The Omnibus Spending Bill Is a Fiscal Embarrassment

Discussion in 'Politics' started by Tom B, Mar 24, 2018.

  1. Tom B

    Tom B

    The Republicans have no excuse for this budget. They should have eliminated the filibuster; so that a sensible budget, with their promised priorities, could be passed.

    The Omnibus Spending Bill Is a Fiscal Embarrassment

    Republicans prove yet again why they deserve to be labeled the biggest swamp spenders.

    Veronique de Rugy|Mar. 22, 2018 12:15 am

    Republicans are once again proving why they actually deserve the label of the biggest swamp spenders. The latest gigantic omnibus spending bill would fund the government for the remainder of the fiscal year—with a price tag of $1.3 trillion. That doesn't include entitlement funding or payments for the interest on our debt—which continue to grow and drive our debt higher, as Republicans have apparently given up on slowing down spending.

    Most Republicans favor the bill as a way to avoid the self-inflicted risk of another government shutdown. Never mind that members have had no time to read the 1,000-page bill and figure out what is actually in it. They just have to take Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer's word. He said, "It has some things no one likes, and it has a lot of things not everybody likes but most people like. It was a fair compromise."

    Schumer's uncharacteristic cheerfulness about the measure probably had much to do with the $900 million in funding for the Gateway tunnel project, a boondoggle supported by all New York-area lawmakers. It most likely won't be in the final bill, though, because President Donald Trump threatened to veto the bill if the project were to be included. Immigration is another sticky point, but we can all expect it to be resolved at some point by nudging the right people for their support.

    You can also expect Republicans and President Trump to spin this as a "yuge" victory for their team. After all, isn't it a sign that they can govern? Sure, if you tolerate massive deficit spending, being irresponsible, and pushing all that liability down the throat of future generations. I don't, because I actually care about the well-being of my kids and grandkids.

    To be fair, this is no surprise. These are the same guys who agreed back in February to add $300 billion of spending over two years to the already monstrous federal tab. Showing yet again that bipartisanship isn't good news for those of us who care about the fiscal path our country is on, the agreement blew the budget caps that were meant to control excess spending by opportunistic politicians.

    Democrats are, of course, loving it. Let's face it; they know that when Republicans are in power, they can act like a drunken teenager with Daddy's credit card, but they sober up when they have the gavel. What's worse, Republicans are terrible negotiators. For example, Democrats have once again managed to get most of their non-defense priorities funded by the Republican-controlled Congress and White House in exchange for allowing more defense spending. The result is a $143 billion boost to this year's spending above budget caps. Who cares about budget rules and deficits when you can throw more cash at the Department of Defense?

    This will, of course, lead to much larger deficits than originally projected. According to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, red ink for 2018 will reach $800 billion. That's a solid $230 billion higher than what was projected by the Congressional Budget Office in its June 2017 10-year forecast. That's a whole $2 trillion in additional debt after just one year of Republican control of the legislative and executive branches.

    Larger deficits also mean larger interest payments. A CRFB analysis found that "interest payments will quadruple, topping $1 trillion per year in as little as a decade. That's more than we will spend each year on the military or Medicaid, and as a share of the economy, it is the highest in history. ... Over the next decade, we'll spend around $7 trillion—$55,000 per household—just servicing our debt."

    The economy is growing. The scale of the Afghanistan War is relatively small—and even some defense hawks recognize that there's enough waste and unnecessary spending already in the military budget that could be cut to pay for whatever modernization is necessary. Unemployment is going down, and people feel more hopeful about the economy. This is hardly the time for Republicans to deliver the biggest increase to federal spending in years. Yet that's what is happening. Don't be fooled by the forthcoming victory dance.
     
    Last edited: Mar 24, 2018
  2. Tom B! good to see you again!

    So what happens when the dems next control everything and there is no filibuster? Or should the Republicans institute a thousand year Reich sorry, right.?
     
