A $4.5 trillion Tax Cut?

Denied!

I had guessed that the Republicans would try for a $3 trillion tax cut, but it seems the income tax liabilities that Trump and Musk now face are 50% more than I estimated.

They need a $4.5 trillion tax cut, while our current deficit is currently $36 trillion.

During bill argument debate in the House, Democrats introduced a reasonable amendment to preclude tax cuts for those making $1 billion or over per year. Those arguments went until 4:30 am February 21, 2025. That reasonable amendment, and the entire tax bill itself was killed. Know why the amendment was killed? Myself, I have to guess.

Could it be that oligarchs would not benefit from that amendment, especially the two most important oligarchs, Trump and Musk? Denying amendment passage, Republicans in the House do not represent their constituents, obliviously. Ultimately, the House passed a bill and sent it on to the Senate.

What can we do? Recognize immediately that DOGE is falsifying data. Write our House representatives to demand responsible testimony and data. The Democrat or even Republican Congresspeople can take action by calling the DOGE crooks to testify under oath.

I demand that. I see what Congress has right now. That is:

1. criminal fraudulent misrepresentations, and

2. falsified data.

They are flying blind. Half know it. Those will decline taking off their blinders. They need the cover of plausible deniability. They do that trick all the time. Those, we can call crooks. We can smoke the crooks out fast. Where is Adam Schiff? We must mandate:

1. testimony under oath, and

2. certified cost and pricing data.

After all, it is a claim. Therefore—before we allow any vote for their self-serving tax cut—we the people must demand that we have TRUTHFUL data. Think about that. It is a very reasonable request because DOGE claims will be a basis of a $4.5 trillion tax-cut bill.

It is financially irresponsible to base a tax cut on untruthful testimony and bogus data.

Under oath and in a certified claim submittal, the Administration will back off the fraudulent and bogus line items, or they will become people in jail. I detail other similar fraud in my post in Frebruary.

The Bulwark’s Morning Shot from describes the debacle with our nuclear bomb employees.

In addition to abject stupidity, I think the Administration’s firings are unlawful, and they obviously do not have any sense of the downstream pollution and destruction they are causing. I call that grossly irresponsible. I call it blatant stupidity

Redress. I think all job holders will be reinstated with back pay. I think the harmed will be awarded damages. I think the cost to the Treasury will be 3 times the (bogus) savings claimed of $35 billion. I expect to see us pay out $105 billion for their line item’s $35 billion claim.

So if you want to know if we can muster the numbers to hold a protest rally at a fork in the road, go ahead. Ask me. And if you want to know if we will fight all night at a fork in the road, in the streets or in the Pentagon against armed troops for a just cause, go ahead. Ask me.

The Kent State students in 1970 sent the tear gas right back. That was the high water mark of nonviolent student protest, but not of the National Guard’s.

The Ohio National Guard’s 28 troops fired 67 rounds at college protestors over 13 seconds. That was unnecessary force escalation, uncalled for and wrong. Four students were killed. Nine were wounded, one of which was paralyzed for life. Two other students were killed by police at a similar Jackson State protest in 1970.

Those troops fired on unarmed students. An outrage. We can expect similar events to unfold.

I write this article because I see unfold fork in the road scenarios I have watched in my life. We will escalate today’s conflict as much as we must to achieve the good ends we must reach as a nation.

It is rather simple, and it will be as dire as it must be to meet the occasion. Another Substack author of “Quiet Part Loud”, Juan April aka “Ragecognito”, had this to say in his post Rules of Engagement:

“I realize that my tone might seem simplistic, but my goal is to help you adjust your mindset so you can navigate these complex times. Throughout my experiences in combat, politics, and life, I’ve learned two fundamental principles:

• Control what you can while preparing for what you can’t.

• Meet aggression with equal or greater aggression.”

Comes a time.

I see now illogical steps the Trump administration is taking. This one would be Musk. They fired on February 12 some 20 immigration judges without explanation, a union official informed us on February 13. (Immigration courts are backlogged with more than 3.7 million cases.)

Making room in the budget for a large tax cut undergirds Trump and Musk’s “plan”. They both face huge tax bills on bitcoin gains.

I hear people exclaim how unfair this is for those kicked into unemployment. As I mentioned before, two things come to mind:

• Narcissists only care about “me”: numero uno.

• Psychopaths have no empathy: nada.

That means Trump and Musk only care about the Treasury $ dollars that they can make you think is unspent or saved. They do not care if the savings data are accurate. They are Cons. They need to get their tax cut. That is the only part their “plan” has.

Now get this. Trump and Musk will say that have succeeded in eliminating $450 billion a year by their actions. It is more likely they will realize $10 billion in cuts, because courts are erasing and stopping their efforts. Trump and Musk will lie about their exploits. They need to sway Congress to their ends. Trump and Musk actually don’t care if, in a tax cut, we run up another $4.5 trillion in deficits.

Neither of them can correlate their problem with their greed. Letting 20 judges go is a drop in their mind-bending drug-pill box. They are deluded, if you think about it.

Where’s the Line? So where do you draw the line at the fork in the road, and pull the plug on civil obedience. There has to be a line. We must cross the Rubicon, people. The Rubicon is the line. Prepare yourselves.

There has to be some occasion that flips the switch. Flipping the switch from civil to uncivil needs to have a preface of occasion, something that manifests crossing the Rubicon.

I see us changing normal behavior into strong, dissent behavior. The manifest for this fork in the road must carry a weight commensurate to the occasion. That is it in a nutshell.

When the Administration disobeys the courts, we as a people must cross the Rubicon.

We take to the streets. That is my thought. Do we burn all Teslas. Do we ransack all Musk and Trump properties? Depends on the manifest for the occasion, doesn’t it? Definitely, I see taking to the streets.

If we allow the courts to be disobeyed, we have no democracy. It is all over then. United WE stand in crossing the Rubicon in our rubber dinghies. We have no other redress.

The courts are our last bastion of stopping illegal Executive and Legislative Branch Constitutional abuse. Personally, disobeying the courts is my manifest to take to the streets. I hope that is your manifest also. It seems unimaginable to me that you would need something else.

Today Attorney Steven Vladeck brought up my earlier contention that the use of the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 is blatantly illegal. No one has contested that yet, and the courts full well know that it is illegal use. To that end, Vladeck said

“But then there are the “merits” questions. We’re going through all of this rigmarole because no court has yet to rule on whether the government even has the power to use the Alien Enemy Act this way in the first place. As folks know, I think there are very strong arguments that it doesn’t—and a court so holding would provide a substantive impediment to any of the procedural games the government is trying to play. In that sense, it seems a little weird that we’re going through all of this effort to require process before the government can use a substantive authority it probably doesn’t have. Maybe the reason the justices are focusing on the procedures is because they’re not sure what they think of the merits. But the sooner the merits are resolved, it seems to me, the better.”

I think we can take some advice from Andrew Jackson. Do not fire until you see the whites of their eyes. That says to me, I need my manifest in hand. Do not put your life on the line by peaking too early. They disobey the courts first. Then we paddle ourselves across the Rubicon.

Trump already asked, “Can we shoot them in the legs?”), but the military refused. The next fork in the road, no one knows what will unfold. Grab a flashlight, we are in the dark now.

Know where we are. Know what fork in the road is coming. We have serious work to do to regurgitate ourselves and overcome the coup attempt.