When are the Democrats going to use whatever political capital they have to force a confrontation with Moscow Mitch over the principles the Democrats say they believe in? This looks like an almost total capitulation to Republican priorities. I keep getting incessant requests from the DNC et al for contributions to various campaigns to support “our principles”. Well, I need to see more backbone and commitment from our leaders to those principles, not just lip service.
4
Odd, isn't it, that debts and deficits matter to the GOP only when Democrats are running the show?
And, to Senator Rick Scott of Florida, a piece of advice; Simply worrying about $22 trillion in debt doesn't count. Worrying never solved anything. Action does.
2
Oh, so now it is possible, I understand. During Obama’s last term it wasn’t possible. Party responsiblity always trumps (pun intended) the fiscal one.
3
Remember the Koch funded tea party "activists?" Where are all their silly three cornered hats now? A deficit based on adding to the wealth chasm by bankrolling the wealthiest Americans is absolutely a recipe for financial disaster.
But Trump and his cronies (including the Kochs) will be laughing at their gullible and pathetic base when the money for social security and medicare runs dry.
4
With Republicans boxed in as to revenue to pay for their profligacy, Dems can more easily make the case for taxes on the wealthy in order to be budget-responsible. The 2017 tax bill won't close the budget deficit, but its sponsors are all-in for playing out the fantasy that it will. So in 2020 responsible Dems can promote new taxes--solely on corporations still sitting on wads of cash and on the winners of income inequality battles--and more fiscal responsibility for a DoD that resists audits and reports of waste and abuse.
Responsible Dems will even find some new funding for advanced government activism, including on health care and climate change. They can do this (Bill) Clintonesque attack on debts & deficits and attack the unreality of the Republican universe and benefit massively at the polls--as long as they don't go overboard with new proposals like free college for everyone and immediate radical change in health care like the unvetted Medicare-for-all plans floated by Sanders-Warren.
1
Maybe Trump should give up his golf weekends?
Most of us don't get vacations when we max out OUR credit.
2
How much do you want to bet, Trump is not going to sign this? He will come up with some obscure reason. You know the story of the Scorpion....
3
The headline says it all. The hypocrisy is astounding.
4
1/1) The Senate on Thursday gave final passage to a budget agreement approved by the House last week that would raise spending limits that would otherwise take effect and suspend the debt ceiling through mid-2021. The measure passed the Senate 67-28. The House passed the legislation 284-149 last week. Senate Majority Leader Moscow Mitch McConnell, Said “this is the deal President Trump is waiting and eager to sign into law”
The obscene Defense spending would increase from $716 billion this year to $738 billion in fiscal 2020, which begins Oct. 1, and to $740.5 billion the following fiscal year. on military programs, such as border patrol, civil rights enforcement, forest management, space exploration and health programs, would rise from $605 billion this year to $632 billion next year and $634.5 billion the following year But the Nationalist and Centrist fanatics will still have at the budget with cuts of their own.
1
(1/2)
And remember it was House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., that pushed Trumps budget and championed his perverse Military spending along with all our so-called progressive democrats and Centrist! Wow! How is that for Liberal thinking! But wait Pelsoi say she did the dirty deed with Trump
to avoid another shut down, to get additional items in the bill and suggested that the budget deal reduces the likelihood of another shutdown this year, but that’s not completely true. Earlier this year, after a 35-day shutdown, Congress passed a spending package that funded the government through September. That means Pelosi and Trump and Moscow Mitch could have another grudge match to fund the government or another shutdown. Thats when the Cuts will be on the table and the military fat cats will be well fed. Another masterful move by Pelosi!
2
As soon as Trump signs it, I can breathe easy for the next 2 years as can the other 63M or so recipients of Social Security and Medicare.
1
Moscow Mitch, Comrade Donald and the Kremlin faithful Republican Senate continue to destroy this country on a daily basis.
To barrow a phrase from the Soviets, we need a purge, big time, in the Trump Administration.
