“I’m a fiscal hawk,” Trump announced to the press on May 21, U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson in tow, with typical Trumpian humbuggery. “I’m a bigger fiscal hawk. There’s nobody like me as a fiscal hawk.” Of course, only the last part of that statement was true. Truly, nobody who is anything like Trump could be labeled a fiscal hawk. And the video shows even the ordinarily stoic Speaker Johnson couldn’t help but crack an open mouth laugh at Trump’s bullshitting.

Everyone who has even bothered to look at Trump’s “beautiful” budget bill knows it is the “Big Government Bill,” as it creates the largest government budget in the history of the world, and the biggest deficit package over any four-year presidential term in American history.

The CBO projects an additional half trillion dollar deficit per year under the Trump plan for the next five years, on top of the $1.9 trillion annual deficits the CBO predicts the federal government would have for the next five years under the legacy Joe Biden spending levels. And keep in mind that the CBO has a history of underestimating the deficit levels, meaning it’s likely an additional $10 trillion will be added to the national debt under this bill before the bullshitter-in-chief leaves office. The ten-year omnibus budget reconciliation bill would add $20 trillion to the national debt over ten years, $3-5 trillion (depending on the estimate you believe) more than the deficit path set by the Biden administration, and it would tack on $350 billion in higher spending more than the Biden era budgets, including $144 billion more on military spending. If Trump chooses to call big government “beautiful,” then he at least helps create clarity on his own point-of-view.

And Trump calling big government “beautiful” certainly explains his ongoing grudge against Kentucky Republican Congressman Thomas Massie. “I don’t think Thomas Massie understands government. I think he’s a grandstander,” Trump continued, projecting his own gaslighting tactics onto the only congressman in Washington genuinely seeking smaller government. “I think he should be voted out of office.” Trump’s calls earlier this year for a primary challenge to Massie have generated several primary opponents, but also an influx of donations to Massie from actual fiscal hawks.

Massie has proven to be the only man in Washington unwilling to go along with limitless spending through a string of all-in-one budgetary pass-it-or-shut-the-government-down omnibus bills, the path of the zombie Congress for more than thirty years. Massie would love to be able to vote for an actual cut in federal government spending, but the Republican leadership has steadfastly refused to even once give him a chance to vote on one in his decade-long stint in Congress.

Massie expressed disdain for the budgetary process in a congressional hearing last September, explaining:

“Why do we always spend at least as much as we did last year? And why do we never cut spending? It’s because Democrats want to grow the welfare state and Republicans want to grow the Military-Industrial Complex. And we’re eventually going to get together, and they’re both going to go up. I guaran-damn-tee it.”

And Trump’s “big government” bill has unfortunately made Massie’s prophecy real, even if Massie manfully opposed it all the way. The Democrats have long been the party of tax and spend, but the Republicans are in the process of once again validating their long-held title as “the party of borrow and spend.”

The Republicans are selling as “beautiful” this package of spending increases because of some tax cuts within it. But Republicans offering working people a tax cut is like that broke friend of yours with the credit card maxed out offering to buy you lunch. You know that after him being “surprised” he doesn’t have any money, and a bit of haggling, you’re going to pay for both your lunch and his lunch in the end. Sure, he’ll say “I’ll pay you back,” but you know you’re not going to get that money back. And the way Congress has chosen to finance that “free lunch” tax cut is to pile more debt onto taxpayers and, likely, also more inflation. The budgetary death-spiral championed by Trump and the Republicans in Congress sure helps explain America’s sinking credit rating.

Moody’s became the last of the three big ratings agencies to downgrade the U.S. federal government’s once perfect credit rating from Aaa to Aa1 on May 16. Standard & Poors had downgraded the U.S. government in 2011 and Fitch downgraded the country in 2023.

Moreover, Moody’s followed up its recent U.S. government downgrade with a downgrade for several too-big-to-fail U.S. banks on May 19, arguing “the U.S. Government’s rating indicates that its ability to support the US’s global systemically important banks (G-SIBs) has weakened.” Did you get that? They don’t think the U.S. government has the ability to do another 2008-level financial bailout, just at the time housing unaffordability has surpassed the 2008 levels.

What could go wrong?

America is going the way of Japan, which is now down to an “A” rating from all the big three ratings agencies. Japan’s national debt on a GDP basis is 255%, more than double the American rate of 121%. Japan still has a little way to go before its debt becomes junk bond, as it began stepping down into the abyss a decade earlier than the United States. The next ratings step downward from A for Japan is BBB, which is the last investment-grade rating above junk bond status.

However, Japan has almost double the national savings rate of the United States (30% vs. 17%), so the U.S. fall after Japan’s upcoming Greek-style financial collapse will be quicker and more precipitous. Japan is America’s financial canary in the coal mine.

The U.S. federal government is heading down such an unsustainable path that even the International Monetary Fund, counselors to third-world countries whose economies are basket-cases, has taken note. And why shouldn’t they, since the U.S. has higher budget deficits than every developed nation and higher than the third world average? If anyone knows a basket-case economy, it’s the IMF.

But Trump asserts becoming a basket-case is “beautiful,” and a lot of Team MAGA will agree, having not bothered to look at the numbers. Team MAGA is a lot like Democrats in that they’re all about team and not at all about math, or reality. A lot of MAGA will likely without irony take solace in the belief that at least Trump is controlling immigration, preventing America from becoming a third-world basket-case economy.