Republicans Begin a Spending Spree

[EasyAce]

If they can’t shrink the government, they will soon find themselves having to raise taxes
By Brian Riedl
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/456272/republicans-budget-deal-dawn-another-spending-spree

In Washington, empty rhetoric about fiscal responsibility is about to be swept aside by the reality of trillion-dollar deficits.

Republican congressional leaders have announced a deal with Democrats to bust discretionary spending caps by nearly $300 billion over the next two years. Appropriations will rise by 13 percent this year.

This is precisely the kind of inside-the-Beltway, big-government deal-making that Republicans won the congressional majority with a mandate to end.

GOP lawmakers claim to be merely reversing recent defense cuts that would otherwise push the Pentagon budget below 2.9 percent of GDP for the first time since the 1930s. The other $131 billion of the spending-cap increase is meant to bribe Senate Democrats not to filibuster the new defense spending.

Past deals to raise the spending caps were offset with (roughly) equal entitlement-spending savings. But this budget buster — by far the largest since the 2011 spending caps were enacted to prevent such deals — is not even close to being fully offset. It will go on the nation’s credit card . . .

. . . Republican lawmakers have spent years promising deficit reduction, spending restraint, and entitlement reform. Despite winning full control of Congress and the White House, the cuts have not come . . .

. . . President Trump’s campaign exposed that voters do not prioritize spending restraint, and lawmakers have adjusted accordingly . . . Cutting taxes by $200 billion per year was easy. But without spending restraint, no tax cuts can be sustained. Even before tax reform, the Congressional Budget Office projected that annual budget deficits would surpass $1 trillion within five years and reach $2 trillion a decade after that (double those levels if interest rates rise). Over the next 30 years, the CBO projects the national debt will grow from $20 trillion to $92 trillion, reaching 150 percent of GDP.

Republicans were put on Earth to shrink government. If they cannot do that, those who remain will soon find themselves having to raise taxes.

[DB]

Did anyone seriously doubt they wouldn't?

[Free Vulcan]

What a joke, and Trump should have nuked this one. Disappointed.

[Concerned]

What a joke, and Trump should have nuked this one. Disappointed.

One has to wonder what might have happened had we had a fiscal conservative in the White House this week. 

[INVAR]

One has to wonder what might have happened had we had a fiscal conservative in the White House this week.

Stop complaining!  You got the lesser of two evils and God's Anointed in the White House.

Eat your peas and shut up.  Take the tax increases like a man.

It's the price of freedom dude.

[EasyAce]

Stop complaining!  You got the lesser of two evils and God's Anointed in the White House.

And here I thought God's anointed was . . .

The Right Rev. Billy Sol Hargis . . .

! No longer available

(/sarcasm)

[Applewood]

What a joke, and Trump should have nuked this one. Disappointed.

Instead, he's making excuses.  Shows me he is just like he rest of the "swamp" he used to rail about in his campaign speeches. 

[roamer_1]

Disappointed.

Expected.
Predicted.

[RoosGirl]

Yeah, but the stock market is going up...