We have a ready made "gulag" for these traitors. Guantanamo.
4
Sen. Paul knew that the tax cut would increase the deficit. But he voted for it anyway. So his sudden born again deficit hawk routine should not be allowed to stand. His so called principles shrink when a Republican President is in office. And if a Democrat happens to win in 2020 he will start his carny routine all over again. I have no doubt that Paul and Ted Cruz will hold dueling fillibusters. But when he had a chance to challenge Ryan and Trump he talked a mean game but folded like a cheap suit and voted yes.
7
How can someone as ignorant as Rand Paul be elected to the Senate?
Whenever someone complains about their children or grandchildren having to pay of federal government debt, it shows that they don't understand this at all. Whenever the government borrows, it also creates an asset - government bonds - which are the safest investment in the world. These bonds are highly marketable, and someone owns them. If a person is worried about the grandchildren they should buy some government bonds and give them to their children.
6
Moscow Mitch and President Pinocchio make quite a team! Got to love the voodoo economics of tax cuts to pay for themselves.
Easy solution. Put the taxes back in but that isn’t the point is it.
4
@Mathias
Resorting to name calling makes you as small as your intended target.
1
Moscow Mitch, that sounds good, voted YES for the heavy military spending included in this bill. That probably goes against Russia’s wishes...
2
@Welcome Canada
Depends which side our country is on.
1
Between the Republican tax cuts and the increased budget spending that drastically increases the deficit, there soon won't be enough left in the budget to pay for social security, Medicare and Medicaid.
But that has always been Moscow Mitch's goal. Transfer all the wealth to the top 1/10 of a percent, and make the workers give up their wages.
7
Moscow Mitch likes red ink as well as Red Square. You go Republicans, wherever.
10
Ya just gotta love the Republicans, the party of fiscal responsibility. They oppose all spending except of course any and all spending that benefits their constituents and those who enable and perpetuate their tenure in public office and the lavish lifestyle that accompanies it. Mitch McConnell and his cabal are hypocrites of the first order, feeding at the trough of the U.S. taxpayer while mortgaging the future of those taxpayers and their families. They complain about "entitlement programs" when in fact they are beneficiaries of their own entitlement programs. Fiscal responsibility....what a farce!
6
Party On! While you still can.
3
Moscow Mitch will wear that name for all time, even after he's dead.
He earned it.
10
@S Butler. What??!! That fossil in the photograph is ALIVE?!
6
As long as McConnell stays out of the way, Washington can get something done. He is the problem, not the solution
3
The biggest single problem isn't government spending, it's government revenues. Everything else is single digit percentages compared to that. Even aside from the underfunding due to tax cheats, The IRS has been hamstrung for decades from going after cheats
3
how much is the dollar really worth.....Certainly not a dollar. This shouldn't have been done. I'm tired of everybody but the so called "rich" having to be fiscally responsible.
1
When the Federal reserve was created a dollar was worth a dollar today its with 4 cents.
The Republicans constantly talk about being deficit hawks. They always accuse the Democrats for being wild spenders. But facts are facts. The only time there has been signficant defecit reduction since the Reagan years have occured under Democratic administrations. The Republicans cut taxes, promise that the resulting growth increase will reduce the deficit, but when they leave office, Reagan, Bush, and now Trump the deficits have increased, not decreased. Trump and Speaker Ryan promised that their tax giveaway to the uber wealthy would be at a minimum revenue neutral, at best revenue positive. So far they are a trillion dollars off the mark and that figure promises to rise. How many times will the public swallow this trickle down voodoo economics that the Republicans peddle every election.
3
Why do these articles never include a link to the actual vote? We the people need to know who voted for what, and the watchdogs in the supposed "fourth estate" don't make it easy.
