In big reversal, new Trump budget will give up on longtime Republican goal of eliminating deficit

[DonViejo]

Source: The Washington Post



By Damian Paletta February 11 at 9:00 PM

President Trump on Monday will offer a budget plan that falls far short of eliminating the government’s deficit over 10 years, conceding that huge tax cuts and new spending increases make this goal unattainable, three people familiar with the proposal said.

Eliminating the budget deficit over 10 years has been a North Star for the Republican Party for several decades, and GOP lawmakers took the government to the brink of default in 2011 when they demanded a vote on a amendment to the Constitution that would prohibit the federal government from spending more than it takes in through revenues.

House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.), when he used to chair the House Budget Committee, routinely proposed tax and spending outlines that would eliminate the deficit over 10 years, even though critics said his changes would lead to a severe curtailment in government programs.

In 2013, Ryan proposed $4.6 trillion in cuts over 10 years, an amount he said was sufficient to eliminating the deficit. Those changes were not adopted by Congress or supported by the Obama administration.

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/business/wp/2018/02/11/in-big-reversal-new-trump-budget-will-give-up-on-longtime-republican-goal-of-eliminating-deficit/

[dlk]

1. Republican Fiscal Responsibility Was Always a Scam

Whether it's needless, unfunded wars, enormous tax cuts, Republicans only care about deficits if the spending helps whomever they perceive to be Democrats.

[SWBTATTReg]

2. tRUMP doesn't even know how to pay bills anyways, so what's new here?

Of course sarcasm here. I wouldn't trust any piece of paper that he wrote the word 'budget' or the like on it.

[Fred Sanders]

3. The Hypocrisy Party. Nothing fits better.

[elleng]

4. longtime Republican B.S., that is.

[Stallion]

5. Only a Democratic President Reduces Deficits or Creates a Surplus

37 years of uninterrupted evidence

[3catwoman3]

6. Hypocrisy, thy name is...

...Republican. A pox on all of them.

[PSPS]

7. We're in step 2

Step 1: Drain the treasury into trump's and his cronies' pockets.
Step 2: Max out the credit card and put that money into trump's and his cronies' pockets.

[not fooled]

8. Well, longtime goal

only since the previous installed puke "president."

That would be chimpy, with his off-the-books wars.

And the pukes really started this scam with raygun, who keynesd his way to perceived prosperity by borrowing and spending.

[SunSeeker]

9. Republicans never care about the deficit when they're in power. nt

[Voltaire2]

12. No shit. Reagan, Bush (idiot), same shit.

[BlueDog22]

10. Lies

Because the GOP likes to lie. They don't want a balanced budget, they want happy special interests giving them money.

[videohead5]

11. President Clinton

Had the budget balanced but Dubya came along and gave huge tax cuts based on projected surpluses that did not materialize.now Trump is making things even worse.

[Vinca]

13. Trump's financial planning can be described in one word: bankruptcy.

If you thought 2008 was bad, just wait until Trump is done with us.

[Nitram]

14. Stating the obvious.

[Javaman]

15. there "goal' always seemed to be moved farther and farther down the field

while making proclamations that they are working hard towards it.

they never gave a single shit about eliminated the deficit.

because if they did that, all their budget and financial talking points would vanish.

it's just easier to blame it on the Democrats, who I might add, always have the bail out the nation from countless failed repuke plans.

[DeminPennswoods]

16. Maybe Trump's plan is to get rid of the "Freedom Caucus"

by giving them all a stroke!

[Insomniac Ike]

17. This "longtime Republican goal"...

hasn't been a Republican goal for a long time: it's just something to bitch about when there's a Dem in the White House.

[MissMillie]

18. ( sarcasm ) Well it's not as if...

anyone predicted this ( /sarcasm )

[NCDem777]

19. It was never about deficits

Republicans are happy about deficits so long as the money strictly goes to foreign babysitting projects.

Someone proposes to spend some money on AMERICANS and they scream. Oh they make all sorts of excuses for why. "We can't afford universal healthcare because of illegals." "We can't afford affordable college because we GOTTA invest that money in babysitting the rest of the world. We just GOTTA!" "We can't afford infrastructure! Deficits!"

And so on. If there's an idea for investing in Americans, Republicans always have an excuse for why we can't. Some of them even go as far as to say that because of America's makeup, it's impossible for US to have the nice things the rest of the first world has. I've heard them say that the stuff in the Nordic Countries works because they're "homogenous" (read: I don't want my tax dollars going to Americans who happen to be brown).

When you peel back all of their excuses, what you're left with is that they simply don't want American tax dollars going to Americans.

But instead of calling them on this, we've let them gibber on about "America first."

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

20. Big beautiful debt