UNBIASED - UNBIASED Politics (7/10/25): "Big Beautiful Bill" Q&A Part II (Taxes, Deficit, and More). PLUS New Birthright Citizenship Ruling, Government Restructuring Ruling, and More.

Episode Date: July 10, 2025

SUBSCRIBE TO JORDAN'S ⁠FREE NEWSLETTER⁠. Get the facts, without the spin. UNBIASED offers a clear, impartial recap of US news, including politics, elections, legal news, and more. Hosted by lawyer Jordan Berman, each episode provides a recap of current political events plus breakdowns of complex concepts—like constitutional rights, recent Supreme Court rulings, and new legislation—in an easy-to-understand way. No personal opinions, just the facts you need to stay informed on the daily news that matters. If you miss how journalism used to be, you're in the right place. In today's episode: Supreme Court Says Trump Administration Can Continue With Government Reorganization and Restructuring...For Now (1:30) Judge Blocks Trump's Birthright Citizenship Order Nationwide for Babies (6:45) U.S. Resumes Sending Weapons to Ukraine; Trump Says He Didn't Know About the Pause (11:41) Court Blocks Part of 'Big Beautiful Bill' That Would Prohibit Federal Funding for Planned Parenthood (14:18) **Big Beautiful Bill Q&A Part II** (18:25) Quick Hitters: TSA Says Shoes Stay On, Court Blocks 'Click-to-Cancel' Rule, Trump Appoints Sean Duffy to NASA Administrator, Former White House Physician Testifies About Biden's Health, Secret Service Agents Put on Leave (38:49) Critical Thinking Segment (40:56) SUBSCRIBE TO JORDAN'S FREE NEWSLETTER. Watch this episode on YouTube. Follow Jordan on Instagram and TikTok. All sources for this episode can be found here.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Welcome back to Unbiased, your favorite source of unbiased news and legal analysis. Welcome back to Unbiased Politics. Today is Thursday, July 10th. Let's talk about some news. As we talked about on Monday, the bulk of today's episode will focus on part two of that big, beautiful bill Q&A.

So in Monday's episode, I answered your questions related to Medicaid, Medicare, SNAP, and student loans. Today, I'll finish the rest of the questions which deal with topics like taxes, the debt ceiling increase, social security, and then a few miscellaneous topics. First though, at the start of the episode, we'll walk through some stories that unfolded this week

that are completely unrelated to the Big Beautiful Bill and then that'll kind of we'll do one story that is somewhat related but that'll segue us into the Big Beautiful Bill Q&A. Quick reminder that I do have a new newsletter going out tomorrow morning at 6 a.m. All the top headlines in pop culture, politics, health, business, and international news. The amount of people that have told me that this newsletter is exactly what they've been looking for is crazy. So many people say that it's the perfect amount of news to where they feel caught up but they don't feel overwhelmed and that was actually my entire goal in creating it so that makes me incredibly happy to hear. You can subscribe to the newsletter by clicking the sign

up link in the episode show notes. That's the easiest way, or just head to substack.com or the sub stack app and search unbiased society. Now without further ado, let's start today's stories with some news out of the Supreme Court. So earlier this week the Supreme Court allowed the Trump administration to implement its plans to restructure and reduce the federal workforce, at least for now. So let's back up so we have the full context here. Back in February, President Trump signed an executive order with the goal of making the federal workforce more productive and efficient. And among the various directives laid out in that executive order, one of the directives specifically instructed federal agencies and departments to prepare to initiate large-scale layoffs so long as those layoffs were consistent with federal law.

In response to that order, though, labor unions, nonprofit organizations, and various cities and counties across a few different states sued the administration and they argued that the executive order violated the separation of powers principle in the Constitution. In other words, the order and actions taken by the executive branch exceeded the president's constitutional authority and actually encroached on Congress's constitutional authority. Because remember, as we discussed in that three-part series that I did back in May, the executive branch has certain powers under Article 2 of the Constitution, Congress has certain powers under Article 1 of the Constitution. Those powers are expressly

reserved by those branches and cannot be overtaken by another branch. So this lawsuit is brought in May, a district court judge granted a preliminary injunction for the plaintiffs. And what that preliminary injunction did is it blocked the administration from taking any further action related to that executive order,

including from planning or proceeding with any workforce reductions while the case was pending. And keep in mind as we've talked about before, for a preliminary injunction to be granted, the judge has to find that the plaintiffs are likely to succeed on the merits of their case once arguments are heard. So here the judge felt as if once arguments are presented, the plaintiffs would prevail and the administration's executive order would likely be found unlawful. Now following that preliminary injunction, the Trump administration went to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. The Ninth Circuit allowed the injunction to remain in effect while the case continued in

