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May 22, 2025 - Ron Paul Liberty Report
29:39
Prosperity Or Poverty House Hands Trump His 'Big Beautiful Bill'

The House narrowly approved President Trump's "big beautiful bill" earlier today, with two Republicans dissenting. Will this bill usher in a new era of prosperity...or will it drown the country in unmanageable debt?

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Time Text
Balancing the Budget Debate 00:06:39
Hello, everybody, and thank you for tuning in to the Liberty Report.
With us today, we have Daniel McAdams, our co-host.
Daniel, good to see you this morning.
Good morning, Dr. Paul.
How are you this morning?
Doing well.
Good.
Doing well.
Good.
Let's talk about balancing the budget.
Yes, beautiful.
They had a big vote last night.
Matter of fact, this morning.
This morning.
They stayed up late.
A couple of them must have fallen asleep or something.
All the Republicans didn't vote.
But anyway, that Trump won by one vote.
And I think it's more Trump than anything else that who wins or loses here.
But the American people didn't win as much as he would like to think, or a lot of people think.
And that's really the dilemma, trying to sort out the truth from fiction.
Because, you know, we could probably take maybe, I don't know how much.
It didn't work it out.
Maybe let's say a third of it is something we could support, you know, with tax reduction and a few things like that.
But that wasn't the opportunity.
It was always selling out.
Okay, we'll get you to do this.
And they're not even talking about getting the votes of the Democrats.
They're talking about just getting out of the wishy-washy Republicans and saying, okay, we can give you this and this.
And it's usually more spending.
So if we're looking for immediate reaction, the markets, they said, and the markets didn't go up.
You know, usually when they're on pins and needles and they get it passed, if it's worth anything, markets go up.
Markets went down, not gigantically, but they weren't overly thrilled with it.
And yet that meant the good stuff in the bill that we might have looked at was minor compared to the bad stuff that got passed.
So I think it would be fair for us to argue the case that this bill will not lead to any decrease in spending.
This will be taxes really aren't going to go down.
They're going to be adjusted, and that is good.
And interest rates, but interest rates are going to go up and the deficit is going to go up.
The debt is going to go up.
And then they are going to have, they put in a calculation.
You know, if we do, this would be a good thing that would have been required.
If this bill is passed, some people estimate this the debt, national debt's going to go up five, ten trillion dollars, and it won't disappear.
It won't be paid for next to your next go-around.
So therefore, you have to calculate the interest rates.
Well, the interest rates, even though Trump says they're too high, and nobody knows whether they're too high or too low because they're set by the Fed, but let's say the four and a half, five, matter of fact, it jumped over 5% now.
What's that?
That's an automatic thing.
They can't even discuss it and react to it.
Say, you know, said, look, if you pass this bill, this is a permanent increase you have no control over.
And it is so detrimental.
So I was pleased that there were at least two Republicans voted against it and reservations by others.
And some were struggling because they don't want to vote against the tax cut for some people.
So it's a dilemma.
But the whole thing is, if I had a dilemma like that, I would say, is this a basic movement toward less taxes and more freedom?
Even if it was less than perfect, I'd vote for it.
But I would say the net benefit of this bill is not good for the American taxpayer or for the concept of liberty.
Now, that's a tough, tough assessment.
Let's look at a couple of clips on it.
Now, this is, of course, Zero Hedge.
And it happened this morning, that first clip, after House victory, Trump tells Senate, get to work on Big Beautiful Bill.
And some people have said they want to have it ready for a final vote in the Senate by July 4th.
Remains to be seen.
Now, president Trump, of course he chimed in.
If you go to that next clip, he chimed in and said, well, I won't read the whole thing, you can, you can look it up for yourself.
But, dr Paul, this first part of it captured your attention.
He said, the One big, beautiful bill has passed the House OF Representatives.
This is arguably the most significant piece of legislation that will ever be signed in the history of our country.
Uh, what is your take on that?
Dr Paul?
You're smiling.
I'm a little more than smiling.
They get by with this kind of stuff, yeah and uh, it it's just so, it's so typical.
But that that's what a lot of people want to hear.
Yeah, because they, they've put their odds with the president and uh, he has some good ideas and he's wanting to cut the spending.
And they hear, they hear this demonstration, and then they, then they read this, well, you know, that's good, that makes people, a lot of people, feel good.
But uh, later on though when, when they have to start paying for the, the most significant bill ever, I would say, I would say some of the most significant things have been the uh the, the authority to go to war by voting money into going to war without a declaration of war or knowing, or you know, why we're there and how long we're going to be there.
I would think they're.
