’re not going to be here later today,” Cole said of the dozen chairs of the House’s appropriations panels.
Those leaders are increasingly vexed that the White House budget office has not shared details of the funding cuts it is already undertaking at federal agencies and its plans for the fiscal year that starts in October.
“Look, no president — and administrations — don’t get to dictate what’s going to happen here,” Cole told reporters Thursday morning. “Congress is not the Army. And the president is the president, but not the commander in chief of Congress.”
Having advance influence on the rescissions package is particularly important because there are some things that DOGE cut (and more specifically, Pete Marocco cut while Marco Rubio claimed he had not) that Republicans don’t want to sanction, starting with PEPFAR.
The administration initially floated sending $9.3 billion of DOGE cuts to the Hill, which would encompass DOGE’s elimination of the main agency providing foreign aid, the U.S. Agency for International Development, as well as zeroing out some money for public broadcasting. The cuts would take just 51 votes in the Senate to pass, which means lawmakers would not need to worry about a Democratic filibuster to make the cuts permanent, under a provision in the 1974 budget law that allows requests for rescinded funding to be expedited. Musk has claimed $160 billion in savings so far.
This week, however, lawmakers began to raise concerns about even that smaller effort, with Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) telling colleagues she would have trouble supporting cuts to PEPFAR, an effort to combat HIV/AIDS abroad that other foreign-policy minded senators also support.
“I think it depends what’s in it precisely,” Collins said of the package’s chances of passing in the Senate. “For example, the $8.3 billion in foreign aid cuts, if that includes the women’s global health initiative as is rumored, if it cuts PEPFAR as it may, I don’t see those passing.”
[snip]
Rep. Tom Cole (R-Oklahoma), the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, said passing DOGE cuts could be difficult even in the Republican-controlled Congress, given the chamber’s tiny majority. He’s asked the administration to review the package before it is submitted to ensure the cuts have political support.
“Do you really want to roll out and have a failure?” Cole asked. “I think if they put it out there, they need to succeed at it.”
The futility of this process — having someone like Elon cut a bunch of things, in hopes Congress would take the politically risky vote to sanction it — has people like Rand Paul and Tom Massie mocking the whole process, to say nothing of Mike Johnson’s servitude to Trump.
“One of the most surreal moments this year was at the State of the Union, when my colleagues all got up and clapped because DOGE found all of these cuts and all this wasteful spending,” Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, who often wears an electronic national debt-tracker clipped to his suit, told NOTUS on Thursday. “It was all stuff they funded, and all stuff they were going to fund again in the CR. And they were just, like, clapping.”
“They didn’t realize it was actually an insult and an indictment of their own performance,” Massie said. “Not only do we write the checks, we’re responsible for the oversight after we do write the checks. And clearly we failed.”
[snip]
Massie, for his part, thinks there are plenty of institutional changes that could help Congress do more work to monitor spending, instead of relying on an outside panel like DOGE. One tweak he’d like to see would allow members to hire contractors to do short-term oversight projects instead of relying only on full-time staff.
But, he said, getting serious about spending would also “take a speaker who wants to breathe life back into this institution.”
“Mike Johnson’s stated goal is to carry water for Trump,” Massie complained. “That’s not going to get it done.”
But it may be bigger than that.
If Congress doesn’t approve of Trump’s rescissions — the gutting of foreign aid that is popular with Republicans by boys who know nothing about it — it will make Trump’s legal justification for having made these cuts before a score of judges around the country far more fraught. In the same period Congress will be debating these rescissions, judges will be considering whether the cuts were legal.
This may be Russ Vought’s goal, to treat Congress as an appendage. But in theory, at least, it should create a Constitutional crisis. And this time, the courts will have a say.
This is one of many reasons why I think it so important that Trump’s self-imposed tariff disaster will start causing excruciating pain before Congress works through retroactively codifying the things he has been doing.
Right now, it looks increasingly likely that Trump’s tariff emergency will pre-empt — and likely dramatically disrupt — both the effort to codify his agenda and his bid to get SCOTUS to neuter Congress entirely.
[snip]
The shit is going to start hitting the tariff-inflated fan in the next few weeks. We’re beginning to see spikes in certain items (including toilet plunger parts). We’re beginning to see increasingly large layoffs tied to the expect drop in shipping. In the coming weeks, we expect to see expanding shortages.
