The Outsider Perspective Issue 450 | The Beltway Outsiders

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Good Friday Morning! Except to a U.K. teacher who decided to get lit and let loose in a classroom. Alice Ashton is accused of “allegedly chugging booze and hurling curse words at students during a lesson that she interrupted to have them dance the Macarena.”

The kicker? One student said, “The usually ‘reserved and quiet’ teacher’s classes on alcohol and drug awareness were normally ‘boring,‘ a student told the hearing of the Education Workforce Council Wales panel.”

When I say ‘allegedly’ in this story, I mean that she was seen on CCTV doing these things, which was further corroborated by student testimony. As you might have guessed, the internet is siding with the teacher.

Her behavior might also describe many members of Congress after the passage of the “Big Beautiful Bill.” We’re entering the sixth month of Trump’s second term. Already, we’ve had a trade war, the whole Elon Musk/DOGE thing, an actual bombing raid in Iran, and now Trump’s signature legislation.

It took Biden several years to get his signature legislation. Trump is moving at light speed. I’ll get into the details of the bill and more below – links to follow.

Quick Hits:

Is China on the verge of leadership change? Gregory Slayton had a piece in the New York Post, reading the tea leaves of Xi Jinping, and he believes we could be watching Xi being pushed out of power. It is one of the most well-reasoned and researched pieces I’ve seen, and several China watchers I follow were discussing it with cautious tones. They couldn’t reject the conclusions in it. Tony Nash and Albert Marko also discussed it. Nash has deep business ties in China, and while neither of them thought anything was imminent, they did believe 2026 could be a pivotal year for a shift in the Chinese leadership. Figuring out China on these things is like reading through old Soviet propaganda. For several years, I wrote extensively about the Chinese property market and its subsequent implosion. The WSJ estimates that China has experienced a loss of $18 trillion in household wealth from that collapse, which dwarfs the $12.8 trillion lost in the U.S. during the 2008 recession. In other words, Xi has preceded over the downfall of the Chinese economy, and things still aren’t looking great. The pressure on Xi is very real.
The American Almanac is growing! I want to express my sincere gratitude to those of you who subscribe, share, and help us grow. This week, we’ve announced a second edition of the Almanac, which will be released at 9 pm CST on weekdays. Look for that in your inboxes moving forward. You can subscribe here for free. Additionally, please check out Capital Digest (finance/economics) and Real Talk Digest. There are more projects in the pipeline.

Where you can find me this week

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Will NYC Hand City Hall to an Antisemite? – Conservative Institute

Classroom Revolt: The Anti-DEI Wave Hits Hard – Conservative Institute

Supreme Court Fighting An Uphill Battle Against Unruly Judges – Conservative Institute

The Big Beautiful Bill Passes Congress

My first thought watching this go down in the House and Senate was this: John Thune and Mike Johnson are good at their jobs. After watching the second House vote, my belief in Mike Johnson got even stronger. He is, without question, the best Republican Speaker in decades.

Whipping Republican votes is like herding cats, and the diversity of thoughts is wide-ranging. I’m not saying Democrats are any less complicated on these points. Still, Pelosi always dealt with a much smaller range of opinions from the left.

The second part is the cost aspect. I’ve seen people on the right blast it as not being fiscally conservative, which is an accurate assessment. It’s not fiscally conservative in any meaningful way.

Of course, the primary drivers of the debt are Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. If we’re not going to address those three major issues, then we’ll never be able to tackle the debt. Democrats want to cut defense without touching domestic priorities. And Republicans claim the reverse, but in reality, we cut nothing.

And to put a finer point on this: a conservative is not in the White House. The last conservative president in the White House was George W. Bush, who last had a Congress working with him exactly 20 years ago. 2006 marked the beginning of the Pelosi/Harry Reid opposition front, which wrecked politics ever since.

Simply put, I’ve never expected Trump to deliver fiscal conservatism on the debt or anything else. I thought, for a few months, he might try it through Treasury policy, but I’ve abandoned those thoughts. It’s not who he is, and I’ll never expect it from the left. Trump is a big-spending 90s liberal on domestic policy.

It is what it is if you hold any fiscal conservative views. On that level, the bill doesn’t deliver.

