In this episode, Paul Teller, Executive Director of Advancing American Freedom, joins Jenny Beth Martin to sound the alarm on what could become the largest tax hike in U.S. history if the Trump tax cuts are allowed to expire. They dive into the battle over the reconciliation process, real vs. fake spending cuts, and why tax relief doesn’t “cost” the government—it empowers American families and small businesses. Learn what’s at stake, how Washington games the budget, and how patriots can take action to protect their wallets and their freedom.
In this episode, Paul Teller, Executive Director of Advancing American Freedom, joins Jenny Beth Martin to sound the alarm on what could become the largest tax hike in U.S. history if the Trump tax cuts are allowed to expire. They dive into the battle over the reconciliation process, real vs. fake spending cuts, and why tax relief doesn’t “cost” the government—it empowers American families and small businesses. Learn what’s at stake, how Washington games the budget, and how patriots can take action to protect their wallets and their freedom.
X/Twitter: @PTeller | @AmericanFreedom | @jennybethm
Website: https://advancingamericanfreedom.com/
Paul Teller (00:00):
In fact, the Doge is just getting started. Let's not get angry just because they haven't done it all in the first month. They've already done and proposed to be done so much more if you think about it, than has ever happened before. Also, thanks to Elon Musk and others, of course, the president, it's kind of cool to cut spending now. Cool to even talk about cutting spending,
Narrator (00:21):
Whereas keeping our Republic is on the line, and it requires Patriots with great passion, dedication, and eternal vigilance to preserve our freedoms. Jenny Beth Martin is the co-founder of Tea Party Patriots. She's an author of filmmaker and one of time magazine's, most influential people in the world. But the title she is most proud of is Mom to Her Boy, girl Twins. She has been at the forefront fighting to protect America's core principles for more than a decade. Welcome to the Jenny Beth Show.
Jenny Beth Martin (00:54):
Today I'm joined by Paul Teller, who is the executive vice president of Advancing American Freedom and worked as a coalition's director for President Trump when he was in office
Paul Teller (01:05):
And legislative affairs and for the vice president as well. So, yeah. Yeah, good times.
Jenny Beth Martin (01:10):
So you are working very much on, its extending the Trump tax cuts in this term now and also on spending cuts. If we don't extend these tax cuts, we're going to have the biggest tax increase in our lifetime, right?
Paul Teller (01:23):
Absolutely. Yeah. It's one of our biggest projects that we're working on extending the TCJA as they say it in Washington, tax cut means cuts and jobs, right? Nobody knows what that is, but yeah, that's definitely our biggest project. We're putting money into advertising, into coalitions, into education on the hill, all that kind of stuff. But you're right, if it doesn't get done, if they say, we'll, let it slide, what's the big deal? Massive tax increases across the income spectrum. The thing that of course, the left is out there in force about, they're saying it's just would mean extending tax cuts for billionaires and big corporations. Totally not true. I mean, perfect example, if the tax cuts expire, the 12% bracket goes up to 15%. So ask yourself, huh? Are just rich people paying the 12%? I'm pretty sure most Americans watching you today, watching us today are going to pay that 12 at one of the lower brackets and then the others go up as well. So huge tax increase coming if we don't stop
Jenny Beth Martin (02:20):
It, and it's going to happen in the reconciliation bill. And the reconciliation bill happens because a budget resolution has been passed in the house. And does that have to also pass the Senate?
Paul Teller (02:37):
Yeah, I mean, right. That's the thing. It's a little complicated, but basically, yeah, you need
Jenny Beth Martin (02:41):
Explain it.
Paul Teller (02:41):
A budget resolution house and Senate
Paul Teller (02:43):
To set up these expedited procedures. The fancy Washington word, as you said, is reconciliation helps it get through the Senate quicker. In other words, instead of needing 60 votes, you just need 51. And you're saying, well, who cares? Well, if you need 60 votes, then you need Democrats to pass anything you want to do related to taxing and mandatory spending, the autopilot spending for 51 votes under reconciliation. You just need Republicans. You could even lose two Republicans, which we might in this environment. You never know if all Republicans stay together. And so that's super important to set that up. But yeah, it's one of those multi-step processes. A lot of complicated procedures. Certain things qualify to move in a reconciliation bill. Some things can't. Very annoying Washington rules, but we'll be there and navigate it.
