The embodiment of the kind of acceptable liberal journalist to today’s left, CBS Evening News Plus has always ended with anchor John Dickerson let it rip on whatever issue he desires weighing in on. Increasingly, it’s been political and snide, giving his opinion on how much he loathes Trump and the MAGA agenda. Thursday was no exception as he denounced the Big, Beautiful Bill as concocted to harm the poor to benefit the rich.
Dickerson’s tease said it all that he would be political with a jab at the term made famous in modern times by the great Art Laffer: “Trickle-down economics gets a reboot.”
Perpetually smug like his CBS colleague Scott Pelley, Dickerson had a sarcastic start:
Here’s something both ideological sides tend to agree on. Government should spend wisely, protect the vulnerable, reward effort, and avoid waste. Right or left, you probably believe federal policy should help strengthen the foundation under working families while preserving opportunity for the successful. These are the broad standards for those big budget bills you hear about.
He dropped that act with the smug dismissal of the bill that extends the tax cuts for all Americans and imposes work (and education or volunteer) requirements for Medicaid: “The latest? President Trump’s domestic policy proposal that just passed the House, prioritizes tax relief for the wealthy while reducing support for the poor.”
Dickerson then proclaimed the Congressional Budget Office’s (CBO) finding that, in his summation, “[i]f you’re in the bottom 10% of earners, this bill would reduce government support by about $1,600 per year, roughly 4% of your income” while those at the top ten “would gain $12,000 annually, a 2.3% increase” and the middle class just “a gain of $500 to 1,000 a year.”
“Higher earners see larger gains. Lower earners face cuts. This outcome is a direct result of how tax cuts are structured. Larger benefits accrue to those who pay the most federal income tax. Lower-income Americans, many of whom pay little or no federal income tax, see minimal financial gains from tax relief. At the same time, cuts to vital programs like Medicaid and food assistance directly affect those who rely on them the most,” he huffed.
This went into his conclusion that seemed like a screed about the Reagan administration as much as it was about Trump:
Supporters of the bill argue these choices will create jobs and increase wages. However, similar plans in 1981 and 2017 did not achieve the promised results. Growth was modest and prosperity proved to be unevenly distributed. So, this bill remains a gamble. That growth will occur on a large enough scale and, even if it does, that prosperity will trickle down to those who are losing support from the bill today. And if that gamble doesn’t pay off, the CBO suggests those already most at risk are the most at risk.
Conservatives have roundly rejected the CBO report, including on the Hill. But we’ll let our friend Bonchie at RedState do the talking, flashing back to 2017: “[T]he CBO projected in 2017 that American unemployment would remain around 4.7 percent for years on end. That same year, it dipped to 3.7 percent. Over a million more people joined the labor market than the CBO said would. Why? Because they used Obama-era baselines on economic growth.”
“It also should be noted that the changes being proposed to Medicare and Medicaid in the reconciliation bill revolve around eliminating fraud, not cutting benefits for legitimate recipients…Are Democrats arguing it's bad to stop people from defrauding the U.S. government? Because it sure seems like what they are arguing,” he astutely observed.
A former Trump administration official, Fox Business Network host Larry Kudlow also took the CBO report to task, pointing to, among other things, record-high revenue from the 2017 tax cuts, the CBO missing the mark on ObamaCare sign-ups, and astronomically small gross domestic product (GDP) projections of less than two percent for the Big, Beautiful Bill.
To see the relevant CBS transcript from June 12, click “expand.”
CBS Evening News Plus
June 12, 2025
7:23 p.m. Eastern [TEASE][ON-SCREEN HEADLINE: Reporter’s Notebook]
JOHN DICKERSON: Trickle-down economics gets a reboot. My Reporter’s Notebook is next.
(….)
7:27 p.m. Eastern
DICKERSON: Here’s something both ideological sides tend to agree on. Government should spend wisely, protect the vulnerable, reward effort, and avoid waste. Right or left, you probably believe federal policy should help strengthen the foundation under working families while preserving opportunity for the successful. These are the broad standards for those big budget bills you hear about. The latest? President Trump’s domestic policy proposal that just passed the House, prioritizes tax relief for the wealthy while reducing support for the poor. This, according to the Congressional Budget Office, report released today. Here’s what the CBO found. If you’re in the bottom 10% of earners, this bill would reduce government support by about $1,600 per year, roughly 4% of your income. If you’re in the top 10%, you would gain $12,000 annually, a 2.3% increase. Middle-income households would see a gain of $500 to $1,000 a year, or less than 1% of income. Higher earners see larger gains. Lower earners face cuts. This outcome is a direct result of how tax cuts are structured. Larger benefits accrue to those who pay the most federal income tax. Lower-income Americans, many of whom pay little or no federal income tax, see minimal financial gains from tax relief. At the same time, cuts to vital programs like Medicaid and food assistance directly affect those who rely on them the most. Supporters of the bill argue these choices will create jobs and increase wages. However, similar plans in 1981 and 2017 did not achieve the promised results. Growth was modest and prosperity proved to be unevenly distributed. So, this bill remains a gamble. That growth will occur on a large enough scale and, even if it does, that prosperity will trickle down to those who are losing support from the bill today. And if that gamble doesn’t pay off, the CBO suggests those already most at risk are the most at risk.