the court below. So what did the administration do from there? They took it to the Supreme Court. And keep in mind what the administration was trying to do with these appeals is get the injunction paused, right? Because that would have allowed it to proceed with its government restructuring while the case was pending before the district court. So in an 8-1 decision earlier this week on Tuesday, the justices granted the administration's request for a pause. And the justices granted the administration's request for a pause. And again, you know, when considering preliminary injunctions or whether a preliminary injunction was properly issued,

the court considers a few factors. One of those is the likelihood of the plaintiff's case succeeding. So in the district court, the judge found that the plaintiffs were likely to succeed on the merits of their claim and therefore granted the preliminary injunction. But at the Supreme Court, the justices actually felt the administration

was likely to succeed in this case and therefore overturned that preliminary injunction. The justices explained in their ruling that they granted the administration's request for a pause because quote the government is likely to succeed on its argument that the executive order and memorandum are lawful." End quote. Now, Justice Sotomayor, she's one of the court's liberal justices, she concurred with the ruling and gave us a little bit more insight as to why the justices feel as if the administration will succeed.

So she wrote in her concurrence that while the president cannot restructure federal agencies in ways that violate congressional mandates, the executive order itself only directed agents to plan reorgan the law, it's likely a lawful order. Sotomayor implied that the ruling may have been different here if the court was considering the legality of the plans themselves, which it's not. It's only considering the legality of the actual order. Justice Jackson was the lone dissenter in this case. She's another one of the court's liberal justices. In fact, this past term she dissented from the majority more than any other justice on the bench, but in her dissent she argued that it's Congress that has the power to establish administrative agencies and to outline their functions, and that this attempt to reorganize the federal government without first obtaining

authorization from Congress is a unilateral move by the executive that goes beyond its powers. So going forward, what this ruling from the Supreme Court means is that the administration can continue taking steps to restructure and reduce the federal workforce while the court below considers the actual merits of the case and until it makes a final decision. Another legal battle update, this one dealing with birthright citizenship, this is actually some news from today. So roughly one week after, actually I think it's almost two weeks now, after the Supreme Court said that federal

courts cannot issue nationwide injunctions, a court has once again blocked the Trump administration from enforcing its birthright citizenship order nationwide. The court just kind of chose a different avenue to do this this time. So let's talk about what's going on here. If you listened to my analysis and explanation, when the Supreme Court released that nationwide injunction ruling, this might sound a little bit repetitive, but the good news is it'll all make sense. So as we know, President Trump signed an executive

order at the start of his presidency which basically said that to be granted birthright citizenship, meaning citizenship at birth, when born on US soil, at least one of your parents has to be a citizen or permanent resident of the United States. Currently under the 14th amendment, so long as you're born on US soil, you automatically receive US citizenship. The citizenship status of your parents is irrelevant. They just have to live here. Now just so we're clear, the birthright citizenship debate is over a particular phrase in the 14th amendment, but we're going to save those

arguments for another day because they're actually not relevant to this story. So once that birthright citizenship order was signed, it was challenged in the courts, and what the district court did is he said, you know, while I'm considering the merits of this case, while I consider the constitutionality of this executive order, I am going to prohibit the administration from enforcing the order nationwide. That is called a nationwide injunction or a universal injunction. And these kinds of broad injunctions have become increasingly more common in recent years. Presidents really don't like them because they prohibit them from carrying out their

policies. The alternative course of action is just a regular injunction, which just protects the particular individuals that actually filed the lawsuit, not the entire country. So when the district court judge issued that nationwide injunction, the Trump administration appealed it all the way up to the Supreme Court. It argued the same thing that past administrations have argued, which is that district courts do not have the authority to remedy situations for people who have not brought suit and therefore district courts are going beyond their scope of authority in issuing these broad universal injunctions

that apply to everyone, even to non-plaintiffs. And the Supreme Court agreed. The majority of justices about a week and a half ago held that universal injunctions likely exceed the authority of federal courts and they said that injunctions have to be limited to what is necessary to give complete relief to the plaintiffs who actually sued. And if a policy harms other people, those other people have to sue too or the plaintiffs have to properly use a class action. So when I explained that Supreme Court decision about a week and a half ago, I said that one course of action here is that, you know, the district court judge grants class action status to this case. Because if class action status is