Jenny Beth Martin (03:34):
But those Washington rules are very annoying. I completely agree.
Paul Teller (03:39):
Tried saying mean, hard to explain, hard
Jenny Beth Martin (03:40):
To understand. But you've really helped me understand them over the years, even from we're trying to stop Obamacare way back
Paul Teller (03:47):
When, back in our glory days, right? Yeah.
Jenny Beth Martin (03:50):
So what are you hoping will be in the reconciliation package and why?
Paul Teller (03:57):
Well, it's a great point. I think for now, we haven't taken a firm position as an organization as to whether it should be one big beautiful bill as President Trump said, or dividing it up into two bills. That's something that I think is being worked out as we speak throughout March and things like that.
Jenny Beth Martin (04:14):
And right now they're seeing one bill, but we don't know what all is going to be in. It could change, and if there's another one still to come,
Paul Teller (04:19):
Right? It started as one bill. It still could change. It could stay as one bill. And the only significance of that to just kind of Joe America, it's just kind of what gets passed first, what comes later? Because let's face it, we've seen this before in Washington, A lot of times when you put everything in one big bill, think immigration, it sometimes slows things down because everyone either likes this, doesn't like that, wants to add this, wants to take this out. So that could be the only problem with one bill. On the other hand, the opposite side of that coin is if you put a lot of things in one big bill, everyone has a piece that they really like and don't want to vote against. So maybe that's the thought of if you're putting, for example, border security provisions in and American energy provisions and some other national security homeland security stuff plus tax reform, geez, who's going to vote against that? I think that's the thought. So we haven't taken an official position, but I bet it winds up staying one bill. I think my money would be on that, at least for the time being. But yeah, we hope that it is a combination of extending the current tax
Jenny Beth Martin (05:27):
Law.
Paul Teller (05:27):
So Joe America gets to keep his or her exact same tax rates, but we're also hoping we go further and offer more tax relief to American businesses to spur job creation individual provisions, maybe even on the individual side so that people can keep more of their own money that they earn, make more of their own choices with more of their
Jenny Beth Martin (05:47):
Resources. A lot of people around the country really want no tax on tips.
Paul Teller (05:50):
A lot of folks are pushing that. Obviously the president will keep pushing that. I think some Republicans are saying, eh, not the greatest tax, but if that helps us get everything else extended, great, we'll take it. That kind of thing. And then just on the spending side, we're obviously bushing like many Republicans, many conservatives, as much as can be cut out of the mandatory side of the budget, which again is just a Washington word for the spending that's on autopilot. You almost think of it as you sign up maybe for your cable bill to be automatically deducted from your bank account month or your electric bill. That's the Washington equivalent of mandatory spending. So in other words, you do nothing and the money still gets spent. That's where not only you can cut in this reconciliation procedure, but that's also the biggest drivers of our debt. Things like Medicaid or welfare, housing, other kind of mandatory spending, things that we could get at. So we're pushing for as much as possible to be cut there. Trillions. Trillions.
Jenny Beth Martin (06:52):
Well, and when I've learned in the last few days and weeks, Medicaid spending, which is not Medicare, so we're not talking about
Jenny Beth Martin (07:02):
Seniors,
Jenny Beth Martin (07:03):
We're talking about the program that is supposed to be for the people who are pregnant, who are children or who are disabled, that the spending and Medicaid has gone up 51% since 2019, and they're able-bodied people who are receiving it right now, and that seems a little messed up if they're able bodied and they can't get health insurance from the Obamacare change, or maybe this is how Obamacare money is being doled out. I'm not quite sure I understand the ins and outs of this yet. I'm learning about it. But the point is, if they're able-bodied, they should be working. No question. They shouldn't be getting it just for free. And I don't think that it is fair to the people who the program was intended to benefit originally pregnant, disabled, and children. I don't think it is fair for them to have to worry that they're not going to get their benefits somehow when all these other able bodied people are also getting them money. That's not right.