Unless something dramatic changes, the US will experience a COVID-like crisis without the COVID, and with no appetite or excuse to start throwing money at people to stave off further crisis.
[snip]
[M]aybe Trump will get a deal and convince people who can’t buy fans and toilet plungers — to say nothing about small businesses who will be filing for bankruptcy and farmers watching their crops go to waste — that his tariffs aren’t a disaster. Maybe he will make a humiliating reversal on tariffs, one of the few things in which Trump actually believes. Maybe that will happen. Republican members of Congress, in particular, have a near-infinite ability to allow themselves to buy rank bullshit and that may well happen here.
Or, maybe, the economy will be in meltdown by May, June, July, when the Administration needs near-total unity from Congressional Republicans to codify Trump’s policies into law.
How’s that going to work out?
[snip]
What I am certain of, though, is that the wavering unanimity we’re seeing as everyone rubbernecks at the car crash of Trump’s trade policy may dissolve if Trump continues to willfully destroy the US economy.
Tom Cole is already pissy at Russ Vought, and pissy especially because Vought has snubbed Congress’ power of the purse. Susan Collins, his counterpart on appropriations in the Senate, is already warning Trump things may not work out like he imagines.
That’s this week, when the impact of Trump’s tariff emergency is mostly anxiety and initial lost jobs.
Next week, when the Chairs who had a meeting with Vought that he unilaterally rescheduled will return to work, is when the shit hits the tariff-inflated fan.
Some of the last cargo ships carrying Chinese goods without crippling tariffs are currently drifting into US ports. Come next week, though, that will change.
Cargo on ships from China loaded after April 9 will carry with them the 145% tariff President Donald Trump slapped on goods from that nation last month. Next week, those goods will arrive, but there will be fewer ships at sea and they will be carrying less cargo. For many importers, it is too expensive to do business with China.
[snip]
“Starting next week is when we begin to see the arrivals off of that (tariff) announcement on April 2,” said Gene Seroka, executive director of the Port of Los Angeles, where nearly half of the business comes from China. “Cargo coming into Los Angeles will be down 35% compared for a year ago.”
Again, I’m not saying this will grow Republicans a spine (though this negotiation was always going to be difficult given the majorities). I’m not saying this will change the outcome.
I am saying that the already-testy negotiating environment is going to get far testier as shelves start to go bare.
Surprised any congressmen voicing shock at trump treating congress as if they’re irrelevant, when that’s exactly what they’ve been since the start of this regime.
Mission Accomplished!
but but but the leopards were only supposed to eat the faces of those other ‘non-important’ branches of the gov’t!
Especially Vought and Musk / Doge have destroyed so many people’s lives, with glee, I might add and….Meanwhile the projected cost of Trump’s birthday parade is $92M.
Is that for this upcoming birthday, drhester? (For my sanity, I tune out Trump’s most North-Korean tendencies.) Because he’s only going to be 79–can’t they wait for the big 8-0 next year during American Pageant Time? Or is he secretly afraid he might not make it?
You point out the mind-numbing absurdity of all their “savings.” First, they’re not savings at all, because they’re spending more money somewhere else. Second, whatever they claim to save is somehow going to end up *their* pockets, not ours.
I’m with you on the net change, rather than the ballyhooed so-called ‘savings’. Most of us in the real world have checking and savings accounts which do not recognize GOP ‘mathiness’. When the money isn’t there you’ll get overdraft consequences.
That’s why I opined in an earlier post that the X-date (debt limit reached) will come much sooner than the GOP or Convict-1 / Krasnov thinks. The DOGE minions don’t do any homework before making their changes, and therefore miss the unavoidable cost consequences as well as believing unrealistic revenue projections (i.e. how much tariffs will bring in). The fact they’ve already been forced to modify their claims makes me wonder how many other ‘modifications’ need to be made.
When the debt limit is breached, what happens as our first public indicator? Do the US Government checks (like IRS refunds) start bouncing causing knock-on issues for almost all Americans? Do contract partners stop extending credit, meaning needed items will not be bought (with more consequences for the delay)? Will foreclosures for unpaid debts occur (i.e. a repossession of a tank or fighter jet)? Does Convict-1 / Krasnov issue another EO to print more money in order to paper over the problem (quietly, of course) which will risk hyperinflation (think Zimbabwe or Weimar Germany)?