granted and a particular class is certified, a judge's ruling will apply to that entire certified class. And that's kind of a workaround to this new ban on nationwide injunctions. And that's exactly what we saw happen today. The judge ordered that class action status be certified for the case or in the case for the babies who would be affected by these new restrictions or by this new order. Notably, he did decline to extend the certified class to the parents, which the plaintiffs had asked for. So in effect, what this means is that all babies in the certified class are protected from Trump's birthright citizenship order. The administration cannot enforce the

birthright citizenship order against those babies who are born in the U.S. that would otherwise be at risk of being denied birthright citizenship under this new order. At this point in the US that would otherwise be at risk of being denied birthright citizenship under this new order. At this point in the day, the text of the judge's decision has not been released, so I can't really go into too much detail about what he actually said, but what we'll likely see from here is the administration appeal this case to the proper appellate court and then the Supreme Court, if the decision is upheld on appeal, meaning, if the decision is upheld on appeal, meaning the class action certification is upheld on appeal, then the Supreme Court will have to clear up whether this sort of work around with class action status is permissible, which by the

way, the justices, they specifically left open the door to class action status in their nationwide ruling. So we'll have to see how they rule once the issue is actually before them. But I do just want to be clear before we hop off to the next story, no court has yet ruled on the actual merits of the birthright citizenship issue. So there's still a ways to go until the birthright citizenship debate is resolved. Moving on, President Trump reauthorized weapons shipments to Ukraine and said he wasn't aware that Defense Secretary Hegseth had put them on pause. So here's what we know about this story.

Last week, the Pentagon announced that it would delay the deliveries of certain defensive systems like Patriot missiles, artillery shells, anti-jorn equipment, and precision munitions to Ukraine. According to U.S. officials, the decision was based on concerns that American stockpiles were in short supply. However, senior military officers later assessed that the weapon shipment did not jeopardize the American military's own ammunition supplies. Now, according to sources, President Trump was reportedly frustrated with Pentagon officials for announcing the pause and felt that the action hadn't been properly coordinated

with the White House. Apparently, how all of this went down is President Trump asked Defense Secretary Hegseth to provide him with an assessment of US weapons stockpiles, but didn't specifically direct him to halt weapons shipments as part of that review. Subsequently, though, the Pentagon announced the suspension of shipments of weapons. The Pentagon maintains that Hegseth's actions were within the scope of his role as defense secretary. The official said in a statement,

quote, it is the job of the Secretary of Defense to make military recommendations to the commander in chief. Secretary Hegseth provided a framework for the president to evaluate military aid shipments and assess existing stockpiles. This effort was coordinated across government. The department will continue to give the president robust options regarding military aid to Ukraine, consistent with his goal of bringing this tragic war to an end and putting America first." As far as whether Hegseth is legally required to inform the White House of his decision,

that's not entirely clear. Longstanding precedent and executive oversight norms suggest that coordination with the president is expected. And then separately, we have the Arms Export Control Act of 1976, which outlines that it's the president who has the authority to control the import and export of defensive services and articles. But the Pentagon said it's working with the White House and Congress to clarify what happened here. So again, we don't know too much. We can't say for certain what the exact facts are

but that's sort of the Varying storylines that are happening as of now. Let's take our first break here when we come back We have one more case to discuss and that'll segue us into the big beautiful bill Q&A What's better than a well marbled ribeye sizzling on the barbecue a well marbled ribeye sizzling on the barbecue? A well marbled ribeye sizzling on the barbecue that was carefully selected by an Instacart shopper and delivered to your door. A well marbled ribeye you ordered without even leaving the kiddie pool. Whatever groceries your summer calls for,

Instacart has you covered. Download the Instacart app and enjoy $0 delivery fees on your first three orders. Service fees, exclusions, and terms apply. Instacart. Groceries that over-deliver. Welcome back. All right. Last story that'll segue us into the Big Beautiful Bill Q&A. Earlier this week, a federal judge blocked enforcement of one particular clause or provision in the Big Beautiful Bill that has the effect of prohibiting funds for Planned Parenthood. The provision in question bans certain federal Medicaid payments for one year to very specific types of organizations.

