People talk a lot about critical thinking and how to do it. I think some people are born with an innate capacity to think critically, while others have to work hard for it. I like to think I was born skeptical, but I probably owe my critical thinking skills to 1) my parents, and 2) The Center School (my hippy-dippy, kale-fueled experimental elementary school that taught me to question everything).
For me, thinking critically really just means double clicking.
Double clicking, in the idiomatic sense: taking the extra time to look past the first, second, or third layer of information; and in the literal sense: double clicking on the blue hyperlinks used to reference sources across the internet.
In today’s attention economy, just going online means drowning in a digital deluge of information. You can spend a lot of time clicking blue links in search of a primary source (or some other semblance of “truth”) and still come up empty-handed.
This Week’s Double Click: The “One Big Beautiful Bill”
On my daily walk with the dog, Scott Galloway (a favorite podcaster / rich douche inspiration) unloaded a carefully scripted teardown of the current Republican budget and tax bill, officially (and hilariously) titled the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act.”
Scott had some good insights, but when I got home, I opened my laptop to double click on a few things.
A few searches later, I encountered the usual abyss of news articles, social media takes, short-form videos, pundit reactions, and of course, reactions to the reactions. All interconnected through a giant web of echoed, distorted information and context.
Like any good critical thinker, I wanted to take a look at the real thing: the actual bill.
It legitimately took me ten minutes, clicking deeper and deeper into various publications, before I uncovered this one golden (blue) link: https://budget.house.gov/imo/media/doc/one_big_beautiful_bill_act_-_full_bill_text.pdf
Pro tip: adding “.pdf” to the end of a Google search is a critical hack for any aspiring critical thinker.
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act is over 1,100 pages long.
Legitimately, who is actually reading these things?
Fortunately, I know just the guy for the task: my buddy Chat(GPT). I fed the PDF into Chat (always just an option + space away) and had a revelatory conversation.
I’m blown away every day by these tools.
Online you’ll find plenty of analyses and claims meant to polarize and enrage. Of course, there’s some objective, dispassionate reporting out there, but the algorithms can’t be bothered.
The media is (rightfully) focused on the big stuff: cuts to Medicaid, sweeping investments in ICE, tax cuts for the wealthy; political intrigue (late-night votes and Republican holdouts daring Trump’s wrath) got as much attention as the bill itself.
But surfing through the 1100 pages of weaponized Times New Roman, Chat revealed some nuggets I’m glad to have stumbled upon.
So, here are three takeaways from my conversation with the One Big Beautiful Bill Act PDF—underreported and, at least to me, genuinely fascinating.
1. MAGA Accounts
MAGA accounts are so funny.
The bill proposes $1,000 government-funded savings accounts for every child born during Trump’s second presidency. It’s not tied to income or parental employment, just birth date.
Venture Capitalist Brad Gerstner (also in my podcast rotation lol) has floated this concept for years. Honestly, I’m not against it. It’s a really interesting idea. And I’m a capitalist! I believe in compounding returns (a.k.a. the eighth wonder of the world, per Einstein - whoops turns out this quote is misattributed, glad I double clicked!)
However:
This version is hilariously conceived. Only “Trump-era babies” get the benefit, those born after December 31, 2024, and before January 1, 2029. That’s hilarious. And so classic. And could very possibly cause a MAGA baby boom. It looks and feels like a campaign-era handout for Trump-vintage offspring.
The bill gives the Treasury broad authority to administer the accounts but doesn’t spell out the mechanics. Still, I fully expect JPMorgan, Fidelity, and Robinhood to show up. Where there’s a $1,000-per-baby government distribution, there’s a management fee waiting to be harvested.
Honestly, I have little understanding of the macroeconomic impact that capital-by-birthright might have on inflation, savings behavior, or intergenerational wealth gaps. It seems like the bill would allow recipients (and their families) to contribute up to $5,000 each year, and account holders could withdraw their cash after 30 years. Assuming no further contributions beyond the initial $1,000, a 7% annual compounding return (market average) would yield about $7,612. Pretty modest, especially considering inflation.
Overall, I think it’s an innovative concept. But the real benefit would be the financial literacy and habits it might inspire among a generation of parents and kids.
The MAGA branding is also just too good.
2. No Tax on Tips and Overtime
This one hits home!
My startup, SparkPlug, supports over 100,000 frontline workers across retail and hospitality. Many of them live on variable income: tips, performance bonuses, and overtime. Trump advocated for this exact policy during his campaign, and he got a lot of love for it.
In theory, it’s great. For so many Americans, especially those working long hours or relying on gratuity, this could mean hundreds or even thousands of extra dollars a year in their pockets.
Double-clicking…
The tax break has an expiration date. The exemption ends in 2028. Honestly, I like that. It makes this a structured experiment, not a blind leap. America can test whether this kind of targeted relief helps workers, how it affects wages and employer behavior, and whether it meaningfully reduces reliance on social programs.
It would warp employer incentives. If tips and overtime are untaxed but base pay isn’t, companies will restructure wages to favor variable comp. That means more unpredictability for workers, and overall more ambiguity and friction in the market. You’ll see jobs redesigned around tax arbitrage.
It gives the illusion of systemic change while shrinking the tax base. In the short term, it feels like relief. In the long term, we’re potentially disrupting compensation architecture in a way that creates more loopholes, more confusion, and lost state revenue.
It might be an effective short-term economic boost. But America’s finances are deeply fucked, and it’s not clear how much this would move the needle, one way or the other.
3. AI Regulation Moratorium
This one is super interesting and very much slept on by the media, as far as I can tell.
The bill includes a 10-year ban on state and local governments regulating artificial intelligence systems. Basically: a federally mandated AI free-for-all.
During this period, only federal law can govern AI, and even then, only under highly constrained terms. States are allowed to facilitate AI rollouts (permits, infrastructure, etc.), but they can’t:
Impose design standards
Enforce liability rules
Require documentation
Collect local taxes
Just vibes and VC.
I do think the federal government has a role to play when it comes to regulating AI, uniformity and clarity are needed on technologies that pose a risk on-par with WMDs. But a 10-year moratorium on all state action is wild.
It’s a preemptive chokehold on democratic governance, and a love letter to the defense-tech industrial complex.
This bill is literally saying: “Move fast and break our shit.”
The government is investing billions in federal AI systems for military, border enforcement, and digital surveillance, but cities and states are legally blocked from regulating how those same tools get used locally.
It feels like a move from the Ministry of Truth: a decade-long prohibition on dissent and state/local agency, disguised as modernization.
This is Why We Double Click
There’s so much in this bill, it’s comical. 1,100 pages of noise, distraction, and half-buried agendas. Trying to track what’s real, what actually matters, is overwhelming by design.
In a media landscape defined by outrage and virality, the headlines will never give you the full story. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act is a cosmic gumbo of culture war branding, experimental economics, and federally sanctioned techno-anarchy.
We’re all downstream of someone else’s take. It’s easy to adopt opinions that come pre-loaded with likes and rage. Buried in all of that, there’s still truth, and having some sense of allegiance to that, or at least a definition of it for yourself, matters more than ever.
That’s where the tools come in (ChatGPT, search, AI summarizers). They help us move faster, sift smarter. But they still get things wrong. So we double click on those things, too.
Truth doesn’t come gift-wrapped, you have to work for it.
Up and to the right.
