Posted on 07/24/2019 6:27:59 AM PDT by Kaslin
There is one interest that almost all elected officials in Washington, D.C., share. It does not matter what state they come from. It does not matter what party they belong to. It does not matter whether they serve in the House, Senate or White House.
They want to be reelected.
A key tactic they often employ to achieve this shared strategic aim is sometimes celebrated by apologists as "bipartisanship."
In practice, bipartisanship less often involves members of both major parties coming together to serve some great national interest and more often involves them coming together to serve their personal political interests as members of Washington's elected class.
The latest example: the Trump-Pelosi debt-and-spending deal.
The basics of the deal are this: Over the next two fiscal years, Congress will pass and President Trump will sign spending laws that increase discretionary federal spending by $320 billion above the levels Republicans agreed to in a 2011 legislative deal to raise the debt limit they made with then-President Barack Obama. That 2011 deal essentially said, "We will increase the debt today and pay for it tomorrow."
Now that it's tomorrow, the new Trump-Pelosi deal says, "No, we won't."
The Trump-Pelosi deal also says there will be absolutely no limit on how much new debt the federal government can accumulate between now and July 31, 2021.
It also says that the appropriations bills Congress enacts to reach these new higher levels of federal spending and debt will not include any "poison pills."
"Congressional leaders and the administration agree that, relative to the FY 2019 regular appropriations Acts, there will be no poison pills, additional new riders, additional CHIMPS" -- changes in mandatory program spending -- "or other changes in policy or conventions that allow for higher spending levels, or any nonappropriations measures unless agreed to on a bipartisan basis by the four leaders with the approval of the president," says a summary of the deal published by House Speaker Pelosi's office.
What does banning "poison pills" do? It gives the leadership of the minority party in either chamber the power to preemptively remove provisions they do not like from spending bills without needing to have a recorded vote on an actual amendment to do so.
It stops public fights over federal spending programs that the base of one party likes but the base of the other party hates.
Why should Congress have debates -- and votes -- on things like that in an election year?
Is not a bipartisan deal in favor of business as usual -- or business as usual plus $320 billion -- a better way to go?
No.
In the first nine months of this fiscal year, the federal government spent a record $3,355,970,000,000 while running a $747,115,000,000 deficit. Under President Trump, the federal Treasury is now doling out dollars faster (even when adjusted for inflation) than it did in fiscal 2009, when President George W. Bush signed legislation to bailout failing banks and President Barack Obama signed a stimulus law aimed at lifting the economy out of recession.
In its most recent long-term budget outlook, the Congressional Budget Office put the escalating federal debt in historical perspective.
"Congressional leaders and the administration agree that, relative to the FY 2019 regular appropriations Acts, there will be no poison pills, additional new riders, additional CHIMPS" -- changes in mandatory program spending -- "or other changes in policy or conventions that allow for higher spending levels, or any nonappropriations measures unless agreed to on a bipartisan basis by the four leaders with the approval of the president," says a summary of the deal published by House Speaker Pelosi's office.
What does banning "poison pills" do? It gives the leadership of the minority party in either chamber the power to preemptively remove provisions they do not like from spending bills without needing to have a recorded vote on an actual amendment to do so.
It stops public fights over federal spending programs that the base of one party likes but the base of the other party hates.
Why should Congress have debates -- and votes -- on things like that in an election year?
Is not a bipartisan deal in favor of business as usual -- or business as usual plus $320 billion -- a better way to go?
No.
In the first nine months of this fiscal year, the federal government spent a record $3,355,970,000,000 while running a $747,115,000,000 deficit. Under President Trump, the federal Treasury is now doling out dollars faster (even when adjusted for inflation) than it did in fiscal 2009, when President George W. Bush signed legislation to bailout failing banks and President Barack Obama signed a stimulus law aimed at lifting the economy out of recession.
In its most recent long-term budget outlook, the Congressional Budget Office put the escalating federal debt in historical perspective.
I warned when Trump was elected that our economy (the whole western world’s, actually) is a runaway train and the only way to keep pushing the brick wall at the end farther away is to continue with runaway spending. Even for Trump.
We passed the point where a human solution was possible a long time ago.
