Election results AI question.

Presuming Trump has to veto everything from congress for the remaining two years of his term (i.e. no new budgets except CR’s), what does that mean given what was put in place with the BBB budget? What do planned budgets (and budget reductions) with CR’s mean for border enforcement, ICE deportations, defense spending, national debt, etc.

Operating under a “veto-everything” strategy for the remaining two years of President Trump’s term—relying strictly on Continuing Resolutions (CRs) to fund the government—would trigger a strict mechanism where federal agencies are legally bound to prior-year funding levels and policy frameworks.

What was originally proposed as the Build Back Better (BBB) Act was ultimately passed in a modified form known as the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). Because the IRA was enacted as a mandatory reconciliation bill, its multi-year funding lines and tax codes are already locked into permanent law.

The Mandatory Money Continues: A Continuing Resolution only applies to discretionary spending (appropriations bills). It does not stop or reduce mandatory funding streams already passed. Therefore, IRA climate provisions, green energy tax credits, and Medicare drug price negotiations will continue to function exactly as written in the baseline statute.

Vetoing Changes Keeps BBB/IRA Intact: If Congress tries to pass new bills to repeal, claw back, or restrict IRA funding, President Trump’s veto will protect the current IRA framework from being altered.

Sunset Deadlines Still Apply: Certain provisions have built-in statutory expiration dates (for example, specific clean energy credit facilities that phase down or restrict foreign entities starting after 2026/2027). Because a CR cannot create new law or extend statutory sunsets, these programs will expire or change automatically based on the original text.

A fundamental rule of a Continuing Resolution is that it prohibits “new starts”—agencies cannot launch new programs or significantly shift money between accounts without specific legislative permission (anomalies).

ICE Deportations Stalled: Mass deportations require immense logistical expansions, including new detention facilities, additional transport aircraft, and thousands of new personnel. Under a standard CR, ICE is locked into its previous fiscal year’s operational budget. The agency would lack the surge funding required to exponentially scale up removals.

Border Enforcement Capped: While Border Patrol can maintain current operations, it cannot expand its footprint, build extensive new physical wall segments, or hire large waves of new agents beyond replacing attrition. Funding transfers from other agencies (like the DoD) to Homeland Security would also face legal friction or outright prohibitions carried over from prior appropriations language.

Operating under a CR is traditionally viewed by the Pentagon as highly disruptive because it freezes the military in place.

The “New Starts” Freeze: The Department of Defense cannot transition prototypes into full-scale production or sign new procurement contracts. Over 150 new military start programs and critical modernization initiatives (such as hypersonic weapon development, new ship procurement, and advanced drone programs) would be legally stalled.

Loss of Buying Power: With defense spending locked at a flat rate, inflation cuts into the military’s actual purchasing power. It also leaves unaddressed any sudden operational costs, such as unplanned deployments or emergency operations.

Vetoing the $1.5 Trillion Defense Budget: A veto-heavy environment means the administration’s proposed $1.5 trillion defense budget and additional multi-billion-dollar supplemental military requests would fail to materialize, keeping military funding billions of dollars below the Pentagon’s requested targets.

Short-Term Discretionary Cap: Because a CR forces flat spending and prevents Congress from passing pork-barrel projects or new end-of-year spending packages (which can add hundreds of billions to the deficit), it acts as a blunt instrument to temporarily restrain discretionary spending growth.

The Looming Debt Ceiling Crisis: A standard CR does not automatically adjust the national debt limit. The debt ceiling is projected to require an increase by mid-2027. If President Trump maintains a blanket “veto everything” stance on bills coming from a potentially hostile Congress, a legislative vehicle to raise the debt limit could be blocked. If neither side blinks to pass a clean debt ceiling extension, the U.S. would risk a technical default, spike interest rates, and dramatically worsen the long-term servicing costs of the national debt.

Specifying BBB as Trumps Big Beautiful Bill, I got this:

If President Trump relies strictly on vetoing newly passed individual appropriations bills and forces the government to run on Continuing Resolutions (CRs) for the next two years, the executive branch will maintain unprecedented funding for immigration enforcement due to locked-in multi-year reconciliation packages, while defense and the national debt will face distinct mechanical pressures.

A CR generally freezes baseline spending at the previous year’s level. However, the landscape shifted dramatically following the passage of major structural funding mechanisms earlier in the administration.

The Takeaway: ICE and Border Patrol are insulated from CR restrictions because their primary funding surge does not rely on annual appropriations.

The Multi-Year Backstop: Through major reconciliation packages—including the One Big Beautiful Bill Act of 2025 and the Secure America Act of 2026—Congress bypassed regular appropriations to award U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) massive, multi-year funding.

The War Chest: These agencies have a combined stockpile of over $200 billion to $340 billion in unspent funds legally authorized to be spent through September 2029.

Operational Impact under a CR: A CR only restricts discretionary base budgets. Because the “Secure America Act” funds are already secured via reconciliation, ICE can aggressively scale mass removals, expand detention beds, hire personnel, and build out border technology even if regular annual appropriations are completely frozen by a veto.

The military will avoid a shutdown but will experience a strategic and modernization freeze.

No New Starts: Under standard CR rules, the Department of Defense (DoD) is prohibited from starting new procurement programs or entering into new multi-year production contracts.

Missed Increases: While President Trump’s proposed FY2026 budget requested a 13% boost to push defense spending past $1 trillion, a long-term CR locks spending at prior levels.

Operational Friction: While troop salaries and ongoing operations continue normally, the military cannot adjust its budget to account for inflation, and major upgrades to ships, jets, and missile defense systems will stall due to the prohibition on “new starts”.

Running on a CR will slightly slow discretionary spending increases, but the overall national debt will continue to expand rapidly due to structural factors.

Discretionary Spending Ceilings: By forcing CRs, non-defense discretionary domestic spending is functionally capped, rejecting any programmatic increases requested by Congress. This technically acts as a minor brake on new federal spending.

The Deficit Drivers: Discretionary budgets account for less than one-third of total federal spending. The main drivers of the $36+ trillion national debt—mandatory spending (Social Security/Medicare), interest on existing debt (approaching $1.35 trillion annually), and revenue gaps from tax policies—are unaffected by a CR.

Debt Limit Pressures: Even under a CR, Congress still must periodically negotiate and raise the statutory debt ceiling. A veto strategy on spending bills does not bypass the necessity of passing debt-limit extensions to avoid a technical default.

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