  3. Tom B

    Tom B

    I'll ignore your Freudian slip. The Democrats will eliminate the filibuster when they find it politically necessary, just like they previously did with nominations.

    Reid, Democrats trigger ‘nuclear’ option; eliminate most filibusters on nominees

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/poli...d2ca728e67c_story.html?utm_term=.1f5c0ffcdf8c
     
    Last edited: Mar 24, 2018
  4. Two wrongs making a right is a modern plague in conservative thinking, as it the lowest shelf to reach like whataboutism.

    We know the past, in modern times it began with the Republican house and Clinton, pure obstructionism. Ayan Rand.. the most brutal are the best.

    So given an eye for an eye makes everyone blind, is the republican plan to just be the rock AND the hard place hoping the Dems will be forced to make a moral choice next time, then shank their underbelly?

    You have a two party system. It is disintegrating into chaos as would be expected. Is the better solution not to shut out the extremists and let the rational restore order?
     
  5. Tom B

    Tom B

    It is not a "wrong" to eliminate the filibuster. It was a rule that was adopted by the senate. It is a rule that can be removed by the senate. The house does not have the filibuster.

    They rest of your post has nothing to do with this thread. This thread is about the Omnibus Spending Bill.
     
    Last edited: Mar 24, 2018
  6. So the democrats were not wrong to start the process then? etc.. but we don't need to go there.

    The filibuster is a PITA but it serves a purpose, the minority who represent the majority of citizens in this 2018 situation have to have some way to block, a filibuster requiring a dramatic effort has crucial role. There may be other ways that are better but until the 80s, American democracy did not function on a you lost the majority, shut up for four years system.

    Political mitosis is afoot. The end of the filibuster entirely will lead to a 3, then 5 then etc. party system. Then all manner of constitutional stuff will be re-written for short term gain. Italy in the 80s will look good compared to the US.

    Dunno, I have to head out but I just don't see tit-for-tat working.
     
  7. Tom B

    Tom B

  8. Republicans always find an excuse to back down and give democrats what they want. It's happened so many times democrats pretty much expect it.

    When Obama was president, republicans talked big but folded like cheap lawn chairs. If only they had the presidency, we were told. Now they control both houses of congress and the presidency and democrats still call the tune. Somehow democrats were able to force their will on republicans when all they controlled was the presidency. Now, with control of everything, republicans fold.

    We are told it is hopeless because the democrats would filibuster the spending bill, ie the same thing republicans could have done with Obama. Republicans did get into one government shutdown faceoff with Obama and we are constantly told how badly it hurt them. It hurt them so badly they were able to take over both the Senate and House in the next election.

    Democrats had two main goals here. One, block wall funding, and two, keep funding for their leftwing activist groups like Planned Parenthood. They got those without breaking a sweat and managed to get the cherry on top, funding for Chuck Schumer's big tunnel project, which will give him and other NY dems enormous money to spread around to their supporters.

    Republicans are backslapping on Capitol Hill because they got in return enormous spending for defense contractors and the farm lobby. Tell that to the voters. Fool me once, etc.

    I hate what will happen to the country, but there will be some justice in republicans being voted out of office in large numbers and losing control of the congress. As for Trump, he better wrap up the Mueller thing quickly because he will have an impeachment to deal with.
     
  9. Steve Hilton: The $1.3 trillion omnibus bill shows why the populist revolution has to target Congress next
    [​IMG]
    By Steve Hilton | Fox News
    Trump signs spending bill, Washington averts shutdown

    President Trump signs $1.3 trillion spending bill after threatening veto in morning tweet; reaction and analysis on 'The Five.'

    We hear all the time these days that President Trump is “undermining democratic norms.” Well, how about this for a democratic norm? The policies people vote for in an election should be the ones that get implemented after the election.

    Oh wait, that would mean we had an actual, functioning republic, wouldn’t it? But we don’t. We have a Swamp, and this week’s public policy shambles in Washington – resulting in a fiscally incontinent and democratically illegitimate $1.3 trillion omnibus spending bill – showed that the Swamp is not being drained but steadily refilled.

