2,400,000,000,000! In case all those zeroes makes your head spin, that’s 2.4 trillion dollars or you could say 2,400 billion dollars or 2,400,000 million dollars. My goodness, that’s a lot of dollars! And that, though the number might turn out to be even greater, is what the president, the recurrent guy, wants badly to add to our national debt according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). It should be said that this increase to the debt has little to do with improving the lives of regular Americans.

His recently un-bested friend forever (UBFF) has publicly denounced this addition to the debt as just too many additional zeroes to be tolerated. After all, the UBFF was the one who took a metaphorical chainsaw to our federal government in search of zeroes to be slashed from government spending in order to supposedly reduce that terrible debt of ours.

That boost of $2.4 trillion to the national debt is the result of the recurrent guy’s One Big Beautiful Bill that recently passed the House of Representatives and is now being considered in the U.S. Senate. The recurrent guy is using all his powers of persuasion to convince Republican senators who are dragging their feet, that they better sign on or else.

So, what’s in this great big beautiful budget bill? We know that there are large cuts to social safety net programs. The rule changes and cuts of $793 billion to Medicaid may result in 13.7 million people losing health coverage, according to the CBO. And changes and cuts to SNAP (food stamps) will leave millions of low-income children, disabled, and elderly people with reduced or possibly no food assistance.

And, of course, there is the recurrent guy’s promise to extend his tax cuts from his first term for the very wealthy and corporations. The cruel cuts to programs that support the people of this country don’t come anywhere close to paying for these huge tax cuts. Republicans who oppose high deficits want to cut even more from these programs and from others, like Medicare and Social Security, to pay for those huge tax cuts for rich people.

As the news of the recurrent guy’s illegal military interference in the sovereign powers of the state of California are shocking the nation, it should be known that there is $185 billion in this bill for even more of the kind of unprecedented immigration enforcement that we’ve been seeing in LA and across the country.

Yes, cruelty is the name of the game. But what else is in the One Big Beautiful Bill? It seems that there is a section that will make it harder for federal judges to hold people in contempt for failing to obey their orders. Currently a judge can enforce a court order with fines or even jail time. But if this part of his bill becomes law, federal judges will lose their only method of holding someone who disobeys a court order accountable. Our courts will be rendered powerless, leaving the recurrent guy and his regime free to break the law no matter what a federal judge decides in a case. The ability of our courts to decide what is illegal or unconstitutional is hanging in the balance.

And then there’s the section that will prevent any state from passing laws that regulate how artificial intelligence is used. Some states are in the process or have already passed laws to make sure AI development is not harmful to their citizens, as has already been shown it can be. But I guess the recurrent guy’s billionaire tech buddies don’t like regulation of their investments and companies. After all, they’ve already paid millions of dollars to the recurrent guy in the form of donations and now expect he’ll do as he’s asked.

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Speaking of donations, the recurrent guy is very busy increasing his personal wealth. Unlike other presidents, he doesn’t seem to care that accepting gifts from foreign countries is illegal according to the emoluments clause of the Constitution. He recently accepted a $200 million luxury jet from the government of Qatar and plans to spend millions of taxpayer dollars to refurbish it into a new Air Force One for his use. I do wonder what the Qataris have been promised in return.

But the guy can do whatever he likes since the U.S. Supreme Court gave him immunity from prosecution for all official acts. Accepting a $200 million gift is an official act because it was given to him as the president? Sure, the Supremes have spoken.

And then there’s all the crypto based money making. The recurrent guy has created his own cryptocurrency company, World Liberty Financial, and his own meme coin. On May 23, he threw a big gala starring himself for the 220 biggest buyers of the coin. The price of the coin soared and so did the profit of the recurrent guy. I guess if you want to buy influence with the president of the most powerful nation in the world, all you need do is buy a million of his truly worthless cryptocurrency.

It sure seems to me that our country is sliding out of democracy and into a business. We are no longer the United States of America, we are now a private corporation named GRIFT, Inc., the Global Rapacious Income For T (the recurrent guy) corporation. And guess who the chief executive officer in charge of sales is?

Karen Gardner of Haydenville can be reached at opinion@gazettenet.com.