The current reconciliation bill will raise the deficit. Could it pass anyway?

Make Me Smart

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4.6 • 5.4K Ratings

🗓️ 20 June 2025

⏱️ 29 minutes

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Summary

This week, we’ve looked at the budget reconciliation bill and its effects on student debt, taxes, health care and social programs. The bill is currently moving through the Senate. Today, we discuss the reconciliation bill and the national deficit. And we dig into other proposals such as AI regulation ban and private foundation taxes. Plus, we play a special budget round of Half Full/Half Empty.

Here’s everything we talked about today:

“AI moratorium sparks GOP battle over states’ rights” from The Hill
“Introduction to Budget “Reconciliation” from The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities
“One, Big, Beautiful Bill: Impact on Philanthropy” from Council on Foundations
“Senate Judiciary Unveils Its Own Plan To Curtail Court Orders” from CATO Institute
“Parliamentarian rulings would kill key climate provisions in GOP megabill” from Politico

Got a question for the hosts? Email [email protected] or leave us a voicemail at 508-U-B-SMART.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello everyone. I am Kimberly Adams. Welcome back to Make Me Smart, where we make today makes sense.
0:12.0	And I'm Nova Sopho. Thanks for everyone for joining us on the podcast and on the YouTube livestream on this Friday, June 20th. We're topping off the week with topping off, get it, with a little economics on tap, which is our weekly happy hour episode. This week was all about the reconciliation bill, and it was a fascinating three episodes if you caught Monday through Wednesday. Now that bill, also known as the one big beautiful bill act. And yes, all week we've been focusing on different aspects of that
0:38.7	bill, which is a mouthful of a name, while answering questions from you, our listeners along the way,
0:44.5	right, Kimberly? Yeah, and, you know, it was interesting because there was so much other news this
0:50.8	week, and it's sometimes hard just to focus on one thing. But this is a really
0:56.0	important piece of legislation and there's so much in it. And, you know, with everything
1:01.0	else going on, we really don't want it to get lost, you know, some of the ways that this
1:05.0	could impact folks. So thank you to everybody who sent in a bunch of really great questions,
1:10.5	which we got on a variety of topics.
1:12.6	And since we got such a variety of questions, today we're just going to do a bit of a grab bag of topics and answer those questions and then play as nerdy as it sounds, a reconciliation bill themed version of half full, half empty.
1:26.6	I can't imagine why you would think that that sounds
1:28.7	nerdy. I know, right? Right. What sounds nerdy about that? Absolutely nothing. Nothing at all.
1:34.5	But first, we got to do drinks. So Nova, do you have anything special that you're drinking today?
1:41.5	It's special for me, although it's not special to the audience for those
1:44.6	longtime listeners who are here every week because if I was here on another On Tap episode and
1:50.5	also was drinking this, it's an El Maestro Sierra. I like to show off what I'm drinking.
1:56.1	It's an amontiato from my favorite Edgar Allan Poe short story.
2:02.6	Yes.
2:03.6	Tell us, do you want to share that?
2:06.6	Oh, yes, a casque of a monteado.
2:09.6	How does it start?
2:11.6	A thousand ills had I borne from Fortunato, but when he verged on insult, I vowed my revenge.
	...

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