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Trump's Budget Bill puts Project 2025 into Law. It's a Tyrant's dream come true.
If Trump's budget bill passes, his executive orders effectively become the law of the land. And, just like that, we will have undone the American experiment and given all the power to one man.
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Social media is not real life. Nothing made that point more clearly last week than the Musk-Trump breakup. Even the New York Times thought it was worth putting their nasty Twitter posts in print — as if their meanness, their pettiness, their corruption, greed and ambition, were newly discovered secrets.
Let’s talk about reality. The reconciliation bill, you know the “big beautiful” one, the one House members passed but now claim not to have read, the one Senators object to but might yet vote for — it is project 2025 enacted into law. From zeroing out legal services, to gutting Medicaid while extending tax breaks for billionaires, from unwarranted new defense spending to selling off our national parks, this bill makes Americans poorer, less safe, less healthy, less free, and far more in debt.
It is also a tyrant’s dream come true. The bill enjoins the judicial branch from ever holding the administration in contempt when it ignores judicial orders and decisions. Congress, the only other branch of government that could restrain the President, has already passed laws neutering itself. That happened when they said a calendar day was not a day in the last CR — effectively giving Trump permanent emergency powers.
Trump and Musk share the idea that American government is theirs to use for their personal enrichment. But there can, after all, only ever be one king. During his rise to power in Russia, Vladimir Putin needed the oligarchs to help corrupt the government and Russian society so he could gain control. And as he did, he found less need for those same Oligarchs. They ended up either in prison, or falling from high rise windows, or in planes that exploded in the sky. The same dynamic, though in a less violent manner, is playing out here. Musk made a lot of money by empowering Trump, but now that Trump is empowered, he no longer needs Musk.
Trump may not need oligarchic support, but he is not fully and forever lodged in the White House. Right now, he is free to use our government to solicit bribes from American companies and foreign governments. Sherry Redstone and Paramount, Jeff Bezos and Amazon, sure look like the former. The Qatari jet and all that cash pouring into Trump crypto wallets sure likes the latter. Right now, Trump can manipulate the stock market for his own benefit. His on-again-off-again tariffs make no sense as policy, but sure do create opportunities for investors in the know. He is even free now to arrest law makers and judges who annoy him. We have seen plenty of evidence he has done all these things.
Still, we Americans are not yet powerless.
Mr. Trump is immune from prosecution for crimes he commits as President. That’s what the Supreme Court said last year. (The Court also gutted the Voting Rights Act and shut the door on gerrymandering cases.) Yet while Trump may be immune, his administration is not. At least not yet. But if the reconciliation bill becomes law the administration will be free from any law whatsoever, because the courts will have no power to enforce any rulings through contempt proceedings.
Those executive orders? Right now, they are memos to the executive branch, directing them to take particular actions. Should the Senate pass this legislation those executive orders will effectively become the law of the land. And, just like that, we will have undone the American experiment and given all the power to rule to one man.
That’s bad. But the bill does more than that. It also tells us a bit about what that man would do with such power. He would:
End scientific research as we know it
Close universities like Harvard
Use the power to direct the IRS to take away the non-profit status of news organizations whose investigations embarrass him
Make sure that no one elected to Congress is seated in the Congress if they were elected in a state that refused to submit to his executive orders drastically limiting voter registration.
We will have meaningless elections and a largely compliant media, just as they do in Russia.
An Open Letter to Elon | ||||||
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The richest man in the world holds enormous power. Is he smart enough to wield it against Donald Trump? | ||||||
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And that brings us back to the Trump-Musk story. It is the old and sordid tale of dictators and oligarchs. It is not, as the media seems to think, the story of what’s in the Epstein files, or of whether Musk’s rockets will pick up astronauts from the international space station as required by contract. It is not the story of which of these hateful men is telling the truth and which is lying. It is not even about their nasty pettiness.
The existence of their fight has a deeper meaning. It says the cares and concerns of ordinary Americans are no longer relevant to the governing of our country. It says the important question is who will be our ruler.
I, for one, demand we answer another question before we ever consider that one. Why should anyone be ruled? What sense does it ever make to hand over all that power to one person. Aren’t we better off in a society where we work out our differences in legislative assembly and only empower an executive to carry out the laws we consent to?
Americans answered that question nearly 250 years ago. We said no kings. We said all are created equal. Since then, Americans fought and died to create, protect, and expand the world where that answer is our reality.
We are, after all, endowed with certain inalienable rights. And nothing a craven Congress, a corrupt executive branch, and a corporate-captured court can do can sever us from those rights. But they can create an illegitimate government that violates them.
We must not allow that. This big bill must be defeated.
Edwin Eisendrath hosts "The Big Picture" on WCPT820 AM/ Heartland Signal. He's the former CEO of the Chicago Sun-Times, a long-time management consultant, a former Chicago Alderman, HUD Regional Administrator and teacher in Chicago's public schools. You can follow him on BlueSky at eisendrath.net and Substack at “It’s the Democracy, Stupid.” Read the original column here.
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