Paul Teller (08:13):
Yeah. In fact, I mean you know this, but Obamacare put a lot of middle class folks onto the Medicaid program, which it's just not great because first of all, again, it wasn't designed for that many middle, middle-class folks have better healthcare options. And that's the thing too. The more you study the Medicaid program, you realize some of the worst healthcare outcomes
Jenny Beth Martin (08:33):
In
Paul Teller (08:33):
America are in the Medicaid program. So we want to get people off that program to get them better healthcare, better healthcare options, and like you said, focused the program on the truly needy that it was who it was intended for. And again, if we're going to get some control over our debt, it does mean some sacrifice. It means cutting really all throughout the budget almost seems like there'll be just about no account anywhere in the budget that will have zero cuts. We got to get some waste out of everywhere.
Jenny Beth Martin (09:02):
And we're seeing with Doge, there is waste in every little corner of the government. There is waste going on. And if we can address that, it would be some people in Washington up until a few weeks ago were saying, oh, well, it really won't amount to very much, but I think it amounts to a lot more than anyone even realizes because there has not been a proper audit of the federal government spending as far as I know ever.
Paul Teller (09:29):
And in fact, the Doge is just getting started, right? Let's not get angry to give them for, let's not get angry just because they haven't done it all in the first month. I mean, they've already done and proposed to be done so much more if you think about it, than has ever happened before. Also, thanks to Elon Musk and others, of course, the president, it's kind of cool to cut spending now, cool to even talk about cutting spending, whereas you remember many years where
Paul Teller (09:56):
You bring it up and it's like, oh my God. Even in Republican circles, we can't cut that, can't cut that. Can't cut this. I remember the appropriations amendments back when we did appropriations amendments where Marsha Blackburn, Congressman John Campbell of California and others would offer these across the board cutting amendments, but like a quarter of a percent across the board, a half a percent, these tiny numbers defeat, defeat, defeat, defeat. So the fact that now we're talking much bigger numbers in the hundreds of billions in the trillions, it's just incredible and it's going to be hard. I'm not saying you could snap your fingers and have it done. Some does have to be done through Congress, which makes it harder, narrow margins, the whole thing. But the fact that it's just cool to even talk about is new, is great, is exciting. And so that's why we're just really on board with the Doge and OMB Russ vote, all the folks that are working to just really trim back the federal government.
Jenny Beth Martin (10:49):
Yeah, I think it is quite amazing. I love watching what is happening with Doge now in the Rescissions package. It has to go through what is called the bird bath rule in the Senate.
Paul Teller (11:01):
Well, you know what? It's some, so for Rescissions, it's again more weird complicated
Jenny Beth Martin (11:06):
Rules. Oh, I, oh, I said rescissions. I meant,
Paul Teller (11:07):
Oh, you meant reconciliation?
Jenny Beth Martin (11:08):
Reconciliation. Then we'll get a rescission. Sorry.
Paul Teller (11:11):
Sorry. All good. Yeah, right. Reconciliation, the bird bath again, just all these fancy weird Washington terms. It basically just means is it allowed to be included in a reconciliation bill according to the rules that are set? It's weird, it's complicated. Again, it has to be from the mandatory side, it has to affect the deficit, other rules and stuff like that. So you can't just throw everything into a reconciliation bill. Otherwise, if you could, everything would be in reconciliation. You'd never pass anything else anywhere else. So this is just certain limited set of things, and the bird bath is that test. It's just a fancy phrase for testing weather. The parliamentarian will say, yeah, that can go in there. That's allowed to go into this reconciliation bill. So that's ongoing.
Jenny Beth Martin (11:58):
And these are really weird terms that most normal Americans are not familiar with,
Paul Teller (12:02):
And they shouldn't be because they're normal. Yes, you are normal human beings,
Jenny Beth Martin (12:07):
But be familiar with them because they're going to be coming up over the next few weeks as we work through trying to get this bill passed.
Paul Teller (12:14):
Yeah, exactly right. I think it'll take a while. Meaning when your viewers are watching this, don't think like, Hey, this will be done next week. No, I mean,
Jenny Beth Martin (12:24):
No, sadly,
Paul Teller (12:25):
This is going to be a thing throughout the year. They'll try this and test that, and maybe it passes one house, but not the other house, that
Jenny Beth Martin (12:33):
Kind of thing. I hope that they've learned a few lessons along the way over the past few years. We'll see.
