Mitch McConnell Just Unveiled the Most Inevitable Political Development of 2018
Let me-and Bloomberg News-introduce you to the most inevitable development in the recent history of American politics.
"It’s disappointing but it’s not a Republican problem," McConnell said in an interview with Bloomberg News when asked about the rising deficits and debt. "It’s a bipartisan problem: Unwillingness to address the real drivers of the debt by doing anything to adjust those programs to the demographics of America in the future." McConnell’s remarks came a day after the Treasury Department said the U.S. budget deficit grew to $779 billion in Donald Trump’s first full fiscal year as president, the result of the GOP’s tax cuts, bipartisan spending increases and rising interest payments on the national debt. That’s a 77 percent increase from the $439 billion deficit in fiscal 2015, when McConnell became majority leader.
McConnell said it would be "very difficult to do entitlement reform, and we’re talking about Medicare, Social Security and Medicaid," with one party in charge of Congress and the White House. "I think it’s pretty safe to say that entitlement changes, which is the real driver of the debt by any objective standard, may well be difficult if not impossible to achieve when you have unified government," McConnell said.
Here comes the real okey-doke.
Republicans also passed a 2017 tax overhaul projected to add more than $1 trillion to the debt over a decade after leaders gave up on creating a plan that wouldn’t increase the debt under the Senate’s scoring rules. However, McConnell, like many Republicans, has said growth will more than make up for the lost revenue.
It's not the multi-bazillion dollar gift we gave to our plutocratic base that's costing the government revenue. It's the programs that we've been trying to strangle for decades, in good times and bad. By the way, Mitch, tax cuts like the one under discussion do not pay for themselves. You know when I'll believe the Republican Party is serious about reforming itself and embracing once again science and empirical reality? When they give up on supply-side-or what GHW Bush rightly called, "voodoo"-economics. Until then, they're still in the thrall of myth-making, magical thinking, and gluttonous oligarchy.
Video:
You had to know this was coming. Everybody knew this was coming. As soon as that abomination of desolation of a tax bill was signed, this tactic became the easiest bet on the board. It's not like the Republicans were acting covertly. This is what Speaker Paul Ryan, the zombie-eyed granny starver from the state of Wisconsin, said immediately after the tax bill was passed in the Senate.
“There’s two things you need to do to get our fiscal house in order. Grow the economy and deal with spending, especially entitlement spending.”
Here's Mark Meadows, chairman of the Freedom Caucus, the group of conservative House members who have Ryan's balls in a mason jar under a picture of John C. Calhoun, at around the same time via The Washington Examiner.
"You're right, that is the top fiscal thing that we have to worry about," Meadows said when asked about the need to reform programs like Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. "And quite frankly, not enough is being done," he added. "I can tell you, members of the Freedom Caucus have not only put forth a bill that looks at defining and reforming Medicare, but also other entitlement programs. I do believe that you will see some initiatives starting in the first quarter of next year, not necessarily on Social Security and Medicare."
What a cheap hustler. Of course, you wouldn't "necessarily" see an assault on Social Security and Medicare "in the first quarter" of this year. That's before the midterm elections and Meadows would have to be suicidal-or honest-to do it before anyone votes. But the groundwork is already half-finished, and if every commercial for every Democratic candidate for the rest of the campaign doesn't feature McConnell's quotes, then that party deserves what it gets. Of course, we don't, but there you are.
Respond to this post on the Esquire Politics Facebook page here.
('You Might Also Like',)
