So, what was really behind the Trump Republican criticism of Obama's deficits?
Trump’s own Office of Management and Budget agrees with CBO that the deficit will come close to or exceed $1 trillion a year through at least 2022. This doesn’t include spending for a space force, an infrastructure plan or a wall between the United States and Mexico ... the projected $200 billion a year revenue loss from the new GOP tax bill the House will debate before the election or the additional spending that will be needed because of Hurricane Florence ...doesn’t include the lower revenues and higher spending that will happen if the economy slows below current expectations. A combination of these things could easily cause the U.S. deficit to approach $2 trillion annually.
There's no excuse for the following comment...none. It's a lie and another show of ideological obedience. MSNBC:
Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) says that trillion-dollar deficits could not have been avoided by the GOP-controlled Congress, responding to critics within his party who say that leaders have behaved irresponsibly.
“That was going to happen. The baby boomers retiring was going to do that,” Ryan said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” of projections that the country will start running trillion-dollar deficits as soon as 2020.
Ryan: "That was going to happen. The baby boomers’ retiring was going to do that. These deficit trillion-dollar projections have been out there for a long, long time. Why? Because of mandatory spending, which we call entitlements. Discretionary spending under the CBO baseline is going up about $300 billion over the next 10 years. Tax revenues are still rising. Income tax revenues are still rising. Corporate income tax revenues. Corporate rate got dropped 40 percent, still rising."
Which means...he's lying again. At a time when baby boomers were retiring, he's made it almost impossible to save them from certain economic disaster:
Overall, CBO says the new tax law “increases the total projected deficit over the 2018–2028 period by about $1.9 trillion,” mostly because of a reduction in individual income tax revenue and an increase in debt service.
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.
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.
Here are few comments about the House-passed tax cut passage Paul Ryan is so happy about.
Bruce Bartlett is not just a historian but an expert on supply-side economics. Here's what he thinks about the GOP tax cuts...so true:
Bartlett: "They (GOP) want to tie the deficit around the Democrats necks, and make them vote for very unpopular deficit reduction legislation...when the deficits are caused by the Republicans."
As usual, Ezra Klein cuts to the GOP "tax cut for the middle-class BS, and confirms, there is no such thing as "good old fashions deficit hawks." It's myth Republicans like to bring out whenever Democrats are in office:
Exploding the deficit: Take it from Forbes Magazine's Stan Collender, predicts a permanent annual deficit of about $1 trillion:
Do CEO's think they're going to reinvest in their corporations with the tax savings?
I've been saying all along that the GOP's tax and spending cuts are just pushing off into the future dramatic tax and spending increases for our kids, because someone is going to have to rebuild everything. That will give Republicans another 30 years to whine about Democratic tax and spend policies, by design.
Trump and Paul Ryan will be taking a meat ax to the tax brackets, giving the rich a windfall at a time our economy is saying no...oh wait, Republicans are in charge...here's the conservative Wall Street Journal:
U.S. Budget Deficit Widens: Government spending outpaced revenues by $433 billion from October through May.
But "spending" is simply a commonly accepted meaningless talking point Republicans toss around when they get in trouble cutting too many taxes believing life is only going to get cheaper:
Government spending outpaced revenues by $433 billion from October through May, up from $405 billion during the same period a year earlier. Receipts are up 1%, and outlays have climbed 2%.
Even Reagan planned for retiring baby boomers when he established $2.6 trillion trust fund. But tax cutting Republicans who keep cutting revenues must have forgotten that:
Spending on Social Security, Medicaid and interest owed on the national debt are all up through the first eight months of the year. Declining government revenues and long-term costs associated with an aging population are expected to continue pushing up the deficit.
Below Dumb Ron Johnson turns moral and compassionate behavior on its head justifying beneficial cuts for himself, knowing full well the next generation will be swimming in debt, with little or no revenues, trying to deal with a crumbling neglected nation. Actually, shoring up SS and Medicare with funding, instead of a tax cuts, prevents future generations from being impoverished. Johnson got it wrong again:
Trump’s own Office of Management and Budget agrees with CBO that the deficit will come close to or exceed $1 trillion a year through at least 2022.