I would guess Convict-1 / Krasnov will try to hide the problem by printing more money.
“what happens”?
To quote him, shithole country.
“I would guess Convict-1 / Krasnov will try to hide the problem by printing more money.”
Asked and answered: $TRUMP
(And he gets a commission on every transaction.)
Its not farfetched. Elliott Capital Management bought a lot of junk Argentine debt in past years and attempted to repossess Argentine military assets in foreign ports. We have a lot of collateral in placed not protected by American courts
The official reason for the celebration(s) is the U.S. Army’s 250th “birthday” which also happens to fall on June 14th. Some level of planning has been moving along for quite a while — probably before even the election.
As for the costs, those may be spread across Army installations worldwide on a variety of activities. A big parade in DC is a logistics challenge for transportation and lodging — even just getting troops and vehicles to a starting point on the day of the event.
On the other hand, never underestimate the ability of Captain Bonespurs to leverage an event for his own aggrandizement.
Convict-1 / Krasnov wants to be a war hero so, so badly (remember when he said in the first administration that he ‘always wanted one of these’ when a vet gave him their Purple Heart). BTW, the Purple Heart has a name engraved on it (I have my uncle’s from Malmedy).
He also was so, so jealous that Macron gets a military parade for Bastille Day and he didn’t get one ever. He wants the rewards without the risks.
The warning of destruction to streets, etc rolling tanks has come up before. Thinly referenced in this recent article. Which I might point out is from PBS so there’s that – is that irony?
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/army-parade-plans-for-trumps-birthday-call-for-6600-soldiers-150-vehicles-and-50-helicopters-ap-reports
“…
Bowser at the time said she didn’t know if the event was being “characterized as a military parade” but added that tanks rolling through the city’s streets “would not be good.”
“If military tanks were used, they should be accompanied with many millions of dollars to repair the roads,” she said.
In 2018, the Pentagon appeared to agree. A memo from the defense secretary’s staff said plans for the parade — at that time — would include only wheeled vehicles and no tanks to minimize damage to local infrastructure.
…”
For what it’s worth, the likely reason he’s doing it this year is that June will be off-limits next year given the prep that will be needed for the alleged all-out “bash” he claims he will throw next year to honor 250 years.
The thought of tanks rolling through the streets makes me think it’s a dress rehearsal for something else.
Something I haven’t seen too much talk about is the debt ceiling, which we’ll hit soon, though no one quite knows when. What happens if Congress realizes that a default would be catastrophic, but Trump–who has a bunch of bankruptcies under his belt–doesn’t really care if we blow through it?
Right now they’re scheduled to raise it with reconciliation — that’s what is driving the July 4 deadline. It’s the only way right wingers can do it w/o Dems (and therefore w/o giving Dems leverage).
But if they can’t get reconciliation done by then, then they’re going to need Dems’ help.
Yes, Trump may not care. But he’s already playing chicken with dollar as reserve currency.
In the past, Trump has suggested that defaulting on the national debt ‘could be maybe nothing’ or ‘a bad week or a bad day’:
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-plays-down-consequences-us-default-could-be-maybe-nothing-2023-05-11/
So no biggie ~/
When he defaulted in his bankruptcies, the banks bailed him out. I guess he expects they’ll do the same for a bankrupt US.
I posted my comment above before seeing yours but I’ll add a couple more notes here.
Remember there is a significant bloc in the House MAGA caucus that does not fear a default (indeed, they’re giddy with the opportunity to force antediluvian social engineering) so while the plan might be reconciliation, I don’t see a wide path for maneuver. I wonder how we’ll find out in public, because I have no doubt that Convict-1 / Krasnov will not accept any responsibility or essentially bankrupting the country. Recall how desperate he was to get Johnson to ram through the debt ceiling rise post-election, so he could blame Biden. Convict-1 / Krasnov and his minions will still blame Biden but no sentient American will buy it, even Faux News has some discouraging words already.
