OPINION:
President Trump and Elon Musk are mending fences. It wasn’t much of a surprise when the two strong-willed billionaires clashed a week ago, but the source of the split was a bit puzzling. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which passed the House and is now being considered in the Senate, triggered the Tesla founder.
“I regret some of my posts about Mr. Trump last week. They went too far,” Mr. Musk conceded on X.
The former head of the Department of Government Efficiency was salty about the big spending levels that established Uncle Sam’s overall funding targets. He is not wrong; the proposal allows for outlays far beyond revenue. Yet, that’s half of the story. Republican leaders have always planned to return with rescissions and impoundment to pare back the extravagance.
Mr. Musk puts too much faith in Congressional Budget Office scoring. The agency’s accountants assigned a $3.5 trillion “cost” for keeping Mr. Trump’s tax cuts, which have been in place since 2017. That makes sense only in the upside-down world of budgetary smoke-and-mirrors.
Ditching tax relief to “buy” more spending cuts won’t free America from its $36 trillion debt trap. Our economy must grow, and that can’t happen when Uncle Sam is siphoning so much money out of the private sector through business and personal taxes.
The nation would be better off if the One Big Beautiful Bill Act directed taxpayer dollars only toward worthwhile projects. It would be great if it forced the Internal Revenue Service to collect no more than necessary to fund services that couldn’t be better fulfilled at the state and local levels.
Such legislation succeeds only in a fantasy universe. At least four Republican senators have hinted that they may vote against the big bill because they want to restore the Green New Deal pork: electric vehicle tax credits and solar panel subsidies. “Let’s be smart about these,” Sen. Lisa Murkowski, Alaska Republican, told CNN. “If we’re going to be doing phaseouts, let’s make sure they’re reasonable phaseouts. I’m going to be advocating for that.”
Ms. Murkowski is always a hard sell when voting for anything remotely conservative. On the other end of the ideological spectrum, Sen. Rand Paul, a fiscal hawk, said, “The math doesn’t really add up,” and “it’s a vehicle for increasing spending for the military and for the border.”
Although the Kentucky Republican is right, he doesn’t have a realistic counteroffer. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act falls under budget reconciliation rules requiring only 50 votes for passage. If it fails, we’re back to the usual end-of-year omnibus giveaways involving deal-making with Democrats to obtain the 60 votes needed to avoid a government shutdown.
Moreover, as Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent testified Wednesday, “Border security is economic security. The violent riots in Los Angeles have made this undeniably clear.” Hiring 3,000 more Border Patrol agents, 5,000 customs officers and 10,000 ICE agents will relieve Americans from the financial burden of supporting millions of illegal aliens. Not to mention, we save money by not having streets pillaged by “masked men waving foreign flags.”
Messrs. Paul and Musk may bask in the purity of their stance, but they are indulging in a luxury meant for members of the minority party. If Republicans want to keep their majority, they must seize this realistic opportunity to secure the border and settle for modest spending restraint, for now.
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