On paper, the economy’s numbers look robust. But for many Americans, the math isn’t working.

A family like Mike and Lisa Hernandez, a middle-class couple in suburban St. Louis, is doing everything right. He manages a warehouse. She works part-time as a dental assistant. They have employer-sponsored insurance, a new house, and two kids. They’re living the American dream.

That is, until a medical issue hits, such as a surgery, a chronic condition, or an unexpected trip to the emergency room. Even with insurance, they are left with thousands of dollars in out-of-pocket costs. The choices are stark: delay care, take on significant debt, or pare back spending in an already stressed household budget.

These trade-offs don’t appear in federal budget tables. But they are shaped by them.

At first glance, the federal budget tells a very different story. The indicators are moving in a positive direction. The deficit has edged down. Revenues are up. It appears Washington is holding the line economically.

But that stability is misleading; It masks a deeper shift.

The pressures facing households like the Hernandez family are not disconnected from federal policy. They reflect a dramatic shift in how the government raises money and where it chooses to spend it.

That shift is now explicit. The administration’s latest budget proposal calls for roughly $1.5 trillion in defense spending alongside deep cuts to domestic programs, targeting areas such as education, housing, and health-related initiatives.

The Trump administration has effectively abandoned efforts to shrink the deficit. Instead, it is reshaping what government does, shifting resources toward the military and immigration enforcement while pulling back from education, health care, and social support.

This is not fiscal discipline. It is fiscal sleight-of-hand—a shell game with the nation’s economy.

The illusion of improvement

The numbers, for now, appear to reinforce the narrative of a stable, growing economy.

Federal revenues have risen, helping to narrow the deficit modestly. But those gains are driven by factors that are unlikely to hold.

A surge in capital gains has boosted tax receipts, fueled by a strong stock market over the past two years. As investors cash out, they generate taxable income, temporarily swelling federal revenues. But markets do not move in one direction indefinitely. The law of gravity applies to markets as it does elsewhere. If—and when—momentum slows or reverses, so too will the revenue.

Tariffs have also played a role. The administration has relied on import duties as a substitute for more traditional sources of revenue, projecting trillions in collections over the next decade. But those projections rely on over-optimistic assumptions about trade flows and enforcement, and they rest on policies that will likely be reversed by future administrations and have already been challenged in court.

Tariffs cannot replace income taxes, even under favorable conditions. The numbers simply do not add up. The United States does not import enough goods to generate that level of revenue without imposing costs that ripple through the broader economy.

Meanwhile, the costs of last year’s sweeping tax cuts are only beginning to take effect. Many of the most expensive provisions were delayed, masking their full impact on the deficit. As those costs phase in, the gap between revenue and spending will widen again.

Strip away these temporary supports, and the underlying picture becomes crystal clear: a structurally high deficit, driven by permanent tax cuts and rising spending commitments.

The shell game works—until it doesn’t.

A government reoriented

While the deficit hasn’t changed much, the purpose of federal spending has changed dramatically.

Trump’s latest budget proposal makes that shift unmistakable. It calls for a dramatic increase in defense spending—roughly $1.5 trillion—paired with deep reductions in nondefense programs. The cuts target areas that shape long-term economic security: education, housing, public health, and environmental programs.

This is an all-guns, no-butter budget. There is no trimming at the margins. It is a stark redefinition of federal priorities.

In the opening phase of the war in Iran, the United States committed billions in a matter of days to military operations and deployment. That pace of spending stands in sharp contrast to domestic programs, where funding has been constrained and often reduced over time.

The contrast is structural: rapid, large-scale funding for military action alongside sustained pressure to reduce domestic investment.

War spending arrives immediately and in full. Cuts to health and education accumulate slowly—but their effects last longer.

The consequences are uneven. Households like the Hernandez family face rising costs and reduced support. At the same time, defense contractors and security-linked industries see increased investment and opportunity. This is where rapid growth offsets slow or no growth elsewhere in the economy.

That imbalance is not accidental. It reflects a deliberate shift in what the federal government prioritizes and who it is designed to serve.

Not smaller government—different government

One of the most persistent claims surrounding the administration’s budget is that it represents a move toward smaller government.

It does not.

Despite headline-grabbing cuts and workforce reductions, overall federal spending remains high. Many proposed domestic cuts have failed to gain traction in Congress, and the largest drivers of long-term spending—Social Security and Medicare—have been left untouched.

What has changed is not the size of government, but its function.

Resources are being reallocated away from programs designed to support long-term economic mobility and social stability, and toward those tied to national power, security, and enforcement.

This is an important distinction.

A government can remain large while becoming less fair, less developmental, and less oriented toward broad-based growth. It can spend heavily while investing less in the conditions that allow households like the Hernandez family to remain economically secure.

In that sense, the current budget is not reducing the government’s role in the economy. It is narrowing it by concentrating public resources in areas that project power, while scaling back those that build opportunity.

The result is a different kind of state: one that spends aggressively, but less on the foundations of long-term prosperity.

Conclusion

For now, the numbers suggest stability, even growth. But that appearance rests on temporary supports, optimistic assumptions, and a budgeting process that is becoming less transparent and less accountable.

What matters more is the direction of policy beneath those numbers. The current budget does not meaningfully alter the nation’s fiscal trajectory; instead, it redirects federal resources toward military expansion and enforcement while backing away from investments that shape long-term economic security.

Households like the Hernandez family do not experience the federal budget as a set of aggregate figures. They experience it in the choices they are forced to make when rising costs collide with shrinking supports and the margin for absorbing risk grows thinner.

The federal budget increasingly reflects a different set of priorities. One that places greater emphasis on projecting power than on the economic foundations of broad-based prosperity. The math, in other words, still adds up, but what it adds up to is changing, but not to the benefit of middle-class families like the Hernandezes.

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Robert Cropf is a Professor of Political Science at Saint Louis University.

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