Remember that the debt limit is a Congressional creation of relatively recent vintage (it was created in 1917 under the Second Liberty Bond Act) and has been managed under the Public Debt Acts of 1939 and 1941 with regular rises in the ceiling by Congress. Before that the bills were paid by Congress as they came in, and the Constitution itself guarantees the full faith and credit of the United States. Joe Biden suspended the debt ceiling by signing the 2023 Fiscal Responsibility Act which expired 31 DEC 2024. This was to prevent the GOP from holding America hostage at the time.
What counts as ‘debt’ subject to the ceiling has also been tweaked over the years (sometimes for political expediency) so if Convict-1 / Krasnov doesn’t print more money, I would expect an EO that blocks out his preferred spending from the debt ceiling (i.e. the crypto reserve).
Moskowitz Criticizes Wasteful GOP Bill: ‘I Decided to DOGE Your Budget’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6nkRrkz2TQI
Did you see trump is requesting 1 trillion in next budget for national security? Current level is under 200 billion.
Now that’s certainly being fiscally responsible.
Hmm, why do we need more national security? Countries love the U.S. more than ever. Tourism here is at record high.
/s
Did you notice Moskowitz’s tie? Hilarious!
$0 for FEMA emergency aid and 300 M$ for golf trips according to Dan Goldman. All you need to know about Convict-1 / Krasnov’s priorities, and it gets worse from there.
re $0 for FEMA, does that mean Red states are taking back their right to pay for their hurricanes?
Matt Foley says:
May 2, 2025 at 2:06 pm
“re $0 for FEMA, does that mean Red states are taking back their right to pay for their hurricanes?”
They’re going to find out that they aren’t specially privileged. (CA can’t get enough for the fires in January, but that’s not a big surprise, since The Felon Guy doesn’t understand that city fire systems aren’t intended for that kind of wildfire.)
Never a more perfect example of karma https://www.msnbc.com/top-stories/latest/sarah-huckabee-sanders-fema-trump-arkansas-rcna203546
@ P J Evanssays: May 2, 2025 at 2:08 pm
@ Gacyclistsays: May 2, 2025 at 2:17 pm
Trump admin denied WA State funds for the bomb cyclone damage last fall 2024. Everyone is on their own with damage to their homes now that Trump is around. Do you think it will be that way if a hurricane destroys Mara-Largo? Heck no! Us taxpayers will pay for the damage to the “billionaire’s” home.
Red staters will rue the day they voted for Trump.
Please don’t paint “red staters” with one brush.
Doing so erases enormous diversity. Thank you.
Yes there is diversity in red states – unfortunately for the diverse groups in these states, there is not enough citizens to make themselves a diverse majority as seen in blue states where the MAJORITY for Democrat.
The states are called “red states” because the overwhelmingly MAJORITY vote Republican which is against the interests of diverse groups as evident in the current GOP/P25 and former Tea Party agenda.
Red state comment was mostly related to FEMA.
Red states voted for Trump’s “global warming is a hoax” agenda.
Insurers may face $145 billion in catastrophe losses in 2025
https://www.inquirer.com/business/insurance-catastrophe-losses-climate-population-premiums-20250430.html
GOP’s “skinny” budget:
“…$0 for FEMA’s emergency management funding, yet provides $300M to pay for Trump’s golf trips…”
https://x.com/RepDanGoldman/status/1917974633371836689
=========
Elections have consequences
“…the pain of Trump’s self-imposed tariff catastrophe will start to hit as negotiations go forward…”
I just came from a Corporate meeting. An Executive stated the very same thing: The pain these tariffs will cause are self-imposed. The Executive tried very carefully not say what’s-his-chop’s name who lives in the White House. The tariffs are severely impacting our company’s ability to bring value to our Members. But we are doing it as evident by our stock price and Membership renewal rate. The stockholders voting 98% to keep DEI initiatives for our Company in February 2025 helped too.
If Trump doesn’t create new hells, he can’t proclaim himself the only person in the universe who can save us from them. Meanwhile, the chaos hides what he does, exhausts his opponents, and allows him to make more money during this presidency than he’s made his entire life.
Hopefully…someday…he can take his pile of loot to the rusty freighter anchored in the Bermuda Triangle where he’ll be imprisoned for life and count it over and over but not be able to spend it, because Starlink won’t be available there.