What the law says is that no federal Medicaid money can be used to pay prohibited entities during the one-year period after the enactment of the law. And it applies to whether the payments go directly to the entity or indirectly through contracts with states or managed care plans. So under the law, a prohibited entity includes 501c3 nonprofits that are essential community providers under federal rules, primarily provide family

planning, reproductive health, and related medical care, perform abortions except for cases of rape, incest, or where the woman's life is at risk, and received more than $800,000 in combined federal and state Medicaid payments in fiscal year 2023. So you might notice the law does not mention Planned Parenthood by name, but in reality, Planned Parenthood is by far the main organization that matches all of these criteria nationwide. There are some bigger standalone abortion providers

that could qualify, but many are either for-profit or smaller nonprofits that probably don't hit that $800,000 Medicaid mark or may not technically be certified as an essential community provider under federal rules. And then as far as hospitals go, hospitals do obviously receive a significant amount in Medicaid payments, but hospitals that provide abortions typically are not primarily engaged in family planning and reproductive health, which is required under the definition of prohibited entity.

Plus hospitals rarely meet the essential community provider definition in the same way that Planned Parenthood does. So once this bill was signed into law, Planned Parenthood filed a lawsuit arguing that the provision that we are talking about in this in the Big Beautiful Bill is unconstitutional and violates both the First and Fifth Amendments by effectively punishing the organization for providing legal abortion services

and for its political and social stance on reproductive rights. It also argues that the provision violates the federal Medicaid Act's Free Choice of Provider Clause, which guarantees patients the right to receive care from any qualified provider of their choosing. Now, the merits of this case have not yet been argued because this lawsuit was just filed, but in filing the lawsuit, Planned Parenthood asked for a temporary restraining order, which is very similar to the injunction that we talked about in the first story today. A restraining order has the same effect. So by granting Planned Parenthood's request, the administration is blocked from enforcing the provision at issue for 14 days. And in granting that request, the judge ultimately

found that the plaintiffs had shown a strong likelihood of success on the merits, that the harm to patients in clinics would be significant and immediate if the restraining order wasn't granted and that the public interest favored maintaining uninterrupted access to these federal funds. Now you might be wondering well what happens after those 14 days? Well after the 14 days the judge will hold another hearing and decide whether to grant a preliminary injunction which would last a little bit longer and would prohibit enforcement of the provision until the judge hears arguments and renders a final decision on the merits of the case. If a preliminary injunction is ultimately granted, and we'll know that around July

21st, whether it is or it's not, it would have the effect of requiring Medicaid payments to Planned Parenthood until a court rules otherwise. We'll likely see more appeals in this case though, potentially even to the Supreme Court. So the case is far from over, but that is where we're at as of now. Now for the Q&A that you've all been waiting for. As I said in the beginning of this episode,

Monday's Q&A revolved around Medicare, Medicaid, SNAP and student loans. Today's Q&A will revolve around taxes, the debt ceiling increase, the executive's power, department funding, and a few other things. So without further ado, let's get into it. The first question, or maybe I should say the first questions, plural, are,

how are the tax changes actually going to affect us? Which brackets will see a change from what we're currently paying? And does the bill raise taxes for those making $15,000 or less? Before we get into each tax bracket at the outset, I just wanna say that income taxes are not being raised for those that make $15,000 or less.

In fact, this law provides some of the most significant proportional tax relief for those individuals. Just wanna be clear on that from the beginning, but we'll talk about that more in a minute. Basically, what the Big Beautiful Bill does when it comes to taxes for everyone is it permanently extends Trump's 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. permanently extends Trump's 2017 tax cuts and jobs act.

Trump's 2017 tax cuts were set to expire in 2026, which meant that our taxes, depending on which bracket you're in, but pretty much every bracket for the most part would have gone up. But now with the passage of the bill, they won't. They're going to stay the same as what we've been paying since 2018. So as far as the question,

which brackets will see a change from what we're currently paying, the answer is none. All brackets will stay the same as they've been since 2018. There are several other changes though, that will impact how much of your income is actually taxed, right? It's not just the income tax bracket. For example,

the standard deduction has been permanently increased with the passage of this bill and, you know, having it signed into law, and that will continue to rise with inflation. This essentially reduces the amount of taxable income for most filers, especially those who don't itemize. The cap on the state and local tax deduction, otherwise known as SALT, has been raised from $10,000 to $40,000 for individuals making under 500,000. And we'll talk about that more in a minute too. And then finally, the big beautiful bill

also includes temporary deductions for things like tips, overtime pay, car loan interest. It also includes expanded credits for children and seniors, which all contribute to lowering taxable income for qualifying individuals. For lower income individuals, especially those earning $15,000 or less, again, the law does not raise taxes.

