This is John Batchelor, a conversation with colleague Veronique de Reggie about debt.

As the Trump administration goes forward, it looks to the 2017 Tax Cut and Jobs Act to extend it.

However, unless there is a way to pay for it, it will increase the debt.

Does the new Congress concern itself with the debt? There's been

talked that way, but Vernec explains how they can get into this, how they can get out of it,

and what is likely to happen. Vernique de Rijie, debt. I think there's still a sense that debt

is really important. I think Elon Musk and Doge really, he, in fact, the rumor is that the Ramoswamy leaving has to do with the fact that Mast's really focused on spending cuts and Ramoswamy was focused on regulatory reform.

I think we should do both, obviously, but

and also there's a, there was a 50-page document that was circulating that probably came from the

House Budget Committee with ways to pay for the extension of the tax cuts. So it's clear that

this notion of the debt and the importance of not blowing of the tax cuts. So it's clear that this notion of the debt

and the importance of not blowing up the debt

and paying for part of the tax cuts

is still very much front and center of a lot of conversations.

However, again, extending the tax cuts is really fraught

because they're just all these kind of tensions and

on different issues. And it could be that in the end, the simpler solution is to do, is to just

not care about the debt. I think it would be a tremendous mistake. But you know how politics work.

In the end, they want to get things done.

And they may be willing, in the end, compromise about the debt rather than not getting it done.

Yeah.