I mean, as far as significant goes, I think promoting Tomoto, our foreign policy uh deserves, you know, a greater uh, a greater amount of attention, because that's those are lasting, and just just think how much we've had to complain these last weeks about how many people are starving.
Yeah, you know, you know, we don't have troops out getting shot and killed every day.
We have them, but they don't tell us about the ones we were getting shot at.
But uh, this is, this is something that uh uh, the people aren't really able to see what's happening.
But uh, most significant bill I I, I don't know, I don't know, it's not, it's not worth trying to say oh no, it's in third place.
Yeah yeah, I would, I would.
If we're going to vote on, I would vote.
Probably one of the most significant bills in a negative sense was the Patriot Act.
Right in the patriot.
That was way, I think, more significant to the country in a negative and that's still ongoing and building on.
Yeah well, let's don't be negative at first.
Let's try to look on the bright side.
Now here's something from the uh hedge right up of some things that I think you would look at, all these things and you would really factor them in on your decision on how to vote, because some of these are very good.
New Tax Relief Measures 00:14:41
Uh, extension of Trump Era tax cuts and new relief such as exempting tips and overtime from taxation now, that sounds familiar.
No tax on tips um, that was yours, of course it initially.
That helped you through the presidential campaigns, made you very popular in Vegas and in that area.
They loved you over there.
And then Massey picked up uh that, uh that bill, if i'm not mistaken, after you left anyway.
Uh, the state and local tax deduction cap will be increased to 40 000, with phase outs for high earners.
That's a that's.
That's a kind of a complicated thing.
Cuts to safety net programs such as Medicaid food stamps alongside new work requirements starting in December.
I think on balance, you probably, I don't know, I don't know exactly how you look at that.
Rollbacks on clean energy tax credits, boosting fossil fuel incentives.
That would be on the positive.
Now, this would be half and half.
Major increases in military and border security spending.
I think you looked at that as a negative, Dr. Paul, because you're spending massively on the military when Trump says he wants to have a more non-interventionist foreign policy.
It doesn't make any sense.
New taxes targeting elite universities and immigrant remittances.
Well, it doesn't look very good.
The elimination of EV tax credits replaced by latest interest deductions on U.S.-built vehicle loans.
Elimination of those tax credits.
I don't know how you'd vote on that, Dr. Obama.
But anyway, this is a mixed bag.
But now here's the downside.
This is what Zero Hedge put out.
If you put that next clip up, and I'm sure you saw this, Dr. Paul, the big, beautiful bill will massively increase near-term debts and, according to their calculations, add $5 trillion in debt.
Now, you can see from that chart, you see a 92% increase in primary deficit and a 34% increase on interest paid on that.
I think that in and of itself is probably the chart to explain it, right, Dr. Paul?
Yeah, and you can see how this works where you see these good things in there, and it's just a trade-off.
It isn't really seriously dealing with the issue.
What I would like to see, which we never will, is if there are, let's say, there are 10 items in here, and it's five and five, five to raise taxes and five to decrease taxes, and spend a lot more money.
If you tend to be a half-decent conservative, you want to vote against some of this increase in funding.
But if you consider doing that, then you're canceled out.
You don't vote for the tax cuts.
And then the congressman is fearful because he wants to keep working for the people.
And they'll use it against me if I voted to raise lower taxes at the same time of the spending.
Well, you lowered my taxes or the member will come back.
You voted to raise these taxes.
And I don't like that.
But it's just a lot of demagoguery.
And I think it's a climactic sign to a country that's bankrupt and they're down to not really serious dealing with the matter.
It's who has the clout.
And I guess that goes on all the time.
Who has the clout?
And if there's controversy, they don't let it, you're not allowed to sort out.
And can I vote for this, but not this?
Oh, no.
It's a package.
Some people, I think, even rewrote the title to this.
They called it an ugly bill.
Well, you know, I don't generally like taxes, Dr. Paul, but if I had a magic wand, I would tax anyone who misuses the word liberty.
I probably would be rich.
But that's the segue to this next.
This is just a little comment, just almost for fun.
But if you put that next clip on, now this is Representative Nathaniel Moran from Texas.
He took Louis Gomert's old seat up there northeast of Dallas.
Louis Gomert, probably not a mean person, but not the brightest bulb.
Let's just leave it at that.
So here's his replacement.
Nathaniel Morin stated, quote, this bill is our opportunity to deliver on the promises we made.
At its core, this one big, beautiful bill is about more than dollars and cents.
It's about liberty.
This massive spending bill is about liberty.
And you know, the one word they ever use, another word they ever use is democracy.