St. Helena’s available last I checked
Marcy Reposted this THREAD on Bluesky, and I learned a lot from it:
https://bsky.app/profile/jacobbogage.bsky.social/post/3lo75fmdurc2n
May 2, 2025 at 11:31 AM
“There is a lot to parse through in Trump’s budget request that just came out.
But here are the highlights:
…
– State Dept is getting hacked to bits. Mind-boggling.”
My Brazilian spouse and I submitted our residential application to the State Department on Valentine’s Day this year. Each day, I am less hopeful than the day before that it will happend under this orange fascist asinine pig and his incompetent bigoted administration.
In 12 days I will be in Portugal on vaca. I’ve never been there. I will be looking at how it would be to live in Portugal. At least Portugal will be a compromise living situation for me and my Brazlian spouse if things come to that with Brazil being a former colony of Portugal and they have a special relationship.
I have a Brazilian musician friend (also a university professor) here in So. Cal who is a long-time green card holder but his green card expired last year, so he had to apply for renewal. It took 10 months but he finally got it, and just in time, because shortly after he got the new green card, he was in a situation where he was required to show it. Lucky him.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/trump-signs-executive-order-directing-federal-funding-cuts-to-pbs-and-npr
Public media comes at an annual cost of $535 million to taxpayers, or approximately $1.60 per taxpayer.
https://www.inquirer.com/politics/nation/whyy-npr-trump-administration-funding-cuts-20250430.html
$1.60 per taxpayer. Don’t spend it all in one place.
Semi-OT but indicative of Convict-1 / Krasnov’s ongoing stupidity: he wants to rename May 8 into World War II Victory Day and November 11 into World War I Victory Day, with the usual claims that only America did anything useful in these two conflicts. There are some problems with his theories, of course.
Vets like me don’t like the latter idea, not least because it insults us as a group. It should also be noted that the Battle of Toulgas began on Armistice Day. In north Russia, during the Allied intervention to ‘strangle the Bolsheviks in the crib’ as Churchill put it. The 339th Infantry (mainly MI boys, including 1LT Cudahy of the meatpacking family) fought off repeated Bolshevik attacks over three days but prevailed in below-zero conditions under Captain Boyd and 1LT Dennis. The Royal Scots sent a company in support as well. Toulgas is a point several hundred miles below (upstream of) Archangel, and the Bolos used gunboats for artillery (the Dvina river was frozen downstream so no Allied boats were there) in competition with the Canadian artillery team expertly running a four-pounder. 1LT Cudahy was so seared by this experience that he named his daughter Toulgas. The Americans fought and died until 1919 in North Russia (the French and British were there too), but had a somewhat easier time in Vladivostok.
It should also be noted that for most of the world, November 11 is Remembrance Day (the names vary by nation) for the servicemembers who died in action, similar to how we sanctify Memorial Day. Perhaps that is the point for Convict-1 / Krasnov, to enrage our erstwhile allies into deep seated disdain and make it harder for the next D to fix things later.
As for May 8, it’s a Soviet holiday and FWIW many Europeans see that as Victory Day as well. However, America wasn’t done on May 8, 1945. We had mopping up in the island hopping campaign, the Burma campaign still had another battle to go, the China war continued, the Potsdam Conference had to be done, and the kamikazes were still active among other issues. It would appear that those sacrifices were wasted effort according to Convict-1 / Krasnov.
The Felon Guy confuses V-E Day with the end of the war. Two of my uncles were in Tokyo Harbor for V-J day.
(My mother’s father was in WW1, in France, in the Ardennes, I think. He caught three machine-gun bullets in his legs, and was lying between the lines. A German soldier came out looting bodies, and he played dead while his razor was stolen.)
Yes, and even more than that – referring to whatever TF humans were doing between Manchuria/China/Spain/Poland/Pearl Harbor and 1945 as “the war” is amazingly ethnocentric. Just from the Soviet perspective, they weren’t at war with Japan until August 8, three months after “Victory Day”. At no point during their Great Patriotic War did the Soviets want to fight Germany and minions on their western front and Japan on their eastern front simultaneously.
So even talking about two Victory Days in the US that sort of matches the Soviet Victory Day demonstrates Trump-level lack of curiosity at its finest.
