Copy of AFF Sentinel V22 #27-Economics and Politics After Tariff Beginnings
- Steve Dittmer
- Jul 22
- 4 min read
Reconciliation Resolution Hits Hiccups
Steve Dittmer | AFF Sentinel
Colorado Springs, CO
Originally sent to subscribers 04/08/25
An interesting point Mark Levin made recently: much of the doom and gloom coming in quantity in the media and in politics is not from farmers and ranchers and blue collar workers, etc. It is from the ruling elite, the people at the top end of finance and politics. The Wall Street Journal Tuesday is filled with crisis and end-of-the-world recrimination against President Trump. Four of the five stories on the front page were about the “disaster” from tariffs. Four opinion pieces inside were about tariffs but only one -- from Art Laffer and Steve Moore -- was not a Trump basher.
Trump didn’t promise short term that this was going to be easy. But he’s smart to be doing it early in his term, in case he only has two years of both Houses of Congress.
But a few days is not the proper perspective to judge a major upheaval in the world trading system. The left and far left have nothing else to glom onto right now, so this is made to order for them. We will see if this is a very long ride or not.
In only a couple days, some 70 countries have said, “Whoa, let’s talk about this.” Who knows what the final outcomes and the final scores will be. But Trump is right in saying none of them would be coming hat in hand to the White House without his tariff moves. The EU has said they would remove their tariffs on industrial goods.
The amount of investment promised to the Trump Administration in the U.S. by various countries and companies has reportedly topped $7 trillion now.
The main concern is China, which instead of coming to Washington has chosen to escalate things. They first retaliated with tariffs equal to America’s and then missed a deadline to withdraw them, triggering tariffs totaling over 100 percent. They have a lot at stake. The beef industry has some, too.
But China might not be judging the American people correctly. Yes, we have gotten used to cheaper goods from China in our discount stores. But it may be that our people understand the stakes and will not immediately scream at Trump. Apple has the biggest problem. They will be shifting some production to India but training people elsewhere to assemble something as complicated as a cell phone doesn’t happen overnight.
Iran said they would not do direct talks with Trump, only use intermediaries. There is some disagreement as to whether Saturday’s talks are direct or indirect. But nuclear talks are happening now.
We’ve mentioned before that there are multiple steps (eight) in crafting and passing a reconciliation bill. The Senate passed a resolution (framework) and the House has passed a resolution (framework), including tax issues in their bill that the Senate did not have in theirs.
The next step should be a House resolution accepting the general framework of the Senate resolution. House Speaker Michael Johnson had hoped to schedule a vote Tuesday but the votes were not there, so it has been put off until Wednesday.
The problem is that the Senate resolution only included a minimal spending cut figure of $4 billion, billion with a “b.” The House called for a minimum of $1.5 trillion (with a “t”) and a target of $2 trillion. That the Senate put in such a puny number has a bunch of House Republicans furious. We haven’t heard anyone explain why the Senate version has such a low number, “unserious” one House member termed it.
The key is that the final bill doesn’t have to be locked into the Senate number for spending cuts. But holding up the vote now means nothing happens until after the two-week Easter break. Congress cannot afford to waste two weeks when tax issues alone make a reconciliation bill on a short schedule critical. Funding for border enforcement, deregulation provisions and energy permitting are waiting, too.
If it’s not going to lock them into unshakeable spending cut targets now, they need to pass the resolution so they can begin working out program budget numbers right away. There is some discussion among House Republicans to begin their version of details now anyway.
Sean Hannity had a group interview with eight senators Tuesday night. Senate Majority Leader John Thune of South Dakota gets it. If they don’t at least get a continuation of the current policy since 2017, that will mean over $4 trillion of increased taxes in 2026. Of that amount, 2.6 trillion will fall on taxpayers with income of less than $400,000/year and $600 billion on small business.
Pollster John McLaughlin surveyed taxpayers a few weeks ago and found 49 percent of the electorate did not even know what would happen if the current policy established in 2017 was not extended or continued.
The tax cuts in 2017 saved the average family $4,000-6,000. They certainly can’t deal with giving up that kind of money after Biden’s four years of inflation.
Congress must get this done now. Timing is of the essence.
This is a “moment in time,” Sen. Katie Boyd Britt (R-AL) termed it.
Hannity had earlier pointed out that Republicans have had the presidency and both houses of Congress only four times in the last 100 years.
One side note. We read that scammers are using AI to apply for jobs. They are sending video responses to people hiring that are not the real people. Especially targeted are IT jobs that fall into the AI scammers round house. Imagine hiring an IT crook into your computer system. Be aware.
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