Paul Teller (12:38):
Yeah. I tell you, one great lesson so far is what happened a few weeks ago in the house committee, a house budget committee where they were trying to get a budget resolution done, which is just kind of the framework. It's not the actual reconciliation bill. It doesn't actually cut spending, it just sets the framework for how it gets done. And they were short some votes, and in the past when they're short votes, a lot of times congressional Republican leadership would go to moderates
Jenny Beth Martin (13:03):
To
Paul Teller (13:03):
Say, okay, what do you need? We'll give you what you need and conservatives can just suck it up. This was the opposite. They of course, worked with moderates, but they mainly went to Chip Roy and other Freedom Caucus leaders and said, alright guys, what do you want? And they got a lot of what they wanted and certain reassurances for the future and other things. So the product got more conservative for passing and coming out of the house budget committee. So that's kind of a win
Jenny Beth Martin (13:29):
Right
Paul Teller (13:30):
There for conservatives, and we'll praise Speaker Johnson for it for saying, I'm going to work with conservatives and make the product more conservative to get the votes, not less conservative. So good news there,
Jenny Beth Martin (13:40):
Very good news there. And then we've got something called Rescissions that we're hoping to see happen. What is Rescissions and why do we want this?
Paul Teller (13:48):
Right? No, exactly. Yeah. So that's again, a special procedure where if not mistaken, I think the president has to actually initiate it. The executive branch sends a rescissions package, if you will, to the hill to say, Hey, this spending that you sent me and I signed the bill like an appropriations bill, a spending bill, I want some of this gone. I want it rescinded. I want it to not be authorized to be spent. That kind of thing. It lists what the items are and that kind of thing. And so I think the plan is to have a rescissions package include many of the things that Doge is proposing to cut and maybe additional things that they cut between this moment and whenever they do the precisions package. So when your viewers hear the word rescissions, that's good. We like that. It means spending cuts, it means moving. And if I'm not mistaken, it only needs 51 votes in the Senate, again, easier to get through. You don't need Democrats, that kind of thing.
Jenny Beth Martin (14:45):
Well, and it's really important that that money is cut because then the next time when they are doing a budget, if they're doing a continuing or a spending bill, if they're doing a continuing resolution or they're trying to set baselines, they look at where it is. So if you've rescinded that money, the baseline is lower. Am I right?
Paul Teller (15:02):
Yeah, a hundred percent. And let's face it, it also shows that the Doge can kind of keep its promises. In other words, it's not just something that's scribbling on a piece of paper. It's like, oh no, we're going to actually not only say we're cutting it, but we're going to actually rip it out of law appropriations bill, that kind of thing, and say, it's gone. We're keeping our promises and we're going further and doing more cuts. So it's exciting.
Jenny Beth Martin (15:26):
It's very exciting. Okay, so what is it that you want to see people working on normal people working on to help with this
Paul Teller (15:34):
Process? Exactly. Right. Because DC different than normal than normal people, not
Jenny Beth Martin (15:39):
Even cliffs.
Paul Teller (15:41):
I think great messages that folks could work on is if they're contacting their legislators or just other contacts in Washington, is basically just to say, don't cut. Excuse me. Don't increase anybody's taxes, right? The left is going to try to play different constituencies against each other. Oh, we'll raise business taxes, but not individual tax. How about just we raise nobody's taxes at all in America, and in fact, can we go further? Can we actually maybe cut everyone's taxes? Another message that will be great within that bucket is that tax relief doesn't cost anything because your Euros may have heard this in Washington. It's very common, even amongst our friends on the right sometimes to say, this tax cut costs $2 trillion or 3 trillion. It costs this, it costs that. And it's like, wait a minute. So if you're sitting at home saying, I can't afford eggs anymore or gas or anything else, but somehow Washington leaves more money in my pocket, which is a good thing, but that's a cost.
Paul Teller (16:45):
How is that a cost? That means a pay raise for me basically as Joe America. So that would be another great message is to say, Hey guys, Mr. And Mrs. Washington, Mr. And Mr. Member of Congress, tax cuts don't cost anything. They save me regular citizen money. So that's a great message. And then another great message is to just proceed as robustly and assertively as possible on spending cuts, right? We've had years, maybe decades of either spending increases, sometimes flat line spending, although that's rare, and occasionally on certain programs, marginal cuts, a million here, 2 million there,
Jenny Beth Martin (17:24):
Or a cut in the increase.
Paul Teller (17:25):
A cut in the increase, exactly.
Jenny Beth Martin (17:27):
So they're still increasing, just not increasing as much.
