Pollyanna’s a busy young lady, so dear old dad doesn’t get all that many calls from her. Today, though, she called to offer an interesting working hypothesis—a hypothesis about the possible effect of the Big Beautiful Bill.
Not a prediction. A working hypothesis.
Here it is, but first some background.
As she pointed out, Trump’s policies are disastrous for everyone, including the business and financial elite. Consider tariffs. Consider the gutting of clean energy, at a time when energy demand is exploding. Consider the effect of mass deportation on the work force. Consider inflation. Consider the effort to obliterate American scientific leadership. Consider the deficit.
Observe that most of the economic elite does not live in an information bubble. All the effects we just listed are fully reported in the Financial Times and the Economist. Even the Wall Street Journal recognizes most of them, most of the time.
Assume, for the sake of the discussion, that the average member of the elite does not give a tinker’s damn about anything other than his or her own economic interests. But assume they do in fact care deeply about their own economic interests, and that, as a group, they have a generally accurate picture of what is going on.
Given all that, the working hypothesis—the hypothesis that isn’t a prediction, just a hypothesis—goes like this:
- generally speaking, the economic elite have been motivated, above all else, to secure permanent extension of the Trump tax cuts, and
- accordingly, the economic elites have greatly tempered their objections to Trump’s disastrous policies, largely out of a concern not to upset the delicate political apple cart before passage of the Big Beautiful Bill, but
- now that the tax cuts are locked in statutory cement, the business and financial elite will feel significantly freer to try to stop Trump’s sabotaging of the American economy.
It’s a hypothesis.
Facing MAGA 