2
It is hilarious to me that we keep going on about the national debt. $22 trillion is beyond fathomable (and what does it matter if we throw another trillion in there), or anything that will ever be "paid back". We'll just keep borrowing (i.e. printing money) to pay today's interest. We've been listening to this debt fear-mongering for the past two generations (at least), but somehow the sky stays right where it belongs and doesn't fall. Republicans squandered their last opportunity to squawk about our impending (notice how it's always right over the horizon) debt catastrophe when they went all in on yet another round of tax cuts topped with another big dollop of hypocrisy. They can't keep claiming two contradictory magical events as reality - that cutting taxes raises revenue and that rising debt levels will be our end. If the sky was going to fall because of our debt levels, it would be at the bottom of the sea by now. The entire debt-is-the-scariest-thing-facing-America narrative is a political ruse used primarily by Republicans to keep Americans in a state of anxiety. Dems jump on board when it suits their agenda. But neither party does anything substantive to alleviate it and America chugs along, economy going up and down. Our political systems seems to thrive on maintaining perpetual crises of one sort or another.
4
Trump is trying to run the country like he runs his business, rake up debt, then file bankruptcy to make it go away.
Fiscal responsibility is required to save our country. Hard choices have to be made. The ugly words, taxes will have to be raised will strike fear in every member of congress.
5
The way to cut government spending is to stop giving handouts to the wealthiest Americans in terms of tax breaks!!! Then there will be enough money to fund an efficient government, something the people need. We don't need any more rich people and we don't need the rich people, any richer...!!!
12
Republicans will NEVER get to do what they want to do:
1. Eliminate Social Security
2. Eliminate Medicare
In the end, they cannot do these things and survive the next election.
Incidentally, Trump is going to eliminate the Republicans from many of the positions they currently hold with federal, state, and local governments.
They don't see it coming, but the electorate has them in their sights for electoral defeat next year.
Sleep well, Republicans.
7
Projections show that by 2024 the US will have to borrow money just to keep up with interest payments on the debt. It's called a Ponzi scheme.
5
I thought McConnell would bring to the Senate floor only bills that were guaranteed passage through Republican votes alone. I guess that was "then" and this is "now".
5
The saddest provision of the bill is the unconscionable spending on the military. Much of that spending is to maintain our imperialistic activities around the globe. And all the candy being given to the military-industrial complex is really out of hand. Just take the F-35 program. 100 million dollars for one airplane?Especially one that has serious deficiencies? And how about getting rid of most of the bases in foreign countries - there are close to a thousand of those bases.
5
"Predictability and stability," when we're heading for historic deficits after massive tax cuts? I can't wait to find out how this will end.
6
So much for fiscal conservatism.
If they feel they must spend at these rates... then every new dollar in spending should be on the backs of corporations tax liability ... not individual citizens.
Corporations are now almost getting a free ride in the new tax code... what with lower marginal tax rates AND still all the loopholes and tax deductions available to them.
9
I suppose this makes sense to some. First cut revenue in order to increase it so the deficits will go down, but the Trump tax cuts to business and the wealthy haven't done the job even if they may have delayed a recession. Next raise spending so government can function and the military can grow (even faster than the President wanted) and we can avoid default on the national debt. I suppose the next move is another tax cut unless an election intervenes first. And so it goes.
1
Maybe the article could tell us what the contents of the bill are. It would be easier to judge the wisdom of the bill if one had some idea of what was in it and not just comments from legislators about the politics of the situation.
1
Sorry --- you didn't get the memo?
It was from CNN, 7/18/2019, from Chris Cillizza, giving an exchange between "CALLER" and RUSH LIMBAUGH:
"CALLER: There's gonna be a $1 trillion deficit. Trump doesn't really care about that. He's not really a fiscal conservative..."
"LIMBAUGH: Nobody is a fiscal conservative anymore. All this talk about concern for the deficit and the budget has been bogus for as long as it's been around."
May I suggest that you read and re-read that as many times as necessary until you finally realize the depth of Republican games....
..... and Democrats that are willing to go along with them.
10
Remember when Republicans told us massive deficits like this were certain doom?
15
@Howard
I mean, Dems are letting Republicans get away with lying. They'll hold the entire country hostage and don't give a single care in the world, but Dems jump on the chance to pass anything at all that doesn't wreck the country.