Democracy is so sacred, but it was so questionable.
The founders didn't like the word and wouldn't even use it.
But whatever they can get away with, they're going to do it.
People should be alert.
Yeah, they should.
Well, let's.
I have a clip of Thomas Massey on the floor.
Now, we talked about it earlier this week.
Trump is very furious with Massey.
He wants him to lose.
Massey, of course, standing on principle, voting against the bill.
He made a very eloquent, in my opinion, speech on the floor.
And if we can queue up that video and put in our earpieces, we can listen.
Let's listen to a minute 20.
I'd like to play the whole thing, but maybe just a minute 23 of Thomas Massey on the floor explaining why this is not a beautiful bill.
It may be a big bill, but not a beautiful bill.
Let's listen to Thomas.
Recognize for 90 seconds.
Well, I'd love to stand here and tell the American people, we can cut your taxes and we can increase spending and everything's going to be just fine.
But I can't do that because I'm here to deliver a dose of reality.
This bill dramatically increases deficits in the near term, but promises our government will be fiscally responsible five years from now.
Where have we heard that before?
How do you bind a future Congress to these promises?
This bill is a debt bomb ticking.
Congress can do funny math, fantasy math, if it wants, but bond investors don't.
And this week, they sent us a message.
Moody's downgraded our credit rating, and the bond investors who buy our debt and finance our debt demanded higher interest rates on the 10-year note, the 20-year note, and the 30-year note.
What does this mean?
Very soon, the government will be paying $16,000 of interest, interest alone per U.S. family.
And what are we telling them?
Instead of taking care of that problem, we're going to give you a $1,600 tax break.
Under the taxing and spending levels in this bill, we're going to rack up, the authors say $20 trillion of new debt over the next 10 years.
I'm telling you, it's closer to $30 trillion of new debt in the next 10 years.
Mr. Speaker.
He says 20 to 30 trillion total racking up of new debt in the next 10 years.
Yeah.
One of the things that struck me is that he pointed out the whole philosophy of this bill is we've got to spend now and we'll pay later.
But then he made the absolutely accurate statement that this Congress cannot bind future Congresses.
You know, it's just, it's pretty basic, and you've seen it many times in the House.
So yeah, we'll cut it down the road.
You know, isn't it strange that some that are in the category of reasonably conservative will use him to attack him?
And you'd think they'd be embarrassed.
Or you'd think they would be quiet.
I think I always felt, I didn't felt like they were unfortunate, fairly attacking me.
I know they talked behind my back.
They didn't do that to me because I think the atmosphere was a little bit different.
But now you have a president attacking a guy that should be on his side if the cutting of spending is the goal of the majority or the executive branch.
And he also, Thomas Massey also pointed out the real bait and switch that they did.
He said they're going to add $16,000 in debt per person with this increase in debt.
That's the interest payments on this.
But they will give you $1,600 as a tax, as a tax credit, as a tax break, right?
So here's your $1,600, but we're going to take that $16,000 from you.
I think there was a suggestion the way I read it that they were going to make an adjustment in Social Security and whether they raise it or not, compromise.
Well, we can't get the bill passed.
Why don't we just pass a bill and send them the money, send them the cash, the cash for it, and not lower the taxes on Social Security income?
Yeah.
Well, here's part of it I know that you've been paying attention to, and that's how the bond market is responding.
If you can put that next clip up, this was posted on X by one of the accounts, Amit.
It's an investment company.
He said, and on the left, for those of us that are just listening, there's a picture of that spike in the 20-year Treasury bond, 5.104%.
It's up 0.106.
If you're wondering why stocks all just went down at once, we just had a horrible bond auction in the U.S. for our 20-year treasuries.
Because of the lack of bidders, it caused the 20-year bond yield to surge to 5.1%.
Credit market is screaming for help right now, to which Thomas Massey responded.
Now, that was yesterday.
Thomas Massey responded today.
If you go to that next clip, here's a sign of what's in store for the, if the big, beautiful bill passes, which it did now.
Congress can do fantasy math, but when investors put money on the line, the math gets real.
Bond markets are already demanding higher returns because Congress isn't serious.
The Fed no longer controls the rates.
And, you know, they already are discounting this and they have a ways to go.
They don't even know what the final deal is.
You know, we keep thinking, well, maybe some sanity will come in the Senate and clean this up a little bit, but maybe they'll make it a lot worse.
Yeah, they could, yeah.
And since it's the most important bill in the history of the country, and it's a beautiful bill, how are they going to take that argument on?
Well, a couple of reactions.
Justin Amash, old friend of ours, and I think genuinely a real conservative when it comes to spending.