I can’t believe he wants to give workers more days off.
I heard on NPR that about 1/3 of the federal work force is Black, so there is an inherently disproportionate impact from the DOGE slash and burn. Massive impact on the Black middle class in and around DC.
Strictly a coincidence, I’m sure…
In DC and every large city.
Including municipal and state government employees if they do not get adequate funding.
punaise, what is the grandbaby update ?
Seeing Steven Miller spewing bile yesterday, I am sure you are correct and it is a mere coincidence.
Yo, Molly! Grandchild #2 (a boy) arrived a week ago! Everybody is doing well…
It’s a strange and unsettling world into which to bring children, but literally – life goes on.
Congratulations grand-père, so happy for you. He is additional motivation for us to clean this mess up.
Merci, Molly!
Sweet, Punaise. Grandbabies rock.
@ Mary McCurnin
Cheers to that!
Woodrow Wilson actually did the same — demoted hundreds of Black federal workers. Many of these people were part of a solid Black middle class in DC; and many many homes were foreclosed after all the RIFs and demotions. It’s not uncommon to talk with a native DCer and hear a story about how they lost the house they once had.
When the shelves go bare MAGA will find that many nondescript items are actually kind of important. For example, toilet flappers.
Electronics of all kinds. (While they modified the tariffs on finished products, the didn’t do that for components.) Clothing. Tools. Kitchen utensils, including drink containers.
* Clothing
* Shoes
* Kitchen utensils
* Small appliances
* TVs
* Vacuums
* Produce
* Proteins
* Large household appliances
* Lumber
* Aluminum
* Steel
* Cork for wine bottles
Some pharmaceuticals. (I have potassium pills, and the label says China and Germany.)
And let’s not forget about glass bottles. We bought millions from China.
OT perhaps: I could buy 750 ml bottles delivered to S.F. from China for less $ than same ware from Oakland, California
Lightbulbs, for another example. Sure, Sylvania makes some in the US, but the chips for the LEDs aren’t made here.
The lights are literally going to go out because of Trump’s stupidity.
I saw somewhere that batteries could be a problem.
My family laughed at me that I was hanging on to a case of toilet paper I bought during the Covid lockdown. One less thing I have to add to the supply list now. HA
Toilet paper is made in the US. The problem is that Koch may be one of the producers.
source: https://www.investopedia.com/insights/companies-owned-koch-brothers/
Across multiple articles commenters have been talking about “Wag the Dog” moments. Is it possible that this is the wag? Instability in access to basic needs goods has been linked to riots in the past. And the Soviets (the Russians to a lesser extent because the mafia is a strange kind of capitalism) were notorious for using “unfortunate policy-driven” shortages to inflict harm internally. Did his minions pick up yet another idea from Putin?
Hitler.
Why would a NATO member launch an economic war against other NATO members? Cui bono? O_o
Rayne, re lightbulbs: Ikea is already sold out of all the LEDs.
And CA banned compact fluorescents.
You can get rechargeable light bulbs.
Yup, but they still contain components made overseas — China, particularly, if LED.
The lamp I’m sitting under has a diffuser that’s too small for standard bulbs, including LEDs. I’ll have to modify it. (PITA)
Trump declares War on Christmas!
President Donald Trump on Wednesday acknowledged that his tariffs could result in fewer and costlier products in the United States, saying American kids might “have two dolls instead of 30 dolls.”
https://apnews.com/article/trump-economy-tariffs-gdp-7494825851dcef94ec81475124f9326f
But you’ll be able to say ‘Happy Christmas’ when disappointing your kids rather than ‘Happy Holidays’.
So that’s all good. /s
Kids getting 30 dolls for Christmas?!? Most kids are NOT named Ivanka Trump for pete’s sake. Sheesh!
My sis got a Barbie doll. One. In the mid-60s, when a 5-dollar toy was expensive.
I’m really confused. Since January, we in the DoD have been doing “budget drills”, slashing 8% to 25% from our budget “top-lines”. Just today, I worked on an effort to justify the existence of programs by linking them to the Interim National Security Strategy and other administration guidance. The Deputy SecDef is supposed to evaluate , by line item, EVERY DoD program. As you can guess, this guidance is reflected in the simple EIGHT bullet points of DoD budget increase.