1
Here again I don't know what the Dems were thinking. They've taken away leverage they might have had during an election year. There's no way Republicans would hand Obama a 2-year budget deal one year before his reelection campaign. By agreeing to a 2-year deal, Dems have made it so that Trump doesn't have to worry about the debt ceiling or a possible shut-down while he's campaigning. I. Just. Don't. Get. It.
11
@Aristotle - I'm with you. I feel a pervasive sense of doom.
When my Depression era father didn't have the money to pay for something he would say he would "put it on the arm". Then we tightened our belts and he paid off the bill.
Mitch McConnell and the Republicans have been putting it "on the country's arm" for so long that we won't be able to lift it. They must be thinking that a Democrat will win and have to do the heavy lifting again like Obama did. No fun times ahead kids I can tell you. Good luck to anyone who is not in the 1% - we gave it all to them.
6
The Republican Party has been blowing up the deficit since 1981 when Saint Reagan taught Americans to rob the poor to pay the rich.
Plenty of 0.1% and war-industrial-complex-Inc.
Not much for anyone else.
Nice GOPeople.
Raise taxes, mostly on the rich and rich corporations, like a normal civilization with a conscience would do.
11
When does the tax cut start paying for itself? Many people are saying.
7
What will it take for the party of fiscal conservatism to rediscover their traditional belief on spending...a democrat in the White House!
8
Who is worried about the deficit? Certainly not Repubs - they are the party of Spend, but don't tax (as opposed to the Dems who are Tax and Spend -they are the responsible ones!) and they LOVE deficits because it means they can spend to their hearts content and not worry their little brains about raising taxes, or even cutting anything (they never do that either!) thereby giving their constituents everything they want... for free!
Funny, isn't it, that the ONLY people saying the Repubs are concerned about government spending is the Repubs themselves? Everyone else knows they are utterly irresponsible when it comes to finances, and incompetent as well.
Any bets as to when Republican voters will figure that out? Hint: it will involve getting real news instead of FOX channel propaganda and the "thoughts" of right wing entertainers.
2
I'm suspicious of any bill that has the full backing of the traitorous senator from Kentucky. My worry is that the coming recession will be used to cut domestic spending, especially spending for the poor. The military budget will not be touched, of course, especially with the war with Iran on the horizon. Is this a great country or what?
6
@Joseph Thomas
They would have to cut domestic spending, since interest rates are still very low, rate cut, and corporate tax cuts are used to fight recessions, to spur consumer spending, which is why a WPA or some public employment program (look to Roosevelt). While we can’t be sure that the new deal would have worked, there are volumes of empirical evidence suggesting that it was working, WWII just sped up the process. But, China does that very thing in economic downturns, they rebuild infrastructure, build infrastructure, etc. if your going to base your economy on consumers ability to spend money they don’t have, then you’d better have a way to keep the money flowing during Republican caused depressions, recessions, both great and small.
1
To those who ever believed the Republicans about anything ever:
Limbaugh now admits 'Fiscal Conservatism' was always a lie: “Nobody is a fiscal conservative anymore ... All this talk about concern for the deficit and the budget has been bogus for as long as it’s been around.”
https://www.salon.com/2019/07/19/rush-limbaugh-admits-gops-fiscal-attacks-on-obama-were-bogus-defends-trumps-deficit/
So if such a central tenet of the Redstate story-line is & always was a lie, we can be generally certain that everything they preach is false, & that their party is not about 'conservatism' of any kind.
Also remember the Trump quote about his deficit & the coming Debt Crisis;
"I Won’t Be Here" When It Blows Up:
https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-on-coming-debt-crisis-i-wont-be-here-when-it-blows-up
The biggest farce is that the redstate voting-bloc knows the Republicans are lying about everything, & that the Democrats will never be an adversary because they always seem to cave on obscenely vast & malignant military budgets.
