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by WILL FOLKS
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When he first ran for the American presidency, Donald Trump vowed to eliminate deficit spending, balance federal budgets and begin the process of reducing our nation’s paralyzing debt. Those promises – along with his commitment to cutting middle class taxes – were among the reasons we endorsed him for the presidency in 2016.
Unfortunately, Trump did precisely none of these things during his first term in office. Instead, he repeatedly caved to the Washington, D.C. swamp – approving their massive debt-laden budgets, signing into law their stopgap spending resolutions and backing to the hilt their emergency appropriations bills.
Unlike a lot of “conservative” media outlets, FITSNews called Trump out for his repeated fiscal failures – repeatedly.
Since reclaiming the Oval Office, Trump has continued to cave on fiscal responsibility. Even worse, he has actually taken to targeting the handful of elected officials who dared to stand (albeit briefly) for American taxpayers.
Trump’s fiscal failure was on full display last week via the enactment of his “One Big Beautiful Bill,” a.k.a. H.R. 1. This monument to fiscal recklessness and irresponsibility was signed into law by Trump on July 4, 2025.
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While the legislation does extend Trump’s 2017 tax cuts, that’s pretty much the extent of the good news.
According to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), Trump’s bill adds a whopping $3.4 trillion in new deficit spending over the coming decade – on top of previously projected deficits. Add to that the escalating cost of interest on government debt (more on that in a moment) and the total tab of new red ink reaches $4 trillion.
Those are conservative estimates, too. According to Dominik Lett of the Cato Institute, the bill’s ultimate cost could wind up exceeding $6 trillion.
“Congress is putting the nation on a fast track to a debt spiral,” Lett noted in his analysis.
Keep in mind the United States is already saddled with $37.07 trillion in debt – a whopping $323,052 per individual taxpayer. That’s a staggering 124% of our nation’s annual gross domestic product – the highest peacetime percentage ever.
The debt crisis is compounding, too. Rapidly.
Prior to the passage of this new law, interest payments on the national debt were projected to climb by $13.8 trillion over the coming decade – rising from $1 trillion in the current fiscal year to $1.8 trillion annually by 2035, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB). By contrast, interest on the debt was “only” $345 billion in 2020.
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Since its inception in 2006, FITSNews has consistently railed against the perma-profligacy of the Washington swamp – whether it was Democrat or “Republican” hands on the till. This is why.
“Within a decade, America will be staring down between $800 billion and $1 trillion in annual interest payments on its debt,” I noted in a column addressing this issue published in June … of 2013.
Well guess what… here we are. And things just got exponentially worse.
Rather than find ways to slow this collapse (and the collapse of our Republic) Trump’s “beautiful” bill included half a trillion in new subsidies, preserved a significant chunk of Joe Biden‘s “Green New Deal” and failed to incorporate potential spending cuts identified by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
Worst of all? The few fiscal conservatives who dared to stand (initially) with taxpayers against this monstrosity wound up bowing to threats from Trump’s top political operatives. Only one fiscal conservative – Kentucky Republican Thomas Massie – ended up voting against the legislation.
“A Republic if you can keep it,” founding father Benjamin Franklin said of our form of government following the Constitutional Convention of 1787.
Clearly, we cannot keep it…
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A far less quoted Franklin story, though, involved his observations of the magnificent armchair occupied by president George Washington during the Constitutional Convention. Emblazoned with a half sun, Franklin frequently found himself staring past Washington at the back of the chair – contemplating a variation of the timeless question about glasses being either half-full or half-empty.
“I have often and often, in the course of the session… looked at that behind the President, without being able to tell whether it was rising or setting: but now at length, I have the happiness to know, that it is a rising and not a setting sun,” Franklin said.
The sun that was America’s promise did indeed rise. And it continued to rise for decades… centuries even. Some argue it was still rising as recently as the turn of the millennium. And some believe it rises still. But America’s perpetuation of its bureaucratic/regulatory state, the mindless expansion of its dependency economy, its incessant entanglement in foreign wars (and the increasingly costly accommodation of its military-industrial complex), the ongoing devaluation of its currency… none of these things are remotely sustainable.
“The golden age of America begins right now,” Trump proclaimed just six months ago.
If only we knew then how much it would cost America’s future generations…
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR…
Will Folks is the founding editor of the news outlet you are currently reading. Prior to founding FITSNews, he served as press secretary to the governor of South Carolina. He lives in the Midlands region of the state with his wife and eight children.
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3 comments
More of the same lies and bullshit Trump brought to the table from January 2017 thru January 2021. Gun owners bought his lies to support our 2A rights, once again. BBB had a couple of great aspects at one point. One, the Hearing Protection Act, would have eliminated most of the red tape and bs to purchase silencers. You would simply fill out a Form 4473 just like you do to buy a rifle, shotgun, or handgun, and leave the store with your silencer. Personally, I have no need or use for one, but support the right to own one for those who do.
The SHORT Act would have removed short barrel rifles and shotguns from NFA-34 restriction and regulation. Purchasing or possessing a short barrel rifle or shotgun would be no different from buying one of their longer barrel counterparts. Thanks to Senate Parlaimentarian MacDonough and RINOs like JD Vance, Thune, Lindsey Graham, Tim Scott, and others lacking the spine to ignore or challenge MacDonough’s opposition to these Acts, we got something decidedly less helpful and useful.
Ditto useless Representatives like Ralph (the RINO) Norman and others.
People say that Trump had no control over what The House and The Senate did, but that is wrong. A little bit of cheerleading and walking these things through, as Bill Clinton did with his accursed 1994 “Crime” bill would have gone a long way.
We are surrounded on all sides by NWO/JWO lackeys. Voting is a fool’s errand.
Why do you think extending the 2017 tax cuts is “good news”? The Congressional Budget Office predicted permanently extending tax cuts will cost $4 trillion over the next 10 years, $400 billion per year. This includes $3.4 trillion from extending the expiring individual and estate tax provisions, along with $551 billion from extending the business provisions.
Only 33% of our population actually pays federal income taxes. A two- to- one free rider ratio. Half of that two- thirds of free riders receives some form of federal welfare (as opposed to an entitlement like social security.) So two-thirds of the country really doesn’t give a crap about the debt, because it never effects them. Politicians know this, especially the Democrats. Until the free riders are forced to start paying something – hell even 100 bucks a year – and thus they participate in some of the pain, there will never be enough political will to make Congress actually make the changes that need to be made. It’s not a math thing (making the free riders pay something) because you would barely raise 10 billion from it, but it is a psychological thing that will make at least some of them start to care and swing the tide to the right direction. But it will never happen.