From Tax Cuts to Time Bombs: Review of “Debt Reckoning: The Hidden Cost of Trump’s ‘Big, Beautiful’ Budget”

 

While Trump fans chant “USA,” this book whispers “IOU”—Dr. Ojih proves the ‘beautiful’ budget was really economic seduction with a bankruptcy clause attached.

When President Donald J. Trump returned triumphantly to the White House in January 2025, waving to roaring crowds from the Truman Balcony and vowing to “Finish what we started,” few paused to ask who would pay the bill. Behind the red hats, patriotic slogans, and vows to "Make America Great Again—Again" looms a financial reckoning that cannot be ignored. And that’s exactly what Debt Reckoning: The Hidden Cost of Trump’s 'Big, Beautiful' Budget, Book 20 in the Brief Book Series, forces us to confront—head-on, without euphemisms, spin, or excuses.

Dr. Joseph Ejike Ojih, a seasoned adjunct professor and conservative-minded political analyst, has written what may be the sharpest short-form analysis of federal fiscal deception in recent memory. In just 80 pages, he does more than economists with reams of spreadsheets and more clarity than most politicians ever dare offer. His central thesis is not just that Trump’s budget policies were flawed—but that they were dangerously dishonest, mortgaging the future of an already indebted America to preserve the illusion of prosperity. The axe forgets, but the tree remembers, and Ojih reminds us that America's tree is cracking under decades of bipartisan budgetary blows.

What makes this book so compelling is not just the facts—though there are many—it’s the synthesis of those facts into a moral and economic warning. Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Budget,” as Ojih calls it with a biting echo of Trump’s own phrase, slashed corporate taxes in 2017, lowered individual taxes mostly for the wealthy, and expanded military spending to Cold War levels, all while revenue collapsed and entitlement reform was sidelined. The budget projected $1 trillion deficits annually, and by 2024 the U.S. national debt had surpassed $36 trillion. By the time Trump was sworn in for a second term in 2025, debt service alone was consuming over $1 trillion a year—more than the U.S. spent on national defense.

Debt Reckoning doesn’t just recite these numbers. It turns them into parables. In a particularly unforgettable section, Dr. Ojih compares America’s budget to an aging dam with widening cracks. “Each tax cut is a pickaxe to the foundation,” he writes, “while each refusal to cut spending is like piling sandbags on the edge. And still, we tell ourselves the water will never break through.” That dam is now at the brink, and even the loudest slogans can’t hold it back.

Dr. Ojih’s style is deliberately forceful, but never reckless. He draws on a rich tradition of conservative thinkers—from Edmund Burke to William F. Buckley Jr.—to make the case that true conservatism means fiscal discipline, not fantasy. He blasts what he calls “the debt delusion,” a belief now popular even among Republicans, that deficits don't matter so long as interest rates stay low. But interest rates have not stayed low. Under Chairman Michelle Bowman, the Federal Reserve had no choice but to raise rates to over 6% to contain post-COVID inflation, making debt even more expensive. “The borrower is slave to the lender,” Proverbs 22:7 reminds us, and Dr. Ojih makes the biblical point resonate in this modern monetary crisis.

He weaves in history too, showing how America ignored warnings from figures like Ross Perot in the 1990s and David Walker, the former Comptroller General, in the 2000s. He reminds readers that Ronald Reagan, though known for tax cuts, also raised taxes 11 times during his presidency to contain debt. That, Ojih argues, was real leadership. What we’ve seen since 2017 is performative politics—a fireworks show while the barn burns. “Trump may have lit the fuse,” Ojih writes, “but both parties stocked the powder.”

Dr. Ojih is careful not to cast the blame entirely on Trump. He takes aim at President Joe Biden too, especially for expanding entitlements like the Child Tax Credit and for forgiving student loans without offsetting spending cuts. He lambasts the Congressional Budget Office for lowballing interest projections and criticizes Congress for continuing to pass omnibus bills without scrutiny. The author insists that accountability is a shared national duty—not a partisan cudgel. Even the eagle falls when both wings are broken.

But the book doesn’t just diagnose problems. It offers hard remedies: enforce PAYGO rules, tie tax cuts to long-term savings, raise the Social Security retirement age gradually, and enact bipartisan commissions to reduce mandatory spending growth. It’s not a sexy message, and Ojih knows it. “These are not campaign slogans,” he admits, “but if we don’t act now, the next campaign slogan will be written by a bond market crisis.”

The brilliance of Debt Reckoning lies in its ability to feel like a sermon, a policy paper, and a political thriller all at once. In just under 100 pages, it reads like a warning bell from the watchtower—clear, loud, and very hard to ignore. And unlike many budget books that bury their insights in dry policy terms, Ojih’s language cuts deep. In one standout line, he describes America’s borrowing spree as “feeding filet mignon to today’s voters while tomorrow’s taxpayers scour dumpsters.” It's not just poetic—it’s painfully accurate.

The book’s closing chapter, “Charting a Sustainable Path Forward,” is perhaps its most chilling. Dr. Ojih recounts the 1994 bond market sell-off that rattled Clinton’s presidency, and warns that a similar episode could cripple America’s fiscal flexibility if foreign creditors—especially China and Japan, which hold over $2 trillion in U.S. treasuries—lose faith. He points to 2022’s UK bond crisis, when Prime Minister Liz Truss’s budget collapsed the pound and forced a humiliating reversal. “If it could happen in Britain,” he writes, “it could happen here. And our safety net is already on fire.”

Debt Reckoning is not a book for everyone—it is for citizens who care about the future more than the next election. For conservatives who believe in facts over fantasy. For liberals who believe in programs but need to pay for them. And for patriots of every stripe who understand that you cannot spend your way out of a hole without eventually burying yourself in it. It is both a eulogy for the era of fiscal restraint and a call to resurrect it.

This may be Book 20 of the Brief Book Series, but its message echoes far beyond its size. It is a David in a world of Goliaths—short, precise, and aimed directly at the heart of American economic denial. Dr. Ojih has delivered something rare in political writing: a book that is brief but unforgettable, analytical but emotional, damning but hopeful. If Washington has any ears left to hear, Debt Reckoning should be required reading in every budget committee on Capitol Hill.