Even Elizabeth Warren voted for a $700 Billion defense budget that was higher than the one that Donald Trump requested.
Republicans should feel very warm & fuzzy about the 'opposition': Democrats generally capitulate & cooperate with GOP's radical extremism, & Dems repeatedly prove they're toothless will never grow teeth, & will never properly fight back.
Steyer is right: If Democrats actually cared, they would not be going on recess now.
7
Oh, come on. Deficits don't matter, when the Republicans do it. When it's Democrats, the World ends.
Seriously.
18
Give me my gross pay, and let me decide where I want to put my taxes to work.
2
Remember when Fox news had the deficit meter running 24/7 when Obama was president? Wonder where that went? Down the hippocracy sinkhole that defines Republican politics is my guess.
10
Not only the deficit clock but also the infamous "tea party" in total. Ryan slinked off and that was that. That was Trillions ago. Trump is bankrupting the country just like every other business he's been involved with. He's only interested in lining the pockets of the people he desperately wants to be a part of. Shame on both sides.
3
And, yesterday The Times wrote that the Republicans are looking to cut the capital gains rate (possibly by executive order). More money in the pockets of the wealthy. More debt added to the already mounting debt.
If a Democrat ever does take the Oval Office again, I never want to hear another word from Republicans regarding the deficit.
What a bunch of hypocrites.
10
Where are the tri-cornered hats and the misspelled signs and the angry rhetoric, the marches, the veiled racism and the deep concern for future generations that the Tea Party pretended were the overarching reasons for their protests against Obama. I guess history will note that the movement never really stood for anything but the veiled racism.
12
Mick Mulvaney and the rest of the phony deficit cutters were only against spending the publics money on public institutions and the people.
Now that the Republicans have transferred much of our government to private contractors increased spending and insane deficits are their way of goosing the private sector.
That's why the stock market is going up while US workers are killing themselves for historically low wages.
6
In the last week:
Trump has proposed shoving 3 million more poor off food stamps.
There are 33.5 million on food stamps, so that means about 10% will be thrown off.
And, then there was the article, yesterday, on the agony of how to redefine 'capital gains' .
That's a problem for Republicans, which is odd because they never have had a problem on 'redefining poverty' to get rid of another 10%, but on 'redefining capital gains' it seems it will cost another $100 BILLION in tax revenue.
Add that $100 BILLION to the $1.5 TRILLION DOLLARS that was given away last year and that's a sweet little gift to the 1%, no?
Yeah, I can see that little kids having a noon-meal at school or supper when they get back home at night is the sole sum and total problem with 'our' economy.
Boy, are the politicians of this country lucky that poor people don't vote......
37
Or that when they do vote, it's against their own interests - because they've bought the Republican propaganda that abortion & guns are more important than eating.
5
Mitch McConnell and Republicans are simply salivating to gut Medicare and Social Security with massive spending cuts. Mitch McConnell is already on record about the Republican plan for “entitlement” cuts. It’ll just take the next recession and Republicans will push for these massive cuts that will hurt the poor middle class the most, but of course they’ll maintain the budget busting Trump tax cuts.
26
Beware the Military Industrial Complex - it is nothing more than a money grab for corporate america
14
@Skepitc 488
It’s the exact thing Eisenhower talked about in his departing speech from office. Everything he predicted in terms of the industrial military, where companies like Boeing, they get multi billion dollar contracts, then get billions in tax breaks. And the best part is, Boeing doesn’t even have to worry about the FAA doing their job, and certifying aircraft, because republicans in their vast wisdom, have let Boeing, have the final say in certifying their aircraft, and we’ve seen how well that’s working out for Boeing, and air carriers.
1
@James
Eisenhower's first draft called it the "military-industrial-CONGRESSIONAL complex.
1
When the Democrats won the House, everybody knew that we would end up spending more money. So what did we get in exchange? We got more money for defense, which we think that we need. We got more money for the V.A., which we think that we needed.”
Trying to figure this quote out.