This explains it (and is very entertaining)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TlN28DoL5qA
Bottom line is that I don’t ding Trump for this one.
Ditch and McCarthy are the ones to blame.
Basically, no one in Congress supports Trump. Trump wants to be re-elected. They have him over a barrel.
I like Trump a lot...but with this “deal”, he killed the Tea Party and the ideas behind it.
I really think a global reset is inevitable. Massive default of government debt is utterly unthinkable. And yet, we cannot pay. It’s sort of “irresistible force meets immovable object” but not really.
On the one hand we cannot just “decide to pay” because we really don’t have $20 trillion dollars. So that’s impossible. On the other hand, we actually could “decide not to pay”. That isn’t impossible. Therefore, that will happen.
Yep. And ultimately, I blame the voters. Anyone who actually came to the table with a real solution would never get elected. It’s the opposite of the “free stuff” candidates.
So the solution is to keep printing money and hopefully keep monetizing the debt until the debt service is higher than the taxes brought in.
How much government spending consists of contractual obligations? Until we stop handing so much business over to contractors that is better handled in house we are not serious about getting a handle on spending.
There is not much here for conservatives to like. We are spending well over what we should, we are exploding the deficit, Government just gets fatter and now has no limits and the wall isn’t being built. The best we got is that the Democrats would be worse. Excuse me for not celebrating. Trump and the GOP talk like Rush Limbaugh but spend like Ted Kennedy.
Fiscal conservatism, it seems, is off the table.
Everyone appears to have figured out that we’ll be able to run the printing presses full-bore for the rest of our natural lifetimes with little consequence.
The rest of the world will have no choice really.
McCain and Turtle killed the Tea Party.
Agreed. RIP Tea Party 4/15/2009-7/22/2019. And yes, I was an enthusiastic supporter and attended multiple rallies
“Yep. And ultimately, I blame the voters. Anyone who actually came to the table with a real solution would never get elected. It’s the opposite of the “free stuff” candidates.”
Absolutely.
Notice that since the economy is working, and there is very little policy wise to ding President Trump on, the media and the Democrats are suddenly very concerned about the debt.
It might be time to erect the gallows.
List of grievances:
6. But the grand nostrum will be a public debt...
http://home.hiwaay.net/~becraft/FRENEAUbanking.htmls
“Concentration camps” in the republic.
We can give them a choice...noose, jihadi finalizer, jimmie hodgkinson method. They wail for “choice”.
–That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
Until we get control of our own border and negotiate better drug prices we are going to remain in the position of globalists determining what we should spend.
Put Pelosi and the Squibs in charge of the House, you have to deal.
Dont act like it is Trump’s job to be the Congress we apparently didnt feel the need to send to DC or whine when he has to take what he can get.
So the solution is to keep printing money and hopefully keep monetizing the debt until the debt service is higher than the taxes brought in.
************
I think the growing debt service burden is one of the reasons the Fed is determined to keep rates low. They know that higher rates will mean even higher costs to service our ballooning national debt.
Limbaugh on Tuesday during one segment discussing this deal wondered aloud if Trump, at any point during the 2016 campaign, pledged to reduce the deficit, and I distinctly remember that he did.
In fact, I remember that his first budget proposal lopped trillions off the debt because he looks at the budget like a businessman; it went NOwhere. Few in Congress, on either side of the aisle, were interested. Might have even been a couple of Republicans who claimed, like Democrats, the legislation was DOA.
So there’s that. Hopefully, Trump will be reelected and get to address this massive debt in his second term.
So, nobody complaining he violated his own statement vs. LAST budget ‘battle’ (If you send something like this to my desk again, it’ll get a VETO), or is FR and the knee-pad brigade just going to blame it on Congress as if they were the ONLY parties in the whole budget blow-up?
I agree. Trump is making the best of a bad situation. To my way of thinking all the debt ceiling cliffhangers have not had the effect of reducing spending. All of the apparently underfunded budgets have given us the debt ceiling hikes. It is time to quit focusing on making a lot of noise about starving the beast and start looking at making structural changes.
Yep. I don’t see them as “on our side”, but they need this thing to keep going. The last thing they want is a financial collapse followed by world war. We’re sort of in this thing together.
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