Here's what he had to say.
And he's expressing his sympathies for Elon Musk.
And I think it's well placed.
Now, it's a little bit strong, but Amash said, with their big bloated scam, Trump and his GOP establishment friends have made a total mockery of Doge.
Well, I predicted this from the start.
It's disheartening.
It's still disheartening to see Elon Musk pour his time and energy into getting spending under control, only to be completely ignored.
Tough words, but I think well placed.
Now, the libertarian podcaster Clinton Russell also made a very good comment about Elon Musk.
I just wanted to put this up because it's a very astute comment as well.
The richest man in America, a guy who builds spaceships and robots and underground tunnels and brain chips and AI superintelligence, couldn't reform the government.
He couldn't cut anything.
In fact, we're on track to spend more this year than any year ever.
We're in trouble.
I think you probably would agree with Clint on this one.
No, I think that's right on target where the frustration comes from.
And it represents an empire that's dying and that it's bankrupt.
And the quality of people who want the money, there's not so much morality decision making on their part.
It's who can get the most, the fastest.
And like I think I mentioned yesterday, some of them even agree with us.
And that does that give them an incentive to try to stop it?
No, it gives them an incentive to get it faster because we want the money before it depreciates even more or that maybe we'll use it up.
Maybe it'll be difficult next year to pass a bill.
So some of this, it's weird, and yet they agree that this situation is not, you can't continue this type of thing.
Eventually, it hits a brick wall, and they're not ready to admit it.
The conversations come out and you hear it.
But boy, when you have somebody leading the charge, when you say this is the most wonderful thing we could ever do.
Thomas Massey, grateful that he's there.
Yeah.
Well, someone else we are grateful for now.
He was flying under the radar.
I hadn't noticed him.
We both said, who is he?
And this, go to that next clip.
His name is Warren Davidson, and he's a Republican from Ohio.
Not a flashy person because we haven't heard of him.
Now, he is the only other person besides Thomas Massey to vote against the bill from the Republican side.
This is a piece in Politico about him.
Go to that next clip.
Warren Davidson of Ohio was somewhat surprising.
A devout fiscal hawk.
He has not been among the House Republicans most vocal in pushing for changes in the sprawling party line bill.
But here's what he did, Dr. Paul.
He put out a post on X that was very astute.
And everything is in that graph, Dr. Paul.
The deficit effect of the big, beautiful bill.
In those first few years, you see that massive addition to the deficit, and then you see them paying it back.
And here's what Mr. Representative Davidson had to say: Well, I love many things in the bill.
Promising someone else will cut spending in the future does not cut spending.
Deficits do matter, and this bill grows them now.
The only Congress we can control is the one we're in.
Consequently, I cannot support this big deficit plan.
No.
To which Thomas Massey said, I agree with Warren Davidson.
If we were serious, we'd be cutting spending now instead of promising to cut it years from now.
That was the next clip that wasn't up.
But anyway, so very good statement.
Could this possibly be an example of passing the book?
Yeah, that's exactly.
Passing the Buck? 00:07:33
You know, worry about it later on.
But, you know, that's almost like a side, a political position that, you know, the average person, they're in big trouble today.
You know, they'll give you these statistics like 38% of the people don't have enough money except for their day-to-day payments.
If they have a check coming, if the check goes down or they miss a check, they have no money, no savings or anything.
But that's a big problem.
And I think it's the culture of our government and the way the things run.
But it's still ultimately that kind of thing should be the responsibility of the individual.
There's a lot of people into the millions, but it's still a minority of people who say, we know it's coming and we've been protecting ourselves from this and we want to take care of it.
And they do it both ways of how to personally protect, protect themselves.
But it's also a way of making sure that people know how you can do it.
But they do have a personal responsibility ultimately.
But you can't say, well, didn't they go to school and learn history and how come there's ups and downs?
Did they have a class in the Federal Reserve that says, we know these things are coming.
They're predictable.
We don't know when, but we know this kind of stuff is coming.
So this whole nonsense about saying that chart is really a telltale about how they make these plans.
And Say, well, we'll pay for this in three years from now.
Conditions might be 10 times worse.
You know, what if there's a panic on Wall Street?
See, I'm expecting that there'll be some type of a crisis bigger than what happened in 08.
And 08 was big.
That's when this 0% funding came out, 0% for years.
And they consider that well-managed monetary policy.
Yeah.
Well, as that great philosopher Wimpy said, I'll gladly pay Tuesday for a hamburger today.
Well, here's a little bit more about this representative from Ohio.
Put this next clip up.
It's interesting.
