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The Massachusetts House earlier this week passed a $61 billion state budget that almost no one believes comes anywhere close to reflecting future reality. Senate President Karen Spilka is already saying that whatever fiscal 2026 budget is ultimately approved by lawmakers might have to be revised later in the year, depending on potential federal funding cuts, as MassterList reports. I’ll go further and say future revisions ‘will,’ not ‘might,’ happen later in the year, based on these Hill and WSJ stories about President Trump’s “wish list” budget that calls for $163 billion in non-defense discretionary spending cuts. Some GOP budget hawks are already saying the proposed cuts, unveiled this morning, don’t go far enough. … Trump has said entitlements such as Medicaid and Social Security won’t be cut. But you just know some Republican lawmakers will insist on Medicaid cuts, particularly funds having anything to do with Obama Care. … Here’s one of many known unknowns to think about: How will red-state GOP governors react to proposed cuts to Medicaid, education and transportation funds flowing from D.C to states? Blue-state Massachusetts’s finances may well depend on how Republicans like Kelly Ayotte respond behind the scenes to budget battles in Washington.

Back to state finances, most everyone knows the House’s just-passed budget is a sort of make-believe budget, something floating in suspended animation, based on known unknowns, if you will. What other choice did lawmakers have? Pretend they know what Donald Trump et gang might do months from now?

First, the good news about the new Fall River-New Bedford commuter rail service, aka South Coast Rail: Banker & Tradesman and the Standard Times are reporting that Lafrance Hospitality wants to build a $25 million hotel near the recently opened commuter rail station in New Bedford. It’s considered among the first major development proposals tied to the new month-old train service. Expect more development proposals moving forward. And hopefully they’ll include lots of residential housing plans. … But here’s the bad news: The new rail service is already suffering from delays and cancellations, as the Herald News and Boston.com report.  … Sigh.  …  Well, they can’t blame antiquated equipment this time around. So what is to blame? A severe staffing shortage, T officials say.

Have you fallen hopelessly behind on the latest Bill Belichick-Jordon Hudson news? Need a general refresher course so you can keep up with the water-cooler/dinner-table/barroom chatter about Bill and Jordon? Steve Henson, a staff writer at the Los Angeles Times (yes, the LA Times), has an excellent overview/history of the relationship and why it matters today. It’s explanatory journalism at its finest. …  Here’s the CBS Sunday Morning interview (with a screenshot above of Bill and Jordon) that generated all the gripping headlines this past week about the 73-year-old Bill and his 24-year-old gal pal whose “creative muse” protective instincts just couldn’t be controlled during the interview.   … Bill’s rather odd email response to the interview was later posted on Jordon’s Instagram page. Damn those salacious media questions! …. And Bill had yet another response via the University of North Carolina. He was ambushed during the interview! … Speaking of UNC, ex-Pats star Ted Johnson thinks that maybe it’s time the university consider firing Bill as head coach because, well, Ted now wonders if Bill is “fit to coach an NFL team, let alone fit to coach a college team.” … Just because a guy goes through a very late mid-life crisis doesn’t mean he can’t coach football, Ted. …  Another ex-Pat is being chivalrous. From Boston.com: “Julian Edelman defends Bill Belichick’s girlfriend after viral CBS interview.” … And Dave Portnoy is chiming in on the whole affair because Dave Portnoy chimes in on everything. … And, oh, stop feeling sorry for Bob Kraft for not getting a mention in Bill’s new book. He took his own whacks at Bill via another venue. Bill was just getting even. …

Fyi: Here’s my prior exciting Bill Belichick Show post. 

Update — 5.3.25 — From Tara Sullivan at the Globe: “Would the old Bill Belichick accept this type of behavior from what appears to be a new Bill Belichick?”

They’re making Hunter Biden look like a trading-off-pop’s-name piker. The NYT is now reporting that a founder of the Trump family cryptocurrency business has announced that a fund backed by Abu Dhabi would be making a $2 billion business deal using the Trump company’s digital coins – and the deal could “generate hundreds of millions of dollars for the Trump family.”

I wrote about the Trump family’s crypto saga yesterday. And it explains towards the end the Auchincloss and Warren angle.

