As you know, yesterday we started the Vote-O-Rama in the Senate on the OBBB.

Just to let you know where things stand. For all the drama, things ended up pretty much where the smart money said it would.

The first vote was on the decision to overrule the parliamentarian and use a current policy baseline, as opposed to a current law baseline, to score the bill, removing the impact of extending the 2017 TCJA tax cuts. It passed 53-47 on a party line vote.

There were a lot of Democratic messaging amendments we won't bore you with.

On the most contentious points at issue:

Efforts to rein in the green tax credits failed, despite lobbying from GOP hawks and, we hear, the White House.

Medicaid cuts are still in place, and amendments to offer a bailout to rural hospitals also failed.

Sadly, the AI regulation moratorium failed.

The Vote-O-Rama drama continues today, and Senate leadership is hopeful the Senate can pass the bill today so it can go to the House for a special session (with more drama) and then the President's desk by July 4th.

From what we hear, the key holdout vote is Lisa Murkowski, who is probably not happy after the parliamentarian rejected a special deal for Medicaid recipients in Alaska.

We have to unburden ourselves of some commentary, here. This was a pretty dismal showing. The persistence on the green tax credits puts lie to the proposition that this bill's other cuts are about fiscal responsibility, and it validates the idea that the entire purpose of the bill is to cut services to the poor to hand out money to rich people. But worse! The rich people who are being handed money are rich people who hate Republicans! Meanwhile a lot of Trump voters are on Medicaid and Trump voters like Medicaid. C'est pire qu'un crime, c'est une faute: the Senate did the wrong thing on the merits, and hurt the Party politically in the process. Hopefully the worst aspects can be fixed in the House…

All that being said, we would cite and endorse this statement by Vice President JD Vance: "The thing that will bankrupt this country more than any other policy is flooding the country with illegal immigration and then giving those migrants generous benefits. The OBBB fixes this problem. And therefore it must pass. Everything else—the CBO score, the proper baseline, the minutiae of the Medicaid policy—is immaterial compared to the ICE money and immigration enforcement provisions. I’ve seen many criticisms of the bill, and most of them fail a very basic test: could those criticisms get 50 votes? As the president told me earlier today, for a good idea to become policy it has to have the votes. Without the votes it’s a useless idea on a piece of paper. Especially considering that if the OBBB fails, taxes go up, and ICE doesn’t get its enforcement help. The baseline here is not the status quo. The baseline is taxes go up in a few months and a lot of our progress at the border stops. Pass the bill. Pass the bill." We would triply underline the point about needing 50 votes.

Just get this thing across the finish line…

Policy News You Need To Know

#ItsTheEconomyStupid — The Dallas Fed Manufacturing Index, a widely-watched economic indicator of manufacturing health, came in at -12.7 in June 2025, which was worse than the expected -10.0, though it did improve from May's reading of -15.3. This represents the fourth consecutive month of contraction in Texas manufacturing. As Bloomberg's Joe Weisenthal notes, this is representative of other recent regional business surveys: according to the Philadelphia Fed, manufacturing activity in the region remained weak in June with the general activity index at -4.0, unchanged from May; the Richmond Fed's composite manufacturing index improved slightly to -7 in June from -9 in May, but remained in negative territory. The anecdotal comments are even more worrying, speaking of uncertainty, a halt to new projects, tariffs, and so on. One manufacturer comments "DOGE killed our primary customer" while another says "It's ridiculous how little activity there is."

#AmericanManufacturing #Chyna — Then again, to put those numbers into perspective… Quote of the day, from Ford CEO Jim Farley on China EVs: "It's the most humbling thing I have ever seen. 70% of all EVs in the world are made in China; They have far superior in-vehicle technology. Huawei and Xiaomi are in every car. You get in, you don't have to pair your phone. Automatically, your whole digital life is mirrored in the car. Beyond that, their cost, their quality of their vehicles is far superior to what I see in the West. We are in a global competition with China, and it's not just EVs. And if we lose this, we do not have a future Ford." From Yahoo Finance, via Sawyer Merritt. In this context, reviving American manufacturing capacity against Chinese mercantilism may well be worth some short term economic pain.