Paul Teller (17:30):
Exactly. Or the cuts come in the later years, right? We're going to increase now, but don't worry, we're going to cut in year 5, 6, 7, and of course it never happens. So the time is gone for that. The debt is, I should say, the interest on the debt is now the third biggest item in the federal budget. Medicare's first, social, second interest on the debt is third. I mean, just amazing. So if we're going to get a handle on that, the cuts can't just be a million here, 2 million there. It's got to be tens of billions, hundreds of billions, trillions, especially over five to 10 years, that kind of thing. So that'll be another great message to call in with.
Jenny Beth Martin (18:06):
So going back to tax cuts, not costing anything. When they say, well, it's going to cost us something. That always frustrates me because Washington acts like my money. It's their
Paul Teller (18:19):
Money, it is theirs, and therefore if I let you keep it,
Jenny Beth Martin (18:21):
No. Yeah. Somehow they are doing
Paul Teller (18:25):
A favor. They're doing
Jenny Beth Martin (18:25):
You a favor, a favor by letting you keep the money that you actually exert energy and blood, sweat, and tears for.
Paul Teller (18:31):
Yeah,
Jenny Beth Martin (18:32):
Great point. No, it's my
Paul Teller (18:33):
Money.
Jenny Beth Martin (18:34):
It's my money.
Paul Teller (18:35):
You're
Jenny Beth Martin (18:36):
Taking it from me. You're taking it from me. You don't get it automatically. And so I understand that we need to also cut spending.
Jenny Beth Martin (18:45):
Yeah, a hundred percent. I don't
Jenny Beth Martin (18:46):
Think tax cuts are,
Paul Teller (18:52):
Do both.
Jenny Beth Martin (18:53):
Do both.
Paul Teller (18:54):
Cut spending, cut taxes? No
Jenny Beth Martin (18:56):
Question. Cut 'em both in an equal amount. That works for me. That's incredible. It has never happened. So let's let it
Paul Teller (19:00):
Happen. Or even cut more spending and the tax relief, give some tax relief, but go even further on spending. Great. That's all good. It helps the debt, but Right, but don't hold tax relief hostage because, well, the Washington propeller heads say that it costs $2 trillion, $4 trillion, whatever it is, and gee, we couldn't quite get to that number of spending cuts. So there's not an offset. We just shouldn't be doing that. Right? That's just not right.
Jenny Beth Martin (19:29):
And the reason it's not right is because the tax is hard for some people to understand this. And I don't think our friends on our side have the problem understanding this, but I think people on the left have a hard time understanding this. When you cut taxes and you leave more of the money in the economy, in the hands of individual citizens determining how they're going to spend the
Jenny Beth Martin (19:52):
Money,
Jenny Beth Martin (19:53):
It helps grow the economy. They can invest it in their own business. If they're an Uber driver, maybe they upgrade their car and get a better car so they can get paid more money for their rides. If they have a business and they need to go buy more equipment, they can buy more equipment. Or maybe they are saving for their child's college or going on a vacation, but they get to determine that. And all of that helps create growth in the economy. So the government gets a smaller slice of a much bigger piece of pie, much bigger pie. So if the pie was only 12 inches and you're getting a 10th of it, you're getting kind of a small amount. If only they were getting just a 10th. 10th of it. Exactly. If they're getting a quarter of it. But if you increase it and that pie is now 40 or 50 inches and you're getting an eighth of that, it's still way bigger than the 25% of a 10 12 inch pie.
Paul Teller (20:54):
Yeah, no question. And great analogy, folks could understand pizzas, right? Most folks have looked at it and know what you're talking about. Yeah, and it's what's amazing about that too is you laid it up beautifully. It's up to each person and each family and each business because right, for some it may be saving, like I'm saving for a rainy day for whatever else, college, retirement, whatever, others. It's like, yeah, like you said, I'm going to invest right back into my business. And having that predictability is great too. When you're talking about extending tax relief, it's not just like, here's a quick little infusion of cash back in your pocket for five minutes and good luck. Have fun. Go to the mall. It's knowing what rates are going to be in place, what deductions will be allowed, what caps will be allowed, what brackets, all the stuff that folks know when they're filing taxes, knowing what those will be for years allows for that economic growth, right? It gives the security to, let's say, a business owner to say, you know what? I can add that extra little wing onto my restaurant that I was planning on because I know that my tax rates will be X from the next five years. I can hire those three more people that I was hoping to hire. I know my tax rates, that kind of thing.
