The Myth of the "Fiscal Conservative."

I thought it was funny how Republicans were planning to put the Democrats on the spot for the midterms, by forcing a vote to make the middle-class tax cuts permanent instead of phasing them out to pay for the corporate tax cuts. I guess that passes for strategy these days.

Yet I think most Americans are wise to the scam:

1. The Republican-controlled Congress followed up their corporate tax cuts with a massive omnibus budget that boosts spending past previous budget caps by $300 billion over two years.

2. Most Americans have not noticed a larger paycheck since the law was enacted, according to a CNBC poll released in March.

3. A recent analysis from the pro-reform group Americans for Tax Fairness found that 433 corporations out of the Fortune 500 have not offered any bonuses or wage increase to employees since the passage of corporate tax cuts. Instead, the analysis found, companies spent 37 times as much on stock buybacks.

4. Just 27 percent of Americans think the GOP tax cuts were a good idea, according to a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll released on Monday. In other words, the Republican tax plan has actually gotten less popular with voters over time. But popularity was never really the goal, was it? The point was to starve the federal government of tax revenue in order to justify slashing the social safety net — something Republicans in Congress and the White House began to address in earnest last week.

5. On Tax Day 2018, just one week after House Speaker Paul Ryan announced his retirement at the age of 48 — after spending his entire adult life on the government “dole” — Republicans have once again laid bare their true intentions. Passing a deficit-busting tax bill was intended to explode the national debt and thereby endanger future funding for the tattered remnants of the social safety net that survived welfare reform in the 1990s — including Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.

Anti-Green Energy, Anti-Science Republicans costing taxpayers hundreds of Billions, and it's getting worse!!! "Fiscal Conservative" Myth Explodes!

Republicans say they want you keep more of your hard earned money, but their policies are doing just the opposite, resulting in huge costly disasters:

A federal watchdog says climate change is already costing U.S. taxpayers billions of dollars each year, with those costs expected to rise as devastating storms, floods, wildfires and droughts become more frequent in the coming decades.

A Government Accountability Office report released Monday says the federal government has spent about $350 billion over the last decade on disaster assistance programs and losses from flood and crop insurance. That tally does not include the massive toll from this year's wildfires and three major hurricanes, expected to be among the most costly in U.S. history.

The report says there is currently no strategic plan to absorb these recurring costs, which could grow to a budget-busting $35 billion a year by 2050.

President Donald Trump has called climate change a hoax.

Yet we're expected to accept the 2nd grade level right wing argument pictured below, from reckless ideologues who don't think to play it safe by siding with 99 percent of climate scientists. You know, err on the side of caution, just in case:

Although we can't blame climate change for the following story, it's still pretty disturbing:

THE WASHINGTON POST: Flying Insects Are Disappearing at Huge Rates, And We Should All Be Worried. But we can help them survive! Not long ago, a lengthy drive on a hot day wouldn't be complete without scraping bug guts off a windshield. But splattered insects have gone the way of the Chevy Nova - you just don't see them on the road like you used to. Biologists call this the windshield phenomenon. It's a symptom, they say, of a vanishing population. "On warm summer nights you used to see them around streetlights."

Between 1989 and 2016, according to a report published Wednesday in the journal PLOS One, the biomass of flying insects captured in these regions decreased by a seasonal average of 76 percent. "This decline happened in nature reserves, which are meant to preserve biodiversity and ecosystem functioning. This is very alarming!" What made this research particularly remarkable was the extent of the observed decline. One culprit could be the alteration of the landscape itself, the agriculture that surrounds the preserves. "This suggests a possible role for, for example, fertiliser and pesticide application." 

Dumb as Bricks??? House Republicans do away with Medicare panel trying to save money, and kill disease prevention program.

The party of “fiscal conservatives” keep proving day by day how big a lie that is. Their ruthless mean spirited attacks on people seeking healthier lives is sick too.  