In fact, as I said earlier, the law actually provides some of the most significant proportional tax relief. According to estimates from the Joint Committee on Taxation, individuals in this income range could see their tax liability reduced by more than 16 percent, and that relief comes largely from the expanded standard deduction and targeted credits, like the child tax credit and the specific deductions for seniors or low-income workers with tips or overtime pay.

So the bill already ensures that these low-income earners pay little to no federal income tax, but it also ensures that they won't face new taxes and may even receive greater refunds or lessen taxes overall. Now I do have to mention that critics take issue with the bill's cuts to programs like Medicaid and SNAP because these cuts could disproportionately affect the same low income groups who benefit from this other tax relief. But when we're speaking purely from a tax perspective, the big beautiful bill does not increase income taxes for any tax bracket or I should say it doesn't increase tax liability

for those making less than $15,000, which was the question. for any tax bracket or I should say, it doesn't increase tax liability for, you know, those making less than $15,000, which was the question. Next question, is there really a $15 billion retroactive tax cut for Metta specifically? Are there other tax breaks for billionaires? There is no specific $15 billion retroactive tax cut for Metta, these are claims that are circulating online, but the law does not... It doesn't include any company specific tax breaks for any corporation, let alone for Metta.

What the law does do is it reinstates and enhances the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act corporate R&D expensing rule to now allow immediate deductions, including for previously deferred R&D costs. Now, what this means is big tech companies like Microsoft, Oracle, Adobe, and yes, even Metta can retroactively deduct prior R&D investments and take them upfront, which rapidly increases cash flow. Because of this, analysts think that big tech firms broadly could see multi-billion dollar benefits, but that's across the sector. That is not a special $15 billion carve out just for Metta. It's a structural change benefiting any big R&D spender. As far as other tax breaks

for billionaires, there's a 20% pass-through deduction which stems again from the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. It allows certain owners of pass-through businesses to deduct up to 20% of their qualified business income from their taxable income. So let's say your business has a million dollars in qualified business income. You can deduct 20% or $200,000 so only $800,000 is taxed as ordinary income. But this applies not just to billionaires, this also applies to small business owners as well. One part of the bill that didn't make it into the final version was an indexing provision that would have definitely benefited the wealthy. So originally the indexing provision allowed investors to adjust

the basis of their assets for inflation, but it was removed before the final passage. So all this to say that no, there is no $15 billion retroactive tax cut for Meta specifically. Yes, there are some tax breaks that will benefit billionaires more than others, but there are no tax breaks specifically for billionaires. What ended up happening with the SALT tax deduction? Okay, so we kind of briefly touched on the SALT deduction in the answer to the first question,

but I wanna expand on that a little bit. So the SALT deduction allows those that live in states with high state taxes to deduct some of those state and local taxes that they pay from their federal taxable income. Okay, so I'll give you an example. Let's say a married couple filing jointly makes $250,000 in income.

They pay $15,000 in state and local income taxes, $12,000 in property taxes. That's $27,000. Before 2018, when there was no cap on SALT deductions, that couple could deduct the full $27,000 as an itemized deduction on their federal return. So they would reduce their taxable income by $27,000. Well, after the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, that same couple could only deduct $10,000. There was a $10,000 cap. So they lost, in a sense, that $17,000 deduction that they used to get. Depending on their marginal tax bracket, that extra $17,000 cost them about $4,000 more in federal income tax. Now, under the

Big Beautiful bill, they can deduct up to $40,000, which means they can deduct the full $27,000 again and save that roughly $4,000 in federal taxes. That 40% cap though, so the way it works is it increases by 1% each year starting in 2026, but then it's going to revert back to $10,000 in 2030. And that's of course, unless Congress extends it further. But as of now, the way that it's written in this law is that it's $40,000 increases by 1% every year from 2026 and then goes back to $10,000 in 2030. For taxpayers with modified adjusted gross incomes over $500,000, that cap will start

to phase down starting in 2026 until it eventually goes back to 10,000 in 2030. How will Trump accounts work for kids? Does it apply to kids already born? Well, before we talk about how the accounts work, I just want to be clear that any child that is a US citizen and has a Social Security number can have one of these new IRA style accounts, but the government will only be offering the $1,000 contribution money to kids born from the beginning of this year until the end of 2028. But how it works is parents open this particular type of account once it's available for their child at a bank of their choice. So long as that child was born between 2025 and 2028, the government will

deposit a one-time $1,000 payment into the account. Parents or guardians can then contribute up to $5,000 per year post-tax to a portfolio that has to be invested in a diversified fund that tracks a U.S. stock index. Employers can also contribute, they can contribute up to $2,500 a year to their employees' children's Trump accounts, but those contributions from the employer do count towards that $5,000 annual limit. And that $5,000 annual limit, by the way, increases annually for inflation. Now account holders, meaning the kids,

