https://www.lewrockwell.com/2025/05/ron-paul/cutting-military-spending-would-make-for-a-big-and-beautiful-bill/

Cutting Military Spending Would Make for a Big and Beautiful Bill

By Ron Paul, MD

Last week, Moody’s Ratings lowered the United States credit rating. Fitch Ratings and S&P Global Ratings had already lowered the US rating. This new downgrade was driven by Congress’s failure to make any efforts to reduce the almost 37 trillion dollars national debt.

When Moody’s made its announcement, the House Budget Committee was scrambling to get the votes to pass legislation extending the 2017 tax cuts.

President Trump has dubbed this the “big beautiful bill.” The bill also has new tax cuts including repealing federal taxes on tips and overtime. The bill “offsets” the “lost” revenue from the cuts by making some cost saving reforms in domestic welfare programs, most notably Medicaid and food stamps. However, it increases spending in other areas, most notably military spending.

According to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, the “big beautiful bill” would increase the national debt by at least 3.3 trillion dollars over ten years. This number is likely to rise because several moderate Republicans are threatening to vote against the bill unless the Medicaid and food stamps “reforms” are limited or dropped.

Tax cuts are always worth supporting because they advance liberty and sound economics by ensuring the people have more and the government has less. However, tax cuts that are not combined with real spending cuts are delayed tax increases. This is because cutting taxes without cutting spending leads to more debt that leads to higher taxes. These tax increases are likely to come from the Federal Reserve’s monetization of debt, which weakens the dollar’s purchasing power. This “inflation tax” benefits political and financial elites while hurting most Americans.

The reason Republicans are finding it difficult to offset their tax plan in a way that is politically palatable is that they are following exactly the opposite of the politically smart path to cut spending. Instead of starting by cutting welfare for the poor, Republicans should have started by cutting welfare for the rich, particularly the military-industrial complex. ......