The Republican House hates the Affordable Care Act so much that they're willing to throw away $7 billion eliminating a panel that never had a chance to existed in the first place:

AP: The House voted Tuesday to kill a federal panel that is supposed to find ways to curb Medicare spending … Members of the Independent Payment Advisory Board have never been appointed, and the panel has never recommended savings from Medicare. Republicans have long targeted the board anyway, saying it would ration care … Sarah Palin said the law would create "death panels" that could decide the care seniors would receive.

And just as bad, they did away with the actual prevention program designed to save even more lives and money:

Democratic support for repealing the board evaporated when Republicans decided to pay the $7 billion, 10-year cost of eliminating it by cutting $8 billion from the health care law's prevention and public health fund, which the GOP says wastes money. Democrats call the prevention program a valuable part of that law.

A waste of money, preventing the pain and suffering that comes from untreated illnesses, not to mention the sadness and devastation of losing a loved one due to a preventable death.  

I don’t know why they're trying to make life even more difficult than it already is, any guesses?

Blue Minnesota vs Red Wisconsin; Minnesota has surplus, Wisconsin doesn't.

We kinda knew this would happen, didn't we?

Democratic economic policies work, when given the chance, while the Republicans "fiscally conservative" policies stink up the place as usual. Who can forget the Great Recession, right? Check out the analysis at Jake's Economic TA Funhouse between Minnesota's projected surplus and Wisconsin's projected deficit.

I thought the following details were worth highlighting from a more partisan prospective:

Star Tribune: Minnesota tax collections beat expectations for the final three months of the fiscal year, and Minnesota is now expected to finish the fiscal year with $168 million more in revenues than projected state finance officials said. The update will undoubtedly factor into the governor's race.

Desperate to a point of being laughable, minority Republicans struggled to find something to whine about:

Jeff Johnson's firm grasp of the surplus problem...Democrats!

Republicans contend the economy is sputtering while Dayton has tried to present a more-upbeat picture. House GOP Leader Kurt Daudt accused Dayton and Democrats of trying to distract Minnesotans from other issues such as the federal health care overhaul or a planned new government office building for state senators that opponents view as wasteful. "The reality is: Governor Dayton and Democrats continue to put themselves and their extreme special interests before the best interests of hardworking Minnesotans."

Yea, Democrats are just distracting Minnesotans with the good economic news. God their funny. 

It’s better than Wisconsin’s projected $200 million shortfall, or the $2 billion deficit in the next fiscal budget, which is best explained at Jake’s Economic TA Funhouse (where I found this story). 

Walker's “Fiscal Conservatives” spend money they don’t have, as tax revenues fall.

Never wasting an opportunity to “win” the next election or ram their agenda down our throats, state Republicans cut taxes on the whim higher revenue estimates were a sure thing. Funny, nationally they feel just the opposite about CBO predictions. Go figure.

Expecting to see revenues grow 1% this year, Republicans are now surprised revenue fell.

College dropout guides state...

jsonline: State tax collections are lagging both last year's figures and expectations … the state has collected $10.53 billion since July 1, down 0.2% from the same period in the previous year. The state budget has built in 1% growth for this year.

Falling short of that budget target could bring pain for the state … the state was already projected to spend $559 million more out of its main account next year than it has budgeted to take in. Gov. Scott Walker and GOP lawmakers passed a more than $500 million tax cut bill in March.

Democratic advice ignored by the media again: Despite Democratic arguments against increasing the deficit with another “tax cut,” the media continues to ignore the warnings. After all, the public falsely trusts Republicans with the economy. If it wasn't for the gubernatorial race, even this little mention from the Democratic candidate would have been ignored:  

Mary Burke said that the latest numbers showed that Walker should have left the state with more of a financial cushion … the figures were being released before Memorial Day to avoid drawing attention to them. Walker's election-year spending spree based on rosy assumptions was irresponsible."

What, me Worry? The unshakable incidental governor, when not touring the U.S., isn't the least bit concerned. In fact, now all of a sudden he’s a big believer in consumer spending, something he should have thought about when he cut government wages and rejected a raise in the minimum wage:

Walker said the tax cuts could help to stimulate the economy … consumers will use more of that to make purchases to help fuel the economy..."

