Are Republicans Insane Enough To Propose a Balanced Budget?

[MrScorpio]

MARCH 13, 2015

BILL SCHER

Winning the Congress has mainly given Republican a bushelful of problems, and a big one is right around the corner: How are they ever going to pass a budget?

For years, the Republican House mocked the Senate Democrats for failing to pass a budget. It was an overblown charge: the budget is merely a nonbinding resolution for guidance purposes, not the actual “appropriations” laws that disperse taxpayer funds to government agencies. But Republicans made passing a budget a benchmark of governance; now they will have to oblige.

That means getting the House and Senate to agree, and House Republicans have been obsessed with balancing the budget in 10 years. Which is insane.

Even one of Washington’s biggest deficit hawks, Maya MacGuineas of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, tried to get Republicans to back from any 10-year commitment, as it would require $5.5 trillion in deficit reduction by people who don’t believe in tax increases or military spending cuts. “Just to put that in perspective, that’s eight times the size of the fiscal cliff deal and it’s 65 times the size of the Ryan-Murray deal which you recall we didn’t stick to for very long,” she told the Senate Budget Committee this week.

That’s the politics. In terms of pain to people, consider that by the final year of any such plan, with no tax increases or military cuts, social spending would have to be slashed in half.

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) knew that was truly insane, or at least, he once did. His initial proposals as House Budget Committee chair zeroed out deficits after 30 years. But tea-party pressure got to him and he later shifted to the 10-year standard.


http://ourfuture.org/20150313/are-republicans-insane-enough-to-propose-a-balanced-budget

The answer is that they're totally insane. These motherfuckers are out to destroy America for the sake of their own warped ideology.

[ND-Dem]

1. If you like Endless Depression, you'll love the New America

[Hugin]

2. The current bill they have isn't legislation, it's a manifesto.

An anti-Obama anti-special needs anti-aged anti-minority manifesto to be exact.

I couldn't believe the level of mean and hate it contains when I read it today.

[Warpy]

3. Yes, one that pays their salaries and for whatever the Pentagon wants

and leaves the rest of us out in the cold.

I just wonder how much blood people are going to allow the Republicans to suck out of them before they catch a fucking clue.

[Yorktown]

4. The budget must be balanced

the total debt has become so huge that balancing the budget will be the least painful way to resorb it.
• a surplus budget would lead to cuts so horrific it would throw the economy in recession
• a deficit budget would increase the mammoth debt

And yes, a balanced budget means increasing taxes back to the Reagan 1 levels and trimming the military by one point of GDP. But Republicans won't support either.

[Gothmog]

5. Yes, they are that insane