Not including the DEI bullshit and the military pay raise, DoD has been doing all but TWO of them for decades. Those two are “golden dome” and the border.
While we have been planning to cut our budget, now somewhere in DoD there will be Monopoly Money. If Congress adds this funding, I doubt DoD could obligate and expend it fast enough to not run afoul of the arcane rules of how fast you must expend your money so that it won’t be “marked” by congress in subsequent years as “under executed”. For example, border operations would be “Military Personnel” and “Operations and Maintenance” funding. MilPers is no problem, but most O&M funding must be expended within one to two years. But “golden dome” funding is riskier, being Procurement and Research funding. Procurement funding (except shipbuilding) needs to be expended within five years. Research funding needs to be “obligated” (i.e. on contract) within two years and spent in five. Since DoD only minimally does its own research, it is REALLY hard to spend research funding at a consistent rate. There are only so many companies with experts on the myriad of technical subjects.
And guess who are experts at this arcane dance? The same government civilians that will soon be discarded. There are relatively few military persons who work in this field.
I assume that the oligarchs will find a way to siphon-off these funds. Are you listening Elon?
Of course he’s listening, he’s one of the siphoners.
I like that word, “siphoner”
OT: U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell just nullified the EO in the Perkins Coie LLP extortion case.
https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.278290/gov.uscourts.dcd.278290.184.0.pdf
Some of the judges are with us.
Hot-chacha !! Now that is a nice start to the weekend !
Here’s the accompanying memorandum, which I’m still reviewing.
https://ecf.dcd.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/show_public_doc?2025cv0716-185
Howell starts out with the famous Shakespeare line about killing the lawyers,
and William Shakespeare, Bard of the BlueSky adds:
https://bsky.app/profile/shakespeare.lol/post/3lo7vv3srgk2k
May 2, 2025 at 6:49 PM
Marcy has a great THREAD about it here:
https://bsky.app/profile/emptywheel.bsky.social/post/3lo7uhhtxi22u
May 2, 2025 at 6:23 PM
And additional thoughts here [broken link because I added it during edit period]:
https[:]//bsky[.]app/profile/emptywheel.bsky.social/post/3loar5omohk2u
May 3, 2025 at 2:57 AM
So, how are those steel tariffs working out? Glad you asked.
Started:
In anticipation of the new tariffs, shares of steel and aluminum producers climbed Monday. Nucor rose 5.6%, Cleveland-Cliffs jumped 17.9% and Alcoa ticked up 2.2%.
https://apnews.com/article/trump-tariffs-steel-aluminum-jobs-mexico-canada-89815eeb12ff28b83f5b855ca44f1820
Going:
The Cleveland-Cliffs Inc. plant in Steelton will be closing, according to LaRue Hess, president of Steelworkers Union Local 1688. A company spokesperson confirmed plans to close the facility.
According to Hess, the facility will “idle” by June 30, 2025, and between 500-550 union workers will lose their jobs.
https://www.abc27.com/local-news/cleveland-cliffs-closing-steelton-facility-union-leader-says/
This will take awhile for the full impact of the tariffs to be known. There are too many unknowns and we don’t know how much international trade is involved with domestic production. Let’s not forget, there is still a 10% universal tariff with only those carveout exceptions decided upon. All Trump did was raise the cost of everything, by how much in the end remains to be seen. Once prices go up, they don’t drop unless we get into a severe recession.
“ A company spokesperson says the closure is not related to recent tariffs, but is in response to insufficient demand and pricing in the railroad industry.
According to Cleveland-Cliffs, the Steelton facility is one of only three rail producers in the United States, providing “convenient and economical access to customers through an excellent network of highways and railroads, as well as easy access to several deep water ports.””
Rails are kind of important, if you ship by rail…
And just about everything shipped long-distance does go by rail.
It sounds like this isn’t a recent development. They mention deep water port access, couple this with decreased demand and lower prices could mean they are getting clobbered on the international markets. That plant was already on the way out.
Back in 2003 Bush used tariffs to save the steel industry, they ended up raising their end prices to the same level. They did this because they couldn’t produce enough steel with the aging facilities to handle the extra orders and instead of investing to be more competitive, they just pocketed the extra revenue without working for it.