Paul Teller (22:06):
So yeah, that predictability is super important for growth. So you're right.
Jenny Beth Martin (22:11):
So no tax increases for anyone. Tax cuts don't cost anything, and we need spinning cuts.
Paul Teller (22:21):
Yeah, it's pretty
Jenny Beth Martin (22:22):
Simple
Paul Teller (22:22):
Messaging and the real stuff too, right? The real stuff, no gimmicks, right? Because that's another thing few of us have been working on at advancing American Freedom with some allies too, is Congress unfortunately, and even Republicans do have a history of saying, we're cutting this amount. And then you dig into it and it's like, wait a minute. That's kind of fake. That's kind of fake. And what I mean by fake is maybe repealing spending, that was never really going to happen in the first place. Imagine if one of your viewers writes on a piece of paper, I'm going to buy a Ferrari and then says, wait a minute, no, I'm not crumbles up. Piece of paper, throws it in the garbage. I just saved whatever. It's $200,000. No, you didn't save $200,000. You weren't really going to do that anyway. You never really would've had the means to do it.
Paul Teller (23:09):
You weren't serious. So sometimes Congress does that. It repeals things and it just hanging out there from years ago, but it wasn't ever going to be spent. So that's kind of fake or what we alluded to before. Sometimes they'll say, well, we're not going to cut right now, but we'll start those spending cuts. I swear, I promise. Five years from now, eight years from now, whatever, it tends not to happen because a future Congress can just turn off those spending cuts and do other things. So those are examples of kind of things that are ways that Congress can fake it. So we're on the lookout for that. And that's maybe another message your viewers can calling is no gimmicks, like real spending cuts that start soon. They can continue into the out years, but they've got to at least start soon. Start now. Start now. Make it real. And don't just do fancy accounting gimmicks. Sometimes Congress does that. They'll just move spending through a different column in the ledger, so it looks like, oh look, this column just got less. Aren't we great? Well, but that spending's now over in this column over here, that's not cool. So look out for those gimmicks
Jenny Beth Martin (24:11):
And no Congress can bind a future Congress either.
Paul Teller (24:15):
So they can come in and say,
Jenny Beth Martin (24:16):
They could say we're going to cut in 10 years from now, but in five more congresses, that's long gone.
Paul Teller (24:21):
They just turn it
Jenny Beth Martin (24:22):
Off.
Paul Teller (24:22):
And we've seen that if your viewers were familiar with something called the doc fix from many years ago without getting into the details, it was an example of some savings or cuts in Medicare that Congress promised it would do. And every time it got to the time to do it, they would say, ah, we can't do that, can't do that. And they would turn off the cuts and actually call it a fix. It was the doc fix. So it was even positively branded. We're fixing this law, which again just meant we're spending more, which is a shame.
Jenny Beth Martin (24:52):
It's crazy. Well, Paul, how can people get involved to help with your efforts and to make sure that we extend the tax cuts and actually get real spending?
Paul Teller (25:04):
Yeah, appreciate it.
Jenny Beth Martin (25:05):
Cuts.
Paul Teller (25:05):
Definitely see us on our website, advancing american freedom.com. A little bit long there, but that's all we could get. Advancing american freedom.com. Also, we're on Twitter X either at American Freedom or just me personally at P Teller. So at P-T-E-L-L-E-R. We'd love to engage with everybody there and let's collaborate.
Jenny Beth Martin (25:27):
Very good. Well, thank you so much for joining me today. This
Paul Teller (25:29):
Has been great. Really appreciate the opportunity. Good to see you.
Narrator (25:32):
The Jenny Beth Show is hosted by Jenny Beth Martin, produced by Kevin Mohan and directed by Luke Livingston. The Jenny Beth Show is a production of Tea Party Patriots action. For more information, visit tea party patriots.org.
Jenny Beth Martin (25:51):
If you light this episode, let me know by hitting the light button or leaving a comment or a five star review. And if you want to be the first to know, every time we drop a new episode, be sure to subscribe and turn on notifications for whichever platform you're listening on. If you do these simple things, it will help the podcast grow, and I'd really appreciate it. Thank you so much.