If you want federal money spent on conservative positions, the bill delivers.

On taxes, this is just a continuation of the Trump tax cuts from his first term. A few changes are made here and there, but that’s the primary takeaway. There isn’t enough new news that I’d dig into.

Regarding entitlements, the major one is Medicaid. The bill imposes a work requirement for individuals in the working age category. ChatGPT helpfully summarizes:

For the first time in Medicaid’s history, a work requirement would be imposed on certain adult beneficiaries. The bill requires “able-bodied” adults ages 19–64 on Medicaid to complete at least 80 hours of work or community engagement per month to retain coverage, with exceptions for individuals with serious medical conditions and for adults with young children (exempting those with a child under age 14). This marks a significant shift, as previously work requirements were not allowed in Medicaid nationally.

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projects that many people will lose coverage as a result: an estimated 11.8 million Americans would lose Medicaid health insurance over 10 years under the bill’s various Medicaid provisions. In addition to work rules, the act makes other eligibility restrictions: for example, states must check Medicaid enrollees’ eligibility twice per year (every 6 months) instead of annually, likely leading to more frequent removal of people who no longer qualify or have paperwork issues. New immigrants (green card holders) will face a 5-year waiting period before they can enroll in Medicaid, and the bill reduces retroactive Medicaid coverage (which currently can cover bills from 3 months prior to enrollment) down to 1 month.

This is where Democrats are getting the line about people getting kicked off Medicaid. Additionally, the White House is focusing on getting illegal aliens off programs like Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. When Democrats cite higher numbers, they’re typically including illegal aliens in those calculations and just screaming about people getting kicked off benefits.

The other interesting point here is kicking Planned Parenthood out from getting funding under Medicaid. I don’t care how that provision gets phrased. I’ll support that provision 10 times out of 10.

On the border, the most significant aspect is the extent to which ICE is poised to expand under this legislation. It’s about to outgrow the FBI and many other federal agencies. ChatGPT again:

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Personnel: Nearly $30 billion is allocated to ICE for hiring new agents and deportation operations. ICE is instructed to hire 10,000 new officers (a massive staffing increase) and cover costs for transporting and deporting immigrants. These resources would enable ICE to target and remove a far greater number of undocumented immigrants. Indeed, the bill’s overall funding is said to create capacity to deport up to 1 million people per year, a startling figure roughly double the typical annual removals in the late 2010s.

Further, “These investments together represent the most significant border security buildup in decades. By one estimate, ICE’s budget will grow from around $10 billion today to over $100 billion by 2029, making ICE the single most heavily funded law enforcement agency in the U.S. government.”

ICE and its funding will become a much larger flash point on the left. And part of that reason is that this will impact elections. We’re halfway through the 2020s so far. Biden’s section of the decade opened the floodgates to illegal immigrants, especially into blue states and cities, with the creation of sanctuary cities.

There’s a two-fold attack here. First, Trump is trying to remove illegal aliens from the census count. According to the AP, “Projections released last month … say California, New York and Illinois — states with Democratic majorities — are likely to lose the most seats and electoral votes.”

That means after 2030, the Democratic Party would likely lose House seats and Electoral College votes. Some estimates would shift those seats and votes into places like Texas, Florida, and the Sun Belt writ large.

The push of resources into ICE turbo-charges that effort by pushing people out of the country and removing the Census’s ability to count those people in the counts.

In short, this is not just about people believing in immigration or not believing in it. Both parties are at odds over how this impacts their electoral power, especially into the next decade.

Trump’s ICE push is also the polar opposite of Biden’s throwing the doors open at the border. It’s the pendulum swinging back. But make no mistake, these fights here politically are centered around elections. That’s why Democrats are livid about ICE hitting their sanctuary cities, and Trump is more eager to do exactly that.

With the passage of the BBB, Trump and the GOP have the upper hand. That will trigger another major fight, starting in 2028, over what the next census period will look like and how it will be counted.

Is the BBB a fiscal conservatism victory? Nope. Does it pave the way for many conservative policies? Yes. How you define success will determine how you measure this legislation.

Quick Hits:

Where you can find me this week

The Big Beautiful Bill Passes Congress

Links of the week

X/Twitter Thread(s) of the week

Satire of the week

Thanks for reading!