7
@Neal
Translation:
The Republican corporate welfare programs got lots more money.
2
So it's more spending and keep the tax cuts and ignore the deficits. How about this? Nobody goes home and both houses have their pay and health care cut by 10%/mo until they come up with a plan that at least keeps the deficit from growing. Across the board spending cuts or across the board tax increases, anything but just more of the same. This is crazy.
11
Before January 20, 2017, the Republican Party was the deficit buster party. Since January 21, 2017, Republican Party is the deficit booster party. What happen? May be is because the President is a Republican and not a Democrat.
14
@Wilbray Thiffault
They were never a deficit busting party - only concerned if anyone other than them was going to receive any benefits.
16
@Wilbray Thiffault. Not sure what you mean. I can't remember the republicans ever doing anything to reduce the deficit. At least the democrats can look back at Clinton when it was headed toward being eliminated and what might have been if "W" hadn't got in. Since 2000 the repubs have given away the future to the current millionaires. BHO added to it, but he was trying to dig us out of "W"s economic hole. DJT is just another tax cut and spend repub.
19
What's the difference?
The Supreme Court has given approval (5-4) to the president to grab money from any account and spend it on any other account. That deletes the House's power of the purse. That is dictatorship. That is the Supreme Court under Trump/Putin.
And that makes this whole exercise pointless.
43
This bill is a result of republicans continuing to try and starve the federal government with tax cuts to the rich and then giving more to private industry who will give less in service for personal profit.
Republicans did this under Bush, giving tax cuts while we were at war in the Middle East, with Cheney's Haliburton making a fortune, and then screaming about the deficit when Obama became president.
The deficit will grow and the piper will eventually be paid by cutting the safety net for those less fortunate. Remember who is doing this America when you go to the polls in 2020!
27
Once again the Republican Party is happily bankrupting the country to line their billionaire donors pockets - and their own.
Our children and generations to come will be paying for this outrageous ripoff of working class Americans.
51
Note to Mitch and the GOP: A tax cut is government spending. Not sure? I’ll make it simple for y’all.
Let’s say the government is a bakery and that tax revenue is pie. When you give someone pie, you have less. That’s spending. When you bake pie, you have more. That’s saving. Still with me? So whether you give away pie or don’t bake as much, it’s the same thing. Either way you end up with less pie.
And when you have less pie, you can’t bake less and give away more. Except you GOP guys keep doing this. You just love giving pie to your special friends in the industrial military complex, the Pentagon, fossil fuel extraction, banking, and privatizing everything from infrastructure to education. Meanwhile, you deny pie to the very people who keep the bakery in business.
My advice for you and your pals? Share the pie, or shut your pieholes.
46
When Democrat party was a majority in U.S. Senate and controlled the White House, Minority Republicans BLOCKED all Dem. legislature, restrict National Spending, Debt Ceiling fight ( "NO raise", hypocritical Republicans said!). Democrat are dummies what to do!!
Now Republican is a majority in U.S. Senate, they said, " Spend unlimited, lavishly, irresponsibly" Guess what? Democrats just follow, and
"yes, sir, Yes, sir"?? all the time! What dummies, these no- spine, chicken Democrat leaders?
6
Yes, more money for the bottomless pit that is the Department of Defense. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard has it 100 percent right, lets get out of Afghanistan today. She saw first hand what a bottomless pit of waste it is. Contractors sitting in air conditioned tents billing DoD on Cost Plus Fixed Fee contracts for make work.
The subway systems in New York City, Boston and Washington DC are broken yet we are writing a blank check for DoD so contractors can get rich and DoD Civilians and Military can pretend they are accomplishing something. Lets fix our own country first.
66
@Jack
Absolutely right!
and what did they think would happen with those tax cuts?
Let's just charge it.
Is it possible the the stock market and real estate are going up only because the value of the dollar is going down as a result of all this deficit spending?
1
@Tom If that were the case you would see rampant inflation and devaluation of the dollar against other currencies. Which (so far) has not come to pass.
1