Elon Spits Fire

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Elon Spits Fire 1

I took a little heat for pointing out that Elon Musk was disgusted by the “Big Beautiful Bill.”

I was exaggerating. I was taking him out of context. Elon supports Trump, and Trump supports the BBB!

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Yeah, well, no. Elon Musk is (rightly) disgusted by the “Big, Beautiful Bill.” As he said, it can be big, it can be beautiful, but it can’t be both.

I understand perfectly well why Trump is supporting the bill. It has a whole lot of what he wants and needs, and in order to pass it he has to round up the votes in a closely divided House and Senate in order to get it passed. That means that the Republicans who are inclined to hold the bill hostage have an outrageous amount of power, and as seasoned politicians, they know how to wield that power to good effect. 

And, to add insult to injury, it’s not like Trump is a fiscal conservative. A number of his economic advisors are, but Trump is even more interested in winning than fixing the budget crisis. 

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Is it any wonder that Elon Musk is disgusted? He spent a not-so-small fortune on getting Trump elected and on helping the Republicans win control of Congress, countless hours, and significant social capital working on DOGE, turned himself into a hate figure for the left, and all he got was this lousy T-shirt with lots of gold frippery and a big IOU to be put in a time capsule for our descendants to wonder at as they wander the postapocalyptic landscape that used to be prosperous America. 

One of the wonders of the modern world is the ability of the United States to seemingly spend itself into oblivion without actually being obliterated. It has made everybody in the country–almost everybody–complacent about the deficit and the ballooning debt. It hasn’t blown us up yet, so maybe it isn’t all that dangerous. 

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As I said before, Elon’s bromance with Trump is hardly over. I think they have genuine affection for each other, and that Musk wants Trump to succeed. 

But Musk believes–rightly–that the growing debt is an existential threat to the United States. We are in the Wiley E. Coyote phase of self-destruction. We have run out into the canyon and have yet to look down, but at some point, we will start falling, and the bottom of that canyon is very hard. 

The collapse will come in the bond markets–that debt accumulation requires people willing to purchase the bonds, and at some point, investors will lose faith that we will honor our debts. Sure, we can print the currency (or add zeros to the money supply), but the value of the dollar will collapse, and the value of the debt with it. 

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When that happens is up to investors, and the best way to reassure them is to cut the deficit, not keep adding to it. People still throw money at us because we are the best game in town, but confidence is hard-won and easily lost. 

Perhaps Trump is right, and his economic and trade policies will usher in a golden age, and explosive economic growth will diminish the significance of the debt. But the fact that the Big Beautiful Bill is the best they have at the height of Republicans’ power is not encouraging. 

Posted in Republican News