    Let’s take the democratic illegitimacy first.

    You may not agree with – in fact you may violently disagree with – President Trump’s pledge to “Build the Wall.” But can there be any voter in America who was unaware of that promise by the time of the 2016 election? Of course not. So it is simply staggering to see the sheer scale of our elected representatives’ arrogance in refusing to do what the American people voted for.

    It’s not just that the spending bill fails to fund the construction of a border wall along the lines the president has proposed. Almost unbelievably, it literally prohibits building a concrete wall or other prototypes. Not so much “Build the Wall” as “Ban the Wall.”

    And look at what Congress did to President Trump’s promise to increase border security by hiring additional border officers.

    The president signed an executive order soon after he took office calling for 10,000 more U.S. Immigration and Customers Enforcement (ICE) officers to protect America’s borders. He then scaled that back in his own budget submission to just an extra 2,000 officers. Guess how many are included in the budget Congress approved? The number of additional officers is capped at a mere 65.

    Again – you may disagree with the idea of boosting the number of border agents. But surely every American would agree that if people vote for something, they should get it.

    This budget’s blatant overturning of central planks of 2016’s winning Republican presidential platform is a calculated insult to American voters. It’s the Swamp saying: “It doesn’t matter who or what you vote for, we’ll do exactly what we want anyway.”

    This is yet another example of the failure of our political system to deliver on promises that fueled the rise of anti-establishment candidates Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders in the first place.

    Democrats may think they scored a big political win by blocking so many of the president’s signature promises. But all they are doing is stoking the populist anger and resentment that they claim to despise.

    Both Democrats and Republicans claim to take seriously our nation’s growing fiscal crisis. But instead of dealing with it, they’ve added to it. There was no apparent effort made to rein in all sorts of wasteful spending

    Finally, and perhaps most depressingly for those on the right, there was the astonishing chutzpah of House Speaker Paul Ryan who, when asked by Ben Shapiro this week to set out the philosophical differences between conservatives and liberals, castigated the progressives’ ideology as being one that ends with “elites in Washington micromanaging our lives.”

    Excuse me? What exactly is this monstrosity of a spending bill, other than yet another example of ... elites in Washington micromanaging our lives?

    Ryan, of course, knew only too well how appalled people would be by this giant spending bill and so tried to get his defense in early, claiming that the deadline meant it had to be passed despite its flaws. The budgeting process must be reformed for the future, he said.

    No! It’s not the budgeting process that needs to be reformed! It’s the entire government. The truth is that year after year, decade after decade, more and more power has flowed from the hands of people, families, neighborhoods, towns, cities, counties, states ... all in one direction: up to the federal government in Washington.

    It doesn’t matter whether it’s the executive branch and its sprawling, unaccountable departments and agencies (the real Deep State); the legislative branch with its feckless, corrupt representatives and policy staff in the pockets of donors and lobbyists; or the judicial branch with its rulings over many decades that have allowed the concentration of political and economic power. One way or another, the federal government in Washington has grown bloated and fat at the people’s expense.

    None of the current leadership in the two main parties will do anything about this: whatever they say, they love the power and control it brings them. This spending bill is proof of that.

    And all the congressional leaders are responsible for this outrage: House Speaker Ryan of Wisconsin and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, both Republicans; and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of California and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York, both Democrats. We ought to call the legislation they approved the Ryosi-McSchumer spending bill.

    There is only one long-term solution: the populist revolution with its demand for people power and decentralization must target Congress next. We need to elect Positive Populists who will go to Washington and give their power back to the people.

    We’ll be debating all this on Sunday at 9 p.m. EDT on “The Next Revolution” on the Fox News Channel. Hope you can join us!

    Steve Hilton is the host of FOX News Channel’s "The Next Revolution with Steve Hilton" (Sundays at 9PM/ET). Follow him on Twitter @stevehiltonx and the show @NextRevFNC.
     
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