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Jeff Lynn's avatar

Regarding the Big Beautiful Bill - There is very little beautiful in a BIG bill coming out of DC or any budget coming from Olympia.

We have become too accustomed to 500+ page bills that nearly every member of Congress has to get some pork in order to vote for the bill. I am all for the tax cuts and discount the CBO estimates that have not been accurate, ever; but there could be billions more spending cuts in this bill.

The US already spends more on defense than the next 8 nations combined. At $997B the US spends 3 times more than China, the #2 defense spender, estimated at $314B. The EU, with a comparable GDP to the US, spends about half, $500B on defense. Our Pacific partners, Japan, SKorea and Australia spend a total of $150B. We know there has been much waste in defense spending yet in 2024 the defense budget increase 5.4%. Defense is just one area that more scrutiny is needed regarding the Big Beautiful Bill. Let's see if the Senate is willing to do some more cutting. I'm doubtful.

Each year the National Debt increases because Congress cannot balance revenues vs expenditures even after the tax cuts in 2017 gave us the largest revenues, more than $5Trillion, in history.

As WA residents we are doubly hit with taxes since Olympia is even worse than Congress in wasteful spending. There is fraud waste and abuse throught the federal budget, that might only be exceeded by the abuses WA taxpayers have been dealt under the recent legislature and signed by the governor.

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