#AI — At the Examiner, AI economist Sebastien Laye argues that the Trump administration is fundamentally reshaping AI governance. Laye describes how the new administration has rescinded previous AI diffusion rules, transformed the AI Safety Institute into the Center for AI Standards and Innovation with a focus on innovation over safety concerns. Interestingly, he advocates for a shift toward private governance of AI, citing work by Dean Ball that proposes a framework where independent private bodies would evaluate and certify AI systems while protecting developers from tort liability, arguing that AI's nature as a general-purpose technology makes centralized public governance ineffective and that previous regulatory efforts have focused on "imaginary risks" while missing real threats and stifling innovation.

#Trade — "The EU is reportedly willing to accept the baseline U.S. 10% tariff in trade talks. The caveat is the EU is looking for exemptions and quotas in certain sectors: semiconductors, pharmaceuticals, alcohol, aircraft, steel, and autos," reports Jacob Jensen of the American Action Forum.

#Popcorn — The NYT has a big piece out on an effort by a group of Democrats to create what they call a "Project 2029," or a future agenda for their party. The effort is led by Andrei Cherny, editor of the journal Democracy. "The goal is to turn it into a book — just like Project 2025 — and to rally leading Democratic presidential candidates behind those ideas during the 2028 primary season." The group's advisory board includes the infamous Neera Tanden, as well as "Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser under former President Joseph R. Biden Jr.; Anne-Marie Slaughter, the former president of the New America Foundation; the economist Justin Wolfers; Felicia Wong, until recently the president of the progressive Roosevelt Institute; and Jim Kessler, a founder of the centrist group Third Way." It's an interesting mix of characters. We will be following their work with interest…

#Immigration #RuleOfLaw — The DOJ has just filed suit against the City of Los Angeles over its sanctuary policies. Fox News's Bill Melugin, of course, has the story.

#Immigration #RuleOfLaw — Speaking of immigration and the rule of law, somebody has come up with an app called "ICEblock" (we won't link to it for obvious reasons) which tracks ICE raids in real time, in order to help users avoid them. We can't strongly enough endorse Claremont Senior Fellow Jeremy Carl's suggestion that the creators of the app be arrested and tried for obstruction of justice.

#Immigration — Meanwhile, in an interview with Maria Bartiromo, President Trump said he might create a "temporary pass" for migrant workers in farms and hotels. We'll see what comes out of it, but we would bet against it.

#VotingRights — Excellent news: Marjorie Taylor Green has announced a new bill, endorsed by President Trump. The bill "will require the U.S. Census Bureau to conduct a new census immediately upon enactment of the bill. In conducting the new census of the U.S. population, it shall require questions determining the citizenship of each individual, and count US citizens only. Upon completion of the census, the bill will direct states to immediately begin a redistricting of all U.S. House seats process using only the population of United States citizens." The fact that non-citizens are counted for the purpose of creating and apportioning House seats is too insane to merit debate.

#DEI #HigherEd — From the Journal: "Harvard Violated Students’ Civil Rights, Trump Administration Finds." The Administration is threatening Harvard with "loss of all federal financial resources."

#DEI #HigherEd — Speaking of, great report from the Free Beacon's Aaron Sibarium: "Duke Law Journal Sent a Secret Memo to Minority Applicants Telling Them They’d Get Extra Points for Writing About Their Race"

TK

#Crypto — It's happening: industry publication American Banker is reporting that American banks are "lining up" to embrace stablecoins and stablecoin payments.

#DeepState — "Trump has fired a host of Democratic appointees at independent boards and commissions across the federal government. There’s just one catch: Some of them are still working," Politico reports. "The overwhelming majority have in fact left, accepted new jobs, dropped their lawsuits, or been otherwise forced out. Yet a handful of officials have successfully resisted, either because they were reinstated by lower-court judges, or because they have simply managed to maneuver around the White House’s orders and directives." Competence in execution, including following up, matters!

#LawEnforcement — FBI Director Kash Patel and Deputy Director Dan Bongino have announced "$245 million seized, hundreds of defendants and medical professionals charged, and $15 billion in losses prevented in the largest coordinated healthcare fraud takedown in history." As we wrote during the DOGE era, Medicare fraud is probably the biggest source of potential government savings.