Friday, 16-April-2025
If you listen to Donald Trump, you will hear him repeat his keep-’em-happy phrases, “We are winning!”
DON’T BELIEVE IT!! The only ones who are ‘winning’ are corrupt plutocrats and our adversaries. Ordinary Americans are worried. Bond holders are worried.
In today’s news, reality hits. We are in a recession a of Trump’s own making. His tariffs and assaults on government hit home.
The proposed tax cuts for the rich are warmed over, debunked Supply Side nonsense from the 1980’s, when Reagan started us on the road to unsustainable debt. The ratings agencies have something to say about the proposed Trump party budget and taxes.
Way to go, Dear Leader!
So this is what Make America Great Again means??
- Chaotic and incompetent governance
- Disregard for the Constitution and rule of law
- Punishing and harassing enemies (politicians, universities, media)
- Extension of tax cuts for the wealthy
- Endless lies
- …and the list goes on and on
From the Financial Times today…
The US has been stripped of his top-notch triple-a credit rating by Moody’s on concerns about rising levels of government debt.
The agency on Friday afternoon cut its credit rating on the US to Aa1 form Aaa .. Fitch and S&P, the other main agencies, and previously removed the US’s pristine rating.
From Moody’s
“If the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act is extended, which is our base case, it will add around $4 trillion to the federal fiscal primary (excluding interest payments) deficit over the next decade. As a result, we expect federal deficits to widen, reaching nearly 9% of GDP by 2035, up from 6.4% in 2024, driven mainly by increased interest payments on debt, rising entitlement spending and relatively low revenue generation.” – Moody’s
“Relatively low revenue generation” means …the rich and corporations not paying their fair share! DOGE is not going to fix this. The ‘big, beautiful tax bill’, which is a laundry list of bad policy and gifts to special interest, is not going fix this —it will add to the debt. The markets have spoken: they don’t like what they see in America and in Trump’s ‘big, beautiful budget’.
The truth is: Republicans have be WRONG about deficits for 45 years!
The Republican Party (once the party of fiscal responsibility) sold the public supply side / deficit snake oil, which created an uber-rich class with the public picking up obligations for future payments on debt for irresponsible, unneeded tax cuts. It is probably the biggest political con in American history.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent dismissed the downgrade, saying it reflected conditions already in the market (although Moody’s explicitly said it was concerned about the potential passage of the Republicans’ Big, Beautiful Bill). House speaker Mike Johnson said that the credit downgrade just proved the need for the measure with its “historic spending cuts” to pass (although Moody’s named that bill as its reason for the downgrade).
What has driven rising deficits are the George W. Bush and Donald Trump tax cuts, which had added $8 trillion and $1.7 trillion, respectively, to the debt by the end of the 2023 fiscal year.
But rather than permit those tax cuts to expire— or even to roll them back— the Republicans continue to insist Americans are overtaxed.
In fact, the U.S. is far below the average of the 37 other nations in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, an intergovernmental forum of democracies with market economies, in its tax levies. According to a report by the Center for American Progress in 2023, if the U.S. taxed at the average OECD level, over ten years it would have an additional $26 trillion in revenue. If the U.S. taxed at the average of European Union nations, it would have an additional $36 trillion.
Discretionary spending has fallen more than 40% in the past 50 years as a percentage of gross domestic product, from 11% to 6.3%.
At some point, deficits really DO matter. We · are · there !
Markets have spoken.
Canada, Denmark (with Greenland as its territory) and 8 other nations all have AAA credit ratings. America is now second tier.
Maybe THAT is why Trump is so interested in Canada and Greenland?? Maybe ‘winning’ is paying for good assets with debt, and when it doesn’t work out, declaring bankruptcy …or in this case defaulting on US Debt. Rating agencies see a Donald Trump patter. Markets see a pattern.
A wag on the internet said mockingly of the self-styled ‘King of Debt’, “Everything he touches goes bankrupt…“
The lies will just keep coming, cover for ineptitude, mistakes and self-dealing.
In the 2024 campaign, Trump insisted that foreign countries would pay for further tax cuts through tariffs, no matter how often economists said that tariffs are passed on to consumers.
…you mean, just like Mexico paid for the border wall??? One of the big lies of the 2016 campaign, for which Trump is never held accountable.
DO NOT BELIEVE THE LIES FROM TRUMP AND HIS STOOGES IN CONGRESS AND IN THE ADMINISTRATION. MARKETS ARE TELLING US THE HARD TRUTH.
WE · ARE · NOT · ‘WINNING’ !!
We will pay more to service our debt in the future because of diminished confidence in ability to meet out obligations. Trump’s recklessness and stupidity have reduced confidence in America and sent a message to the markets that America is not serious about managing its fiscal affairs (as well as its political affairs). Executive orders to other nations and rating agencies demanding their restore our credit rating will not change spooked bond markets requiring a higher premium for American debt. Markets don’t take orders from Trump –even though American corporations seem to…
The responsibility for the failing economy and debt downgrade rests with MAGAts and MAGA voters, who will never admit their responsibility for electing chaos, corruption and despotism …and failure.
We had a choice in 2024, perhaps not the choice we wanted, but we had a choice between responsible government and vengeful mayhem. Still incredible to me that we chose Trump and his party –when we KNEW what we were getting. The destructive consequences of that crazy choice have just begun.
If only our dogs could save us…
…but they can’t.
So, if live in a state/district that has a MAGA party representative, act up and make your voice heard. Tell them to stop the “big beautiful budget bill”. It is the ultimate con from the ultimate con man and his party.
…and remember, while Trump and his party lie, markets do not. We are not winning. And the ‘big beautiful budget bill’, like Trump himself, is a loser.