The old media rule-of-thumb is that a recession occurs when the economy experiences two straight quarters of negative GDP growth. If that’s true, then we’re now only one quarter away from entering a possible recession, after yesterday’s somewhat surprise announcement that the economy actually contracted in Q1. And that was before the “Liberation Day” tariffs debacle in April. … But a recession isn’t officially a recession until the economists at our very own National Bureau of Economic Research, based in Cambridge, declare a recession. And a recession is not always a case of two consecutive quarters of negative GDP growth. Other factors play into what constitutes a recession. … And it certainly doesn’t feel like a recession right now, with the U.S. unemployment rate at only 4.2 percent and a state jobless rate of 4.4 percent. … We’ll get a key update on the labor market — and the economy as a whole – after tomorrow morning’s release of April jobs data.

Update – Not a good sign, via WSJ: “GM Expects Tariffs to Cost Up to $5 Billion in 2025, Slashes Outlook.” Also from the WSJ: “McDonald’s U.S. Sales Decline in Shaky Economy.”

Update II – The NYT on yesterday’s GDP report: “A Flashing Economic Warning and a Sharp Political Jolt.”

Update III — 5.2.25 — Good news, via Business Insider: “A hotter-than-expected jobs report shows US employment is holding strong as tariffs swirl.”

Waving their brief cases and judge gavels, hundreds of lawyers, judges and other legal professionals are planning to rally tomorrow on Boston Common to protest Trump administration attacks on legal firms, the BBJ reports. … OK, maybe they won’t be waving brief cases and gavels. But it should be interesting to see how many of them are in business suits. … The rally is part of scheduled National Law Day of Action protests around the country tomorrow.

Update — 5.2.25 — Many lawyers indeed attended the rally, some of them in business attire. NBC Boston and the Globe have more.

You have to read this NYT piece to truly grasp just how bad the Trump family’s crypto firm is in terms of naked greed and potential conflicts of interest. The headline pretty much says it all: “Secret Deals, Foreign Investments, Presidential Policy Changes: The Rise of Trump’s Crypto Firm.” … How bad is it? Even a crypto enthusiast says a recent business pitch by the Trump firm is a “black spot on the industry.” … It’s not the first time crypto devotees have blasted Trump’s various crypto moves. …

What really caught my attention in the Times piece is how World Liberty, the Trump family’s crypto firm, has apparently sold its cryptocurrency to investors abroad. That reminded me of a recent Times interview with U.S. Rep. Jake Auchincloss, who openly warned of the inherent danger of a president openly peddling crypto coins, etc.: “It is guaranteed that foreign adversaries will be purchasing the Trump coin.” … And we all know what they’d hope and expect to get from such investments. 

Fyi: Auchincloss and U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren have lately been jointly pounding away at the president’s crypto antics.

Update – Don’t forget the Trump family’s real estate wheeling and dealing. Via the Times: “New Mideast Project Is Latest Trump Company Deal Tied to a Foreign Government.”

The Globe’s Diti Kohli makes a valiant effort to explain why absurdly high college tuition prices aren’t really what they seem. A lot the explanations make sense. But in an Alice in Wonderland type of way. … The story is about how tuition sticker prices are often offset by financial aid, discounts, scholarships, government funding, private donors, etc. Tuition prices are sort of real and not-real numbers, something to be believed and not believed, a fact that’s not a fact. …  From Alice: “Well, I can’t put it any more clearly, sir, for it isn’t clear to me.”

Btw: the health-care industry and the Pentagon exist in the same surreal accounting universe where “nothing would be what it is because everything would be what it isn’t.” … It’s ultimately tied to their non-profit status and wide-open government funding spigots that turn real money into funny money. But that’s a subject for another post.

In all my years in journalism, I never heard of the phrase ‘slobber-knocker.’ But there it is in Zack Cox’s Herald piece about the Celts finally knocking off Orlando last night. It was indeed a hard-fought series. … I was right and wrong in my pre-series prediction. The Magic were indeed tough opponents but the Celts still dispatched them in five. … The Globe’s Gary Washburn says the bruising series is just what the Celts needed.

Update – A Hub Blog friend, who was really down on the Celts after last night’s dismal first half, texted me this morning: “Whatever they did at halftime make mine a double.”