they won't be able to touch the money until they're 18. Once they're 18, the account will be treated like a traditional IRA. So the money can grow tax-deferred, but withdraws will be taxed as regular income. And then there's a 10% penalty if you take the money out before age 59 and a half. However, there are exceptions. So if the money is taken out for higher education expenses, starting a business, or maybe you have to take the money out as a result of a disability, domestic abuse,

or natural disaster, that money can be withdrawn without being subject to the 10% penalty. Then there's also a $10,000 exemption for new home purchases as well as a $5,000 exception for baby expenses. So that's a little bit about how the account works. Next question, how much money are ICE and the Department of Defense getting? ICE gets an additional $75 billion on top of already allocated funds. The Department of Defense gets an additional $150 billion on top of already allocated funds. So ICE's funding is specifically for detention capacity and family residential center capacity. That's about 45 billion.

And then another 30 billion is for recruitment, hiring, training, onboarding, bonuses, deportation, transportation costs, information technology to support deportations, facility upgrades, fleet modernization, family unity, 287 GG agreements which allow local and state law enforcement to assist federal law enforcement for purposes of immigration, and then that $30 billion is also for the Office of Victims of Immigration Crime Engagement as well as the Office of the Principal Legal Advisor. Notably, prior to this $75 billion allocation for ICE, ICE had an annual appropriation of about $10.5 billion, so this is a significant increase. The $150 billion for the Defense Department is specifically for shipbuilding, integrated

air and missile defense systems like the proposed Golden Dome, munitions and defense supply chain resilience, scaling production of low-cost weapons, enhancements to nuclear forces, infrastructure and housing improvements for military personnel, cybersecurity and operational readiness, and support for Indo-Pacific command capabilities, coast guard, barracks, and more. Let's take our second and final break here. When I come back, we'll finish the Q&A and then we'll do some quick hitters and we'll finish the episode with critical thinking. I do. Breaking news, McDonald's international menu items are vanishing. McPizza bites missing in Italy. Big Rosti stolen from Germany. Teriyaki chicken sandwich disappears in Japan.

An Abysskoth McFlurry blackout in Belgium. Oh, it's just in. We can now confirm the stolen favorites have resurfaced at McDonald's Canada. The international menu heist. Try them all while you can. For a limited time in participating McDonald's Canada the international menu heist try them all while you can for a limited time in participating McDonald's in Canada Welcome back. Let's move right along with this Q&A The next question is why does the big beautiful bill add five trillion dollars to our national debt limit? I don't understand how people are saying it's saving trillions but then adding trillions. Okay, so the national debt is the amount of money that the federal government has borrowed

to cover the cumulative outstanding balance of expenses incurred over time. Okay, in any given fiscal year when spending exceeds revenue the result is a budget deficit. To give you some context, we haven't had a budget deficit. To give you some context, we haven't had a budget surplus here in the United States since 2001. Now that's not to say we didn't have debt in 2001 because we did, though it wasn't nearly what it is today. That's just to say that for the last 24 years or so, we've been operating at a deficit and only making our debt bigger. Now, the current national debt is around $36 trillion. Okay. It's just been accumulating over the last 24 years. The debt ceiling is the legal limit that Congress

puts on the amount of money the federal government is allowed to borrow for money that Congress has already appropriated by law. So think things like Medicare, military salaries, interest on the national debt, the list goes on. Now, if the government continues to spend and the interest on that money grows accordingly, the government is eventually going to run out of money. But the government can't legally borrow any more money unless Congress increases the debt ceiling.

Sometimes Congress will even suspend the debt ceiling for a period of time. And this means that the Treasury can just borrow whatever it needs to during that time to meet its obligations without hitting a hard cap. That's what happened in 2023. The debt ceiling was suspended to avoid a default. However, that suspension expired on January 2nd

of this year and the debt ceiling was automatically reinstated at the amount of debt that had accrued during that suspension. That was about $36.1 billion. So as of January 2nd, that is where our debt ceiling was. Once that ceiling was reinstated, the Treasury started doing whatever it could to avoid hitting the limit because once you hit the limit, that is default we do not want that to happen. So this meant that the debt ceiling would again have to be increased to allow for more government spending. Remember this is the legal limit that the government is allowed to borrow so if the government needs more money Congress has to you know give them

the legal ability to borrow more money by raising the debt ceiling. Now in the Big Beautiful bill there were four and a half trillion dollars in tax cuts which means four and a half trillion dollars less in revenue for the government and then another roughly three hundred billion in spending on the border and defense system. So while the bill included one point seven trillion dollars in spending cuts over the next ten years, meaning money saved for the government. The bill's also adding another $4.8 trillion over the next 10 years.

