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Follow the Yellow Brick Road
Making a movie is quite the production. When you get to the cutting room, as it used to be called, hard decisions are made about what is in and what is out. Then you hold your breath and hope the viewing public likes the final product.
In real life, a movie is being made by the day. Its working title is The Remake of America. It promised to be bold, big, beautiful, and groundbreaking. Team Trump swept in with many new actors who knew Washington well enough to know that more of the same would be a box office flop.
They promised more tax revenue via tariffs, less spending via DOGE, and something for everyone in the big, beautiful bill.
Sure, there’s Harvard, Ukraine, trans rights or wrongs, men acting like women no more, and some groundbreaking or ball-breaking like Canada. But, make no mistake, the main plot is tariffs, minus DOGE, plus and minus the bill, equals something.
What is something? That’s the cliffhanger. No one knows. The Fed doesn’t know. Neither does the CBO, Wall St, Main St, Congress, or the taxpayer.
But like making sausage, making a movie can be messy. We want to see the final product, and we want the happy ending that we paid for, so to speak.
The tariffs seem like a remake of The Karate Kid. Fifty percent is on, twenty-five percent is off. Pause. How about 10%? Repeat. Wax on, wax off, Daniel Son. Tariffs are like, “sweep the leg!” They hurt consumers, but aren’t they necessary?
How much is too much or not enough? Donald keeps yelling. “Action! Cut! Action! Cut.”
DOGE began with great promise. Will any of the hours of hard work in the morass make the final scene? The Washington Screen Actors Guild is sure hoping not. This type of acting threatens their pot of gold.
The star of DOGE seems tired and wants to go home. Who can blame him? Elon paid a lot to get on the set, put on his Superman cape, and tried to leap tall Washington buildings in a single bound. But kryptonite lies inside every wall. And the ones who hold the kryptonite are the ones who decide if his labor bears any fruit.
How about a big, beautiful bill? In the Wizard of OZ, on the long journey to the Emerald City, Dorothy and Toto are joined by the Scarecrow, who wishes he had brains; the Tin Woodman, who longs for a heart; and the Cowardly Lion, who seeks courage. There’s something for everyone, but at what cost?
Enough Senate Republicans seem determined to send the big, beautiful bill back. They want less of the big and more of the beautiful.
Film critics see 38 trillion and counting reasons why these Senators might act this way.
When The Karate Kid joins Superman in The Wizard of Oz, following the yellow brick road isn’t that easy.
At least Donald Trump is the producer. That’s good. Isn’t it?
Comment section
Leave it to congress and we dont have a movie at all. We have a couple tweeks for her, a few changes for him, and before you know it we get a sequel.
A sequel that we’ve all seen. It’s basically a Gillian’s Island rerun starring all the wrong people. It’s rudderless and the island is inhabited by natives we all can’t live with or without.
Let’s be honest here, AOC is no Marianne. And Pelosi proves that Ginger died long ago.
Dr Feelgud used the rudderless way to describe this as well. My gut says that the midterms will be an eyeopener to the old school RINOS. Primaries await.
Using Pelosi and Ginger in the same sentence creates a visual that cannot be unseen.
It’s hard to avoid the 36 trillion dollar iceberg when the swamp is paralyzing the rudder. The congressional band will obliviously play the same song as the ship sinks. Sad to see a 250 year old “indestructible nation” fall to the bottom of the ocean.
Seems like it’s a pivotal point amongst multiple pivot point opportunities missed.
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