Top MAGA mandarins have already suggested a final budget bill could incorporate items not chiefly about appropriations, revenue, or the statutory debt limit. On Jan. 5, Trump said he wanted the legislation to "Unleash American Energy," a vague goal that has seen several likely non-fiscal clauses appear this May in a House Natural Resources Committee reconciliation text. The next day, on far-right radio host Hugh Hewitt's show, the then-president-elect said he'd prefer Congress give him "one big, beautiful bill" to sign. To attract Democrats, Trump allowed slyly, it might include regularization of the DREAMers--a temporary residency path to citizenship for those who arrived in the U.S. as undocumented children, something he and ICE clearly aren't interested in now, and also something hard or impossible to claim would have been compatible with reconciliation and the Byrd rule.

Hewitt, former Office of Personnel Management general counsel and deputy director under Ronald Reagan, told his guest to "hurry" to procure the "one big, beautiful bill" while he has a "mandate" and won't be told "no." That's what massive ongoing countrywide protests keep telling them.

A final note: prognosticators advising caution in predicting the reach of Trump's power hunger have not lately been winning the crystal ball contest.

Created by Douglas Lucas in mid-May 2025 as a footnote for his [add date here] article at [add news outlet name here], "[add article title here and link]".