So the Congressional Budget Office projects that the Big Beautiful bill will increase the federal deficits over the next 10 years by about $3.3 trillion. And that is why the debt ceiling needed to be increased. And I'll also say there's a bit of a debate as to how much money is going to be added. You have some arguing that, you know,

the tax cuts were just extended, they're not new. So it's not gonna add as much to the deficit. I think the White House actually says that the bill is going to reduce the deficit by 1.4 trillion dollars. So there's a bit of a debate in that regard. But all this to say that the reason the debt ceiling was increased is because the government

is going to default, they need more money. And we'll touch on the debt ceiling increase at the end of this episode as well when we do critical thinking. Moving on to the next question, will social security still be taxed or is it now tax free? The bill does not eliminate taxes on social security itself. It does introduce a deduction that beneficiaries can claim to lower their federal

income tax. That deduction applies to all of a senior's income, not just to social security benefits. So under that law, seniors age 65 and older can deduct up to $6,000 from their taxable income through 2028. Those eligible for the deduction include those aged 65 and older with an adjusted gross income of $75,000 or less and $150,000 or less for couples filing jointly. Next question, is it true the retirement age has been increased to 70? This is false. The bill does not change the retirement age. People can still begin collecting reduced social security at 62 and full benefits at the full retirement age, which depends on the person's birth year,

but is somewhere around age 66, 67. Notably, the longer you delay your benefits, the more your benefit amount will increase, but that's nothing new. That didn't change with this new bill. How does no tax on overtime pay and tips work? What's the limit? When does it start?

And does it just mean tax deductions when you file? So workers that make less than $150,000 annually can deduct up to $25,000 for tips each year from their taxable income and up to $12,500 for overtime pay through 2028. Those making more than $150,000 annually are not eligible for these deductions. Those will start in 2026 and yes, it's considered a tax deduction when you file.

What's the final on AI and state regulation? Okay, so in the end, the bill did not prohibit any state regulation on AI. Originally, the bill included a provision that would have banned states from regulating AI for the next 10 years, but the Senate voted 99 to 1 to remove that provision. So states are allowed to regulate AI, at least for now. That could change if and when Congress decides to pass legislation prohibiting it. But the Big Beautiful bill did not mention AI regulation at all. Does

the bill give President Trump the authority to ignore the Supreme Court and avoid or delay elections? This is actually one that I covered in a rumor has it segment from a couple of months ago because it all stemmed from this viral social media post that said the big beautiful bill would give the president the legal ability to cancel or delay elections, ignore Supreme Court rulings for one year or more, fire government workers for political disloyalty, make it so judges can't enforce their own orders. And there was a ton of other claims in that one post. So what I'll do is I'll take this one claim at a time. Let's start with does the bill give the president the legal ability to cancel or delay elections? No, the loss is nothing at all about the president gaining the ability to cancel, delay, or

do anything with elections. Does the bill allow the president to ignore Supreme Court rulings for one year or more. Again, nothing in the bill suggests that the president could ignore the Supreme Court ever, let alone for a year. There is one provision that was in the original version of the bill, which pertains to very specific court orders. And I'll kind of touch on that in the next question, but it's irrelevant now, and I'll kind of touch on that in the next question, but it's irrelevant now and I'll get into that more in a minute. So again, the answer is no, there is nothing in the bill that supports this claim

that the bill gives the president the ability to ignore Supreme Court rulings. And then finally, does the bill make it so judges can't enforce their own orders? No, this claim stemmed from a provision in the original bill that would have prohibited federal courts from enforcing contempt charges specifically unless a security bond was first paid by the party bringing that lawsuit. However, the provision was later taken out and did not make it into the final bill. If

you want to hear, you know, anyway, even though it's not in the bill, if you want to hear my original explanation as to what that original provision said and what it would have meant, that's in my May 29th episode in the rumor has it segment. I'm not going to repeat it here just because the provision no longer exists in the bill. So it's irrelevant at this point. But again, that's my May 29th episode, the rumor has it segment. Okay. Let's do a few quick hitters.

