Writing in 2025 comes with major challenges. In the radically changed communications world in which we live where is the tipping point? How many words on any given subject will be a turn-off? So here are some quick takes on disparate subjects that briefly made the headlines last week.
“Big, Beautiful Bill”
President Donald J. Trump’s so-called “Big Beautiful Bill” is projected to add $2.5 trillion to the national debt over ten years. We need to subtract, not add, and adding to the national debt is not conservative.
Winner of Five Oscars
The film Anora just won five Oscars. One critic has described it as genre-bending. Parts of it are riotously frantic and funny. But for those who are considering watching it, the film also incinerates guardrails that have previously protected or deflected audiences from the visceral side of sex clubs.
Under the Bus
DJT did not get elected to end US support for Ukraine. Nor, to join in voting at the United Nations with the tyrannical set of nations targeting the US in world affairs—Russia, China, North Korea and Iran. This abrupt departure of geopolitical sense has and will continue to cause harm to the US and compromise Ukraine by shoving them not to the table but under a very big bus.
The National Pastime
Baseball is struggling. On the major league side, the Los Angeles Dodgers have a talent payroll of $303.9 million, while the Miami Marlins spend $43.63 million. The mean is $152.7. And comparatively, the game moves more slowly than other pleasant distractions.
Baseball’s leadership is now trying new gymnastic moves in an effort to protect the financial well-being of its product and its owners. Wake up; baseball needs fewer games and more intra-season suspense. The current schedule is for 162 games. My suggestion: divide the season up into four 40-game series, with the winners from those series playing each other in a year-end World Series face-off.
Crypto-Currencies
Finally, President Trump signed an Executive Order establishing a strategic bitcoin reserve. According to press reports, the president has a $20 million investment in cryptocurrencies.
If crypto-currencies are to receive the imprimatur of the White House, there should be a substantial effort to enlighten the public on this move and, more broadly, what role these currencies will play in our country’s financial strength.
Conclusion
Finally, here’s an invitation: Pile on, post to one or more subjects of interest, and tell the Spy what you would do.
Al Sikes is the former Chair of the Federal Communications Commission under George H.W. Bush. Al writes on themes from his book, Culture Leads Leaders Follow published by Koehler Books.
Stephen Schwarz says
Jon Stewart, two weeks ago on The Daily Show, suggested we can cut the government waste and abuse, not by running a chain saw through the rank and file of the agency workers (though that can and should be done, in my opinion with an x-ray, an MRI, and a scalpel) but let’s reduce the 3 billion dollars in subsidies we give to the gas and oil companies, the 2 trillion dollars we give to defense contractors to build the F-35 that probably won’t ever be used in a future conflict, and the tax breaks, research grants, and patent extensions we give to pharmaceutical companies that then turn around and charge the highest prices in the world for the drugs that we have already paid for through these government handouts while their profits just go up and up and up.
Now, to be honest, I have not verified or researched these claims of government handouts, but it would not surprise me to discover that there is more than just a little bit of truth to what he has suggested. I do know that the budget deficit will not be lowered by reducing corporate handouts and bailouts. They are much too powerful and influential to allow Congress to make those cuts. No, our budget deficit will be worked on by cutting Medicare and Social Security and other social programs that benefit the people of the United States and the world. The rich get richer…
Al Sikes says
Thoughtful.
My approach would have been to put seasoned leaders in charge of Office of Management and Budget and large cabinet agencies and require a 20% cut in administrative costs. As to capital expenditures strategic issues make it hard to generalize.
As to taxes there would be no renewal of high earner tax cuts; current consumption pattern indicates top 10% of earners consume 50% of annual consumption.
Kent Robertson says
At $35T, the national debt is over $100,000 owed by every man, woman, and child in the country. We now spend $800B on interest on the debt every year. Even if we were to cut every cent of discretionary spending, we wouldn’t balance the budget. Even if we confiscated every cent of every billionaire’s worth, we wouldn’t pay off the debt. Our options are few, but if we are to survive with our preeminent position in the world economy intact, we must do what we can…YESTERDAY.
We can tax the H___ out of the people who work hard to make a living. That would take decades of austerity.
We can can cut medical costs dramatically (maybe as much as 40-50%) by getting medicine back to a one-on-one relationship between the patients and their doctors, reforming the medical litigation system, and promoting…no insisting…on a healthy lifestyle and diet, and reining in the power of the medical industrial complex. But that wouldn’t be enough to balance the budget.
We can modify the Social Security system by decreasing payments to those who “can afford it”. But there doesn’t seem to be any national consensus for doing that, and it wouldn’t be enough.
Or…
We can stimulate our economy, bring much-needed manufacturing jobs, cut the waste, fraud and abuse of the behemoth Federal bureaucracies, make our foreign trade agreements even-handed, and stop being the policeman for the world. (That doesn’t mean cutting our military readiness, at a time when our allies are facing aggression on three fronts in Europe, the Middle East, and the western Pacific. It does mean cutting waste, fraud and abuse in the military, and making use of every technological advantage we have.)
I believe the current Administration is attempting to follow the latter option, which seems to be the only viable option. It will take time. Building new manufacturing plants takes time. It will be painful at first, for everyone. We are all going to have to pull together if we are going to get back on the track that made us the envy of the world.
I am holding my breath, growing vegetables, raising a few chickens, and adding solar. I’m trying not to listen too much to the destructive bickering that has gotten us to the point that our Congress can’t seem to find workable solutions; where angry tirades, ad hominem attacks, and demonizing the “other side” have come to dominate the media and social media, and have even invaded our family and neighborhood discussions.
It’s way past due time for a majir change in how our government works. At least the current Administration is driving us out of the ruts that lead to the quagmire. I’m taking a watch and wait, and see approach.
Deirdre LaMotte says
This Administration’s fighting “waste, Fraud and abuse” is nothing but a trojan horse to dismantle
the Federal Government until it collapses. If it was not, official auditors and others who knew what they were doing would have been brought in. Actually, there are many effective people doing just that….but
they have all been fired.
Musk has repeatedly said Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid are nothing but “a Ponzi Scheme “
and should be eliminated. Nothing like the richest man in the world taking away live support for American seniors and the poorest. And the poorest live in Red States.
Musk is around to enrich himself. He handed Trump the Presidency, so he can avoid jail, and this is
Trump’s gift to the billionaires: the doors open, help yourself.
Trump loves having the world’s richest man flatter him. He also seeks that admiration from Putin.
He craves it so much that he is threatening Canada with a takeover (Trump is just is bat s**t crazy) , insulting our closest allies to the point where they will not share classified information with us.
Oh, and the best economy in the world was handed to him by Biden. How is that going?!
Meanwhile, Europe is starting to boom. You may want to invest is European defense stocks…
just a suggestion.