I mean, maybe it's just because we spent so much time in there.
I find this stuff interesting.
Go to the next one if you can, please.
This is from that profile from Politico.
Warren is, this is the representative from Ohio.
Warren is no stranger to being a rebel, even though even among the iconoclasts in his own party, he was ousted from the House Freedom Caucus late last year after backing John McGuire in a primary battle against Representative Bob Good of Virginia.
He first came to prominence.
This is interesting.
I didn't know this, Dr. Paul.
He first came to prominence by winning former Speaker John Boehner's House seat when he retired, and then immediately joining the Freedom Caucus that had long plagued Boehner.
So an interesting guy.
Now, here, I shouldn't say it this way necessarily, but here is an example of not having as much courage.
And this is a little closer to home.
And others who held out on the mega bill signaled they may come down on Davidson's side in the long run.
Here's a quote: Warren is a principal man, and history may bear out that Warren and Thomas were the wise men in this course, said Representative Chip Roy R. Texas, who always talks a good game about being a fiscal hobby.
You know, Chip has a pretty good reputation as it is right now.
You know, he wants to be seen like the others, but when politics gets in the way and they do this, yes, he's still better than a lot of the rest, and he's still going to argue the case for most of the time, be on our side.
But it's still, you can't regain that stature that a Thomas Massey has because that's earned.
And just because he has to, well, on this case, you know, such and such will happen.
And then you mix that in with people.
Many of these people that might slip a little aren't exactly peacenicks.
They're sort of drifting sometime to the neocon position, even though they qualify to be in the Freedom Caucus, you know.
Because I don't think that's a limit test for the Freedom Party Caucus.
I think our little committee that we had on Thursday lunchtime, we didn't do any question, but nobody came that was promoting money for the wars.
They knew better than that.
That's true.
I think maybe Chip Roy doesn't understand that he's expending so much political capital each time he makes these compromises for political reasons, whereas it's much easier for Thomas Massey because he simply votes on principle every single time.
It's like it was a little bit easier for you because you just had to say, is it constitutional?
No.
Well, I told people when people would ask me, I'd say, how do you put up with those lobbyists coming in?
I just, you know what?
I don't mind them at all.
I never see them.
Do they come in?
We had one, and he was lobbying for more money for the military.
And I won't say his name, but he was a retired rep, and you kicked him out of your office.
Oh, I wouldn't do that.
It's the first time I saw you angry.
He's in his office, too, you know.
It's the first time I saw you angry, and you shoot him out pretty quickly.
So anyway, I'm going to close out if you think we've covered this enough and put up that last clip if you can.
One thing that I have been following with enthusiasm is the rise of Bitcoin lately.
In these past few days, it's gone through the roof, hitting record highs.
I do want to remind our viewers, if you're sitting there on a pile of Bitcoin or even a tiny pile of Bitcoin, the good news is that these recent highs means that you will you'll give away less Bitcoin to help us with more dollars.
And here is a QR code that you can scan with your wallet, or you can go to ronpaulinstitute.org and make your donation.
You can give us a big bunch of Vitcoin right now and would make a huge difference in what we're trying to do.
And you'll still have a big bunch left in your wallet.
So we appreciate everyone who wants to support what we're doing to make the case for peace, liberty, and fiscal sanity.
Very good.
Dr. Paul.
I too would like to thank our viewers for tuning in.
It's very important to us to continue what we're trying to do.
And in spite of this bill of controversy, and we see it not quite as excitingly positive as others have seen it, there should be a lesson that comes from this.
And the quotes we got from Thomas Massey, I think, are right on target.
And we shouldn't kid ourselves because if you're 100% saying, I'm not ever going to tell the truth, I was always impressed, though, when I would level with college students who were very critical and they came from liberal backgrounds.
If you leveled with them, they were still very much open to listening.
And I think they sensed the difference between listening to the mishmash and also, I think, the message of less government and seeking peace and prosperity in a more freedom manner, that it's very open to the minds that have not been muddled, you know, as that is the case.
Buying and Selling Votes 00:00:44
Those who live in a system like this that we have in government, all the buying and selling of votes and desires that is manufactured rather quickly after members come to Congress.
They find out which committee do I have to be in?
How do I raise the money?
How do I get reelected?
And all of a sudden, once a controversial vote comes up, which is probably the first week they're there, oh, this is going against, I guess, what I said I believe in.
And he will be talked out of that rather quickly when it's described to him.
You want to ruin your career so quickly?
Anyway, I am delighted to report that as far as I'm concerned, freedom is popular.
I want to thank everybody for tuning in today to the Liberty Report.
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