The DHS announced that the TSA will no longer require airline passengers to take their shoes off at security checkpoints. So far, the new rule only applies to select airports, but officials do say it could expand nationwide in the future. Officials attribute the rule change to advanced imaging and CT scanners that can now effectively detect threats without shoe removal. Note, though, that officers can still ask travelers to take their shoes off if they feel the need to. This week a federal appeals court blocked a Biden-era rule requiring businesses to make it easy for consumers to cancel unwanted subscriptions and memberships. The rule was set to go into effect on Monday but the appellate court said this week that the FTC made a

procedural error by failing to come up with a preliminary regulatory analysis which is required for rules whose annual impact on the US economy is more than $100 million, and therefore the rule cannot take effect. President Trump nominated Sean Duffy as interim NASA Administrator. Duffy is also the Transportation Secretary. Duffy's nomination comes after Trump abruptly withdrew the nomination of tech entrepreneur, Jared Isaacman, in June. President Biden's former White House physician,

Dr. Kevin O'Connor, testified before the House Oversight Committee on Wednesday. O'Connor pled the fifth and cited the physician patient privilege when asked questions related to Biden's mental acuity and health. The deposition was part of a House Oversight Committee investigation into Biden's mental fitness and the potentially unauthorized use of the auto pen to sign pardons and executive orders. And finally, the last one, six Secret Service agents have been suspended without pay for up to 42 days related to the attempted assassination of President Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania last year. Deputy

Director Matt Quinn said the agency followed a federally mandated process and opted not to terminate any of the six agents. Instead, their penalties range from 10 to 42 days of leave without pay or benefits. When they return to work, they'll be replaced into restricted duty or roles with less operational responsibility. Let's finish with some critical thinking. For those that are new here, the critical thinking segment is meant to be a challenge. It's not meant to be too complex.

It's not meant to stump you, just to get you thinking twice about your opinions and or your beliefs and get you thinking a little bit deeper about any given topic. So for today, let's revisit that debt ceiling increase. Before I pose some questions to you, I wanna give you some additional food for thought when it comes to what the debt ceiling is

and some pros and cons of the debt ceiling being raised. For one, and as we kind of briefly touched on earlier, the debt ceiling isn't about new spending, right? It's about paying the bills for programs and obligations that Congress has already approved. Social Security, Medicare, military salaries, interest payments, et cetera. Think of it like you're agreeing to pay off

your credit card balance for purchases you've already made. The debt ceiling is just the legal limit on how much the treasury can borrow to cover that tab. Now if Congress didn't raise the debt ceiling, the government wouldn't just suddenly have less expenses, right? Those expenses have already been incurred. They don't just go away. Instead what would happen is the government would run out of cash to pay for what it owes.

And if that were to happen, that could mean no paychecks for active duty troops. It could mean delayed social security checks. It could mean higher interest rates. Potentially it could even mean a hit to the US credit rating because the US wouldn't be seen as reliable it currently is and seen as a little riskier. In more extreme cases, running out of cash could result in a loss of trust, not only with the US dollar, but also treasury bonds, which would spike market volatility.

So with these things in mind, let's quickly run through some of the pros and cons of raising the debt ceiling. Some of the pros, raising the debt ceiling lets the government keep paying its bills and avoids a default, which could trigger financial panic and a possible recession. Raising the debt ceiling protects the US credit rating by showing investors it'll continue to meet its obligations. It reassures financial markets and global trading partners that the US is a reliable borrower,

which then supports the strength of the dollar. And it keeps government operations running. Military members still get paid. Social security checks continue to go out, things like that. Now for the cons, raising the debt ceiling allows the government to continue borrowing more and more money without actually addressing the root cause of the debt, right? It reduces pressure on lawmakers to actually balance the budget and cut wasteful spending or raise necessary revenue. And then finally, it pushes higher interest rate

costs onto us, onto you and I, the taxpayers, because higher national debt means more tax dollars go to interest payments instead of actual services or investments. So with that little mini sort of crash course, here are the questions that I have for you just to get you thinking a bit. First, in your opinion, does having a debt ceiling serve a meaningful fiscal purpose,

or does it perhaps just create recurring political crises? And why? What would happen if we just had no debt ceiling at all? And then in your opinion, who is to blame for the debt that requires these repeated ceiling increases? Is it the lawmakers? Is it past administrations, current administrations?

Is it a mix of both? And why do you feel that way? What's your reason? That's what I have for you today. Thank you so much for being here. As always, don't forget to subscribe to the newsletter using the link in the show notes. Have a great weekend and I will talk to you on Monday.