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With debt out of control, Republicans can’t be intermittent fiscal hawks
New York Post ^ | Jan. 26, 2023 | Rich Lowry

Posted on 01/27/2023 6:54:11 AM PST by Eagle Forgotten

It’s very strange not to seriously pursue a deeply held goal when you have unified control of Washington, then to insist on trying to achieve much of it in one fell swoop when you barely have control of one chamber of Congress.

But here we are. This is the Republican pattern. It has been, fundamentally, driven by the fact that two Republican presidents in a row now have won the White House by effectively running against the fiscal conservatism of the party’s congressional wing.

George W. Bush’s compassionate conservatism was an implicit rebuke of Newt Gingrich’s bomb-throwing majorities that tried to balance the budget at all costs. Donald Trump’s Make America Great Again populism was a rejection of Paul Ryan’s debt-obsessed majority that hoped to move the goal posts on entitlement reform.

(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: debt; republicans
Lowry elaborates on the deficit problem, but also tears into the Republicans in Congress for their hypocrisy on the subject. The “intermittent” concern of his title means that the GOP never does anything about the deficit when there’s a Republican in the White House. They become born-again deficit hawks only when the President is a Democrat. They have no credibility.

Lowry doesn’t say, but I’ll add, that the Democrats and their supporters aren’t shy about pointing this out.

1 posted on 01/27/2023 6:54:11 AM PST by Eagle Forgotten
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To: Eagle Forgotten

They can, and they will.

As they say, a leopard can’t change its spots.


2 posted on 01/27/2023 6:55:08 AM PST by logi_cal869 (-cynicus the "concern troll" a/o 10/03/2018 /!i!! &@$%&*(@ -)
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To: Eagle Forgotten

Interesting how it always falls on the GOP to be the bad guys, and save government from itself.

WRONG

They should 1) simply do things that give people more freedom from government, and 2) encourage government’s (ie. the left’s) collapse.


3 posted on 01/27/2023 7:09:25 AM PST by PGR88
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To: PGR88

Continually remind young voters they will have to deal with the debt and the carrying costs of the debt which will dominate the budget.


4 posted on 01/27/2023 7:36:06 AM PST by ActresponsiblyinVA
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To: Eagle Forgotten

Republicans gave up on being fiscally responsible in 2001 when Bush became president. Bush and Rove said fiscal responsibility was a vote loser and the rest of the national Republicans agreed 100%. The only time they brought it up was when Obama took office, but they really didn’t mean it. Now they may bring it up again with Biden in office but they have zero credibility.


5 posted on 01/27/2023 7:58:13 AM PST by Opinionated Blowhard (When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic.)
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To: Eagle Forgotten; All
Thank you for referencing that article Eagle Forgotten.

All that it takes is for one patriot lawmaking Republican to effectively exercise "majority" voting power in Congress to close down unconstitutional, unaccountable federal spending is the following.

That brave Republican needs to go public and point out that corrupt Congress has been scandalously ignoring constitutional limits on its powers to tax and spend for many generations.

Patriots have gotten practice helping Trump to drain the swamp by primarying bad-apple “Republicans,” and we're going to have to do that again in 2024 and 2026 for Trump 47's last two years in office.

In the meanwhile, ALL the states desperately need to put a "permanent" stop to unconstitutional federal taxes, and likewise unconstitutional interference in the affairs of the sovereign states, by effectively "seceding" from the unconstitutionally big federal government.

The states will "secede" from the corrupt feds by repealing the 16th (direct taxes) and 17th (popular voting for federal senators) Amendments (16&17A).

If the proposed amendment was limited strictly to repealing 16&17A, relatively little or ideally no discussion would be needed before ratification of the amendment imo.

6 posted on 01/27/2023 8:04:11 AM PST by Amendment10
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To: Amendment10
If the proposed amendment was limited strictly to repealing 16&17A, relatively little or ideally no discussion would be needed before ratification of the amendment imo.

There might be “relatively little or no discussion” needed to get FR’s endorsement, but for ratification by 38 states, forget it. There would be a LOT of discussion about (1) a 30% national sales tax to replace the personal income tax, and/or (2) the curtailment or abolition of many popular federal programs.

BTW, would repeal of the Sixteenth Amendment also eliminate the FICA tax (for Social Security) and the corporate income tax? I’ve never thought about these questions because I consider repeal to be totally out of the question, politically.
7 posted on 01/27/2023 1:43:06 PM PST by Eagle Forgotten
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To: Eagle Forgotten; All
"There might be “relatively little or no discussion” needed to get FR’s endorsement, but for ratification by 38 states, forget it"

Patriots need to get constitutionally clueless elected Democratic state government leaders of blue states up to speed with the constitutional reality that corrupt federal Democrats are stealing their state's revenues by means of unconstitutional taxes, taxes that Congress cannot reasonably justify under its constitutional Article I, Section 8-limited powers, and a few other constitutionally enumerated expenses.

"Congress is not empowered to tax for those purposes which are within the exclusive province of the States." —Justice John Marshall, Gibbons v. Ogden, 1824.

8 posted on 01/27/2023 3:03:06 PM PST by Amendment10
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