GOP knew this going in:

The 2015-'17 budget imbalance between the state's expected tax revenue and its budgeted spending has a projected shortfall (of) $642 million. That's an increase from the earlier figure of $559 million. 

As I often do, I always check out the comments section. I think we can all agree with this thoughtful gem:

Oh - This is just too rich. An incredibly "bad news" press release dumped to the media the Friday before a long holiday weekend.

Beautiful Scotty - You are ALL-PRO! It looks like the management of the WI Department of Revenue has been turned over to the Committee to Re-Elect Scott Walker.

Are Republican Tea Party Politicians Hypocrites about Spending? Of course.

Tightwad fiscal conservatives, like a few tea party losers in out last election, couldn't wait to throw taxpayer cash out the window to show just how sincere they were about stopping all the spending.

This is all you need to know about their complete line of BS:

Huffington Post-Ryan Grim: After Todd Akin lost the Missouri Senate race to Democrat Claire McCaskill in November, he had one final piece of business to take care of as an outgoing member of the House of Representatives -- giving piles of government money to his staff. Akin nearly doubled the salaries of his House staffers in the quarter after his defeat, according to the website LegiStorm, which tracks congressional pay.

 Allen West, a Tea Party favorite from South Florida, was the fourth biggest giver of taxpayer bonuses after he lost reelection to Rep. Patrick Murphy (D-Fla.). Rep. Chip Cravaack (R-Minn.) was the third most generous, according to LegiStorm.

West and Akin routinely decried wasteful and out-of-control government spending, calling for major cuts to social programs. Of the top 10 members of Congress most generous with year-end bonuses, nine were Republicans, and 14 of the top 20 were, not coincidentally, on their way out of the House.

Republicans economic Con Artists at it again, Goodbye Economic Recovery.

Stop saying fiscal “conservative.” Nothing could be further from the truth.

Republicans continue to tank our economy by simply applying a thick coat of ideological bullshit to the legislative policy.

I've got the best example for you, in the whole world:

MiddleClass: Rep. Eric Cantor’s legislation proposes to allow certain “small businesses” to deduct up to 20 percent of their qualifying domestic business income or their taxable income, whichever is less. "Small business" is defined generally as a business with fewer than 500 employees, regardless of gross income.

But here’s where Republicans start leading us into the black hole of debt:

The beneficiaries of this tax break would include (99% of all businesses) doctors, trial lawyers, stock brokers, consultants and other high earners who would not necessarily use the tax break to hire additional staff. According to the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center about 49 percent of the tax cuts would benefit those in the top 0.3 percent, those with incomes over $1 million.

There’s more…

According to a Joint Tax Committee analysis "key proponent of the bill says the 1-year tax cut would create 39,000 jobs, meaning "H.R. 9 would increase the Federal deficit by $1.1 million for every job supposedly created."

The most telling indictment-from the Joint Committee on Taxation analysis, which the Republican sponsors of the legislation chose to ignore … it would increase deficits by $46 billion, yet "the effects of the bill on economic activity are so small as to be incalculable" in the context of the larger economy. That contradicts the conservative claims that the tax break in this legislation would be an important boost for small businesses and for the economy.

Nearly half of the beneficiaries would be taxpayers making more than $1 million … average of $44,000 … claimed regardless of whether that tax break is used to hire an employee; even companies that fired employees or sent their jobs overseas would still get the tax break. In fact, the White House's Statement of Administration Policy for the bill said that "small businesses that invested or hired more this year would, in many instances, get a smaller tax cut than those that did not" because the tax cut would be based on net income after expenses, including worker costs.

The final nail in the coffin:

According to a 2011 Congressional Budget Office report, temporary tax cuts on businesses are the most ineffective means of creating jobs, with a budgetary cost of $1 million dollars per job created. A more effective job-creation strategy would (be to )contain such measures as infrastructure investment, aid to state and local governments, and long